I know it’s not popular to admit this but I am a relatively satisfied NBN customer.
My shiny new NBN was perfect for around three months and my router proudly beamed without fail for three months. That’s when the drop-outs started. The net and VOIP delivered fixed line phone services would unexpectedly stop. More often than not it was for a couple of minutes, sometimes for a couple of hours although to be fair this was rare. The drop-outs were occurring a dozen times a day or more.
Then the blame game commenced. Telstra advised the dropouts were due to errors made by NBN in installation. NBN said it was Telstra. Technicians of both persuasions were dispatched to my home, to the node and God knows where else but still the drop-outs occurred.
While Telstra didn’t let on, the drop-outs almost certainly were down to it, purchasing bandwidth inadequate for its customers. Just as easily I could lay the blame at NBN’s wholesale pricing model which it says it is fixing.
After several gruelling hours on the telephone the problems were solved. Telstra initially billed me for the technician call out fees but after some abrupt instruction from me, apologies were issued and the charges withdrawn. Ultimately two month’s worth of broadband was credited from my account to boot.
Full column here.
JB makes a good point. when the inland telegraph was completed some progressive upstart wanted to roll out copper for phone lines. Who opposed it you say? the conservatives, it will never be needed people, wont have telephones in their home, it will cost too much, it is the devils work etc etc etc. Here we are just over 100 years later and the same conservatives are again stopping the nation from progressing. Even worse their supporters who have the best option don’t want others to have it. How much will it cost the Nation by not being able to compete with the rest of the world technologically untold $$ 100’s of billions$$ . The cons don’t care as long as they have what they need. Typical selfish cons. I see one of the eternal victims has returned wont be long before they spit the dummy again and blame others for wanting to leave. No Surprises.
And very clever Conservatives they were too. The Overland Telegraph Line was completed on Aug 22nd 1872. The telephone was invented in 1876, four years later. They saved all that money not connecting people to a copper wire that had nothing on the end of it.
The first phone installed in Australia was in 1979, a private line across the Yarra for an engineering company.
1879
I did say “just over 100years ago” thank you again for proving there is no such thing as a clever con. Just over 100 years ago just after federation the cons tried to stop copper roll out. Try harder. your need to bb the opposite and opposing view is bordering on ridiculous.
Never before in the history of freedom of enterprise in this country has a government-owned, off-budget organisation threatened its citizens with the discontinuance of an essential service (ie. landline communication) unless they (the citizens) comply with a mandatory migration threat to a service they may not wish to utilise and which increasingly appears (based on the hundreds of thousands of customer complaints to date) to be so significantly inferior that it adversely impacts the livelihoods and subsistence of businesses and individuals alike.
Hide the sharps nurse.
JB: just listening to a very interesting conversation between David Coulthard, human rights lawyer and author of a book on Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, and Phillip Adams Disturbing. Worth a listen
Sorry no can do. Sensitized to Phillip Adams voice. It brings me out in hives.
I’m only putting up this link to acquaint you with Parenti’s pithy observation contained in the opening. Don’t read the rest, it is unsuitable for the polite classes being a view from another perspective. Written by some Bolshevik malcontent who does not accept the natural order of things. Or the God ordained rights of imperialists.
Give ’em heaps. Where’s that scallywag Razor?
https://www.workers.org/2006/us/elich-0720/
ah JB it has be very pleasant with out the 2 eternal victims one has returned the ther will follow suit soon I imagine
Found it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEacGiMO3K0
Good one, TBLS.
It reminded me of Polanski’s The Tenant, which wasn’t a funny movie at all.
Gosh, awful TBLS. Astonishing that everyone seemed to stand around watching! Macabre.
BTW it’s good to gave you back. Just stay.
Anyone remember that ‘Brass Eye’ video I put up a while back of the bloke jumping off a 1st-floor balcony repeatedly until he died from it? Back then it seemed the perfect simile for the Liberals.
Even more so today. How many more self-inflicted jumps onto the concrete can they survive?
Shocking waste of police resources. We don’t have the numbers to tackle the drug problems, but we can waste the time of police in large numbers on things like this raid? Were they expecting armed resistance, perhaps large assault weapons and a firefight? Secretary with a pointy heel shoe?
Not really Wraith. Traditionally the Police are supposed to be the natural enemy of the working class.
“police in large numbers” ? Come on Wraith, it was only a handful; and they were expecting baseball bats.
i am still not convinced this is much of an electoral problem for the government.
not that it will make any difference, they are marching toward defeat with straight backs, eyes fixed firmly ahead and faces full of a fierce determination to get there.
there were serious problems with the first iteration of the NBN, not least that it was going to be a government job, more or less.
Beyond that, Boa has identified one of the gaping holes in the business plan. it was going to be very expensive to run fibre to every house, and a lot of people were not going to pay for the top of the range you-beaut plan.
a sensible decision on their part but if there are a lot sensible people then the business has no hope of recouping the cost of connections and can’t make any money, always a bit of a downer in a business plan.
there seemed to be a presumption that everyone wanted fibre to their home, yet a swift look at other markets where it is customer choice, which is most markets, would tell you that the take-up rate is nothing special.
the second gaping aperture.
What if the technology marches on and something is developed which could compete with fibre to the premises. For most potential customers it doesn’t have to be as good as FTP, just better on price say, or convenience, or a combination of both.
a cassette as compared to an eight track cartridge comes to mind. VHS and not Beta.
that i think is almost on us, and was always likely because there are large parts of the developing world which are now getting rich enough to want the net and use it more than Aussies do, but have never had and never will have much in the way of fixed line infrastructure, e.g. most of China.
they use the net more than we do because they don’t have a lot of other infrastructure as well, and the net has come to stand in it’s place.
the proponents of FTP always talk about the schools, hospitals, businesses, particularly tech businesses, and yes, they want fibre up the wazoo, so providing it to them always made sense to me.
the problem came from extrapolating that to fibre for everyone.
we get 50 odd here in Mid-Levels on the old tech, and we stick with that, we could upgrade to the fibre for not that much more as there is fibre in the building, but as frugal types we don’t.
there is fibre in most buildings around here and those that want or need it check before they buy or lease, but just like aus, not everyone does.
Perhaps not the least of their worries, mate but some way down the back at the minute.
And another stuff up by this government wrt recognition of indigenous people in the Constitution.
I also note that our very own idiot Australian ambassador to the US has made a statement that Darwin is barely a city when he was asked about scientific breakthroughs in the Northern Territory. What is wrong with these people?
That to me was the worst of the week for the Turnbull government. Shameful really. Ten years of work down the drain for so many people and dismissed with an airy, yeah nah from the government.
Jack it appears you do not know many younger Australians looking to get into the housing market. Internet services is one of the highest order requirements. Many younger Australians want to be able to run businesses and utilise other services from home. The coalitions internet debacle is just adding to the frustration of Australians who now see this coalition government as being ideologically driven and failing the nation. No surprises.
Interesting read probably doesn’t support the proposition the view younger Australians are opting for the NBN in massive numbers.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/technology/only-17pc-of-nbn-users-choosing-highspeed-packages/news-story/20ab3be87d9cc9ca6760c3889e29fb41
There is some interesting developments coming re 5G. Happening day by day. 5G is being rolled out and tested during the Commonwealth Games in Queensland next year. Interesting to see if it is successful or not.
Read my earlier comment re 5G it needs Fibre to the transmission point. It don’t work so good with copper.
Actually that’s not correct. You clearly do not understand what you have posted. But willing to let it go or would you like a technical argument on how these things work?
I never realised how complex it was for the youngsters to set up a brothel. Lift your game you coalition cons. How’s a Union chap, with a Union expenses card, going to get a root without the cons sorting out internet service and its marriage with the housing ,market.
i come from a largish clan and so have kids and a bucket load of nieces and nephews and their mates who are settling down, getting married and having kids, and yes buying houses.
i listen to their conversations and get asked a few questions from time to time, and i am yet to hear anyone say let’s choose a house in this street because it has FTP.
i do hear it from businesses, and the odd older person who is running a business from home, but then they are happy to pony up for the you beaut package.
the problem is that the government decided that everyone wanted fibre, and that is just not true, and providing fibre to folks who don’t want it is a ridiculous waste of the people’s money.
Good point Dismayed, but it’s not only the younger people needing reliable and fast Internet. As you know we teach online and have to be able to be available 7 days a week and a fair amount of hours each day. When travelling around Australia we have spent a lot of money to ensure we have good service from both Telstra and Amaysim so drop outs don’t occur as happened to us last year in outback Queensland. Like JTI when we first got NBN in Darwin had no problem . Since then we have rented out the apartment and the fact that we offer NBN as part of the rental ensures us that we can get tenants in a very competitive market.
Here in Malaysia we have excellent fast service for a quarter of the cost
The takeup of mobile phones across Asia and elsewhere is a pretty good example of your comment re China and landlines Jack.
TV, i am told sub saharan Africa is a big growth area as well.
some folks i know from here have invested in telcos down there as the mobile phone is used for all sorts of transactions.
zero prospect of fixed line installation in large parts of the world and a need for services means people will be working hard to provide wireless tech that works
The magic sound of my first ever Modem, Mr Insider, a 14.4kbs beast it was back in 1995. Then I progressed to a 28.8kbs one, heady days.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qC1oi3N0w_M
Geez, we were transmitting data between Sydney and Melbourne on 4,8 kbs or in those days 4800 baud,
The cost of fibre to the node is about $60 billion if it was to every house it is about double that.
The final leg can be completed on an as needs basis.
As wireless increases in sophistication, the need will drop for most users.
Most of the literate IT people (ie those who want high speed) are smart enough to know that there is stuff all that can be done about it unless the government absorbs the debt and writes it all off.
If it is an election issue, it can be very easily turned against Labor as the Telcos were quietly rolling out fibre to the high need areas and then along came the Labor’s NBN and screwed it all up.
But there again, never underestimate the Left’s ability to rewrite history.
To add to all of the horrors of this govt the best news I have heard is a class action against the most evil humanoid in this govt-DUTTS
All speeds should be quoted jn megabytes rather than megabits..there is a HUGE difference and the govts the ISPs all con us with speed quotes because of our ignorance.We need to start again with fibre….cancel the 50billion subs…..cancel the 65billion gift to the big end of town….do all this in the name of nation building rather than short term political gain and ideology.The Looters have never believed in broadband….Abbott appointed Tbull to smash it……ajd he has!
A class action against Dutton Bassy??
Karma. Finally.
For Dusty’s old man?
In a court of law, everything ms Cash has said is “hearsay” evidence only. When I hear statement made by this phantom man, you can say it is evidence. Until then, it’s just what m cash wants you to believe. Produce the man, and make HIM talk.
And how did he know it was going to happen, and when, why did he know, and who is running the show if she didn’t know?
She’s gotta go.