Telstra 'snot boxes' challenge Turnbull's FTTN plan

Australia is now on course to get a very poor form of not really broadband at a cost which is even more unknown than the technically far superior NBN FTTP solution. All because of a political move made by a (now) PM who understands nothing about any science or technology. The old copper network is way past its use by date and for anyone with a clue not worth trying to maintain when going NBN is a much better solution. At least the old copper has scrap value.

It's not an uncommon story

Glad you could get it fixed though.

My personal story:

Had ADSL1 - $50/month for a 5Mbps service. Upload was pathetic - about 100kbps. I couldn't work from home reliably, and skype/Lync/facetime video calls were simply not a usable option. Every time it rains (which happens a fair bit in FNQ) the phone would go all static-y, and the internet would drop out. You'd log a job, Telstra tech would come out and leave a "I've checked the network and there's no problem, it must be inside your house, call me to arrange an at-your-cost appointment to check your house wiring" card. Service would magically be fixed though.

Recently I upgraded to ADSL2. The good news is that my upload has gone to 300k, which makes video work a usable, if choppy, option. The downside though is that my download speed has reduced to about 3.5-4Mbps, and the modem now loses line sync every 15 minutes or so.

My attenuation is showing up on the modem as just on 60db, so I guess I should be happy that I get a service at all. But at the end of the day I'm still paying (now) $80/month for a service that is slower than what I had and terribly unreliable. Neither my ISP (it's simply a Telstra wholesale port, no-one has any DSLAMS up here) nor Telstra have any interest in fixing the underlying network. Sure, we're in a regional town but it's still a large centre and we'd be lucky to be 7kms from the dead centre of town. The estate was built in the mid-70's.

To add insult to injury, I'm just outside the Telstra 4G coverage maps as well - it would probably work with a big external antenna, but I'm not sure I can stomach the cost of both the install, and the ongoing.

As an IT Pro working for a nation-wide, Bris-based company I'm the #1 advocate for being able to use tech tools to work remotely. From our branch office up here in the far north, I'm able to operate remotely, join video meetings with the rest of the team around the country or world, and generally function as a worthwhile addition to the team. When you talk about attracting and retaining key talent, work-life balance and moving away from the previous city-centric approach to assembling teams, this stuff all becomes very valuable. If only I had a reliable internet connection at home...

Cheers,

Matt

In a detached dwelling (and in a unit where the is no MDF) Telstra is responsible up to the first socket, so if you are happy with the current location of the phone socket you do not have to get a cabler to install anything. If you want a second socket or if you request Telstra to install a Network Terninating Device (beige box) on the side of your house then you need to hire a registered cabler or pay Telstra fee-for-service to complete that work.

The installation of an NTD is optional and despite what some Telstra subcontractors may tell you, the grey Telstra box on the side of many houses is not the network boundary and Telstras responsobility does not end there.

Sad day for the plebs!

I do not know why all you lefties complain. Just live in a 'nice' suburb and all your internet speed needs will be catered for. I live in Eltham near Melbourne and have the privilege of having both Optus and Telstra cable passing my house. My connection is 30Mbits/sec. We 'nice' people deserve all this and far more! All you plebs can wait!. Here is my speed.

http://d1355990.i49.quadrahosting.com.au/2014_02/Speed.png

Bert

Malcolm Turnbull's repeated assertion that FTTN is the only way

Just to be clear, can you point me to one of the places where he has written / is quoted as saying that FTTN is the "only" way?

To be fair in return, I'll point you to one of the places where Beazley said that the FTTN was going to be used for Industry, Education, and Tele-medicine, although I'm not sure which catagory you fall into.

Look on the plus side . . .

Anyone who has had much to do with ADSL(2) installations in Sydney and Melbourne* has similar stories and would be quite frustrated with the current FTTN plan because we know first-hand how terrible so much of the copper infrastructure is.

Under the FTTP plan, the known problem of homes connected with old, unreliable, limiting copper would have been solved by replacing it replaced with new, reliable, fast fibre. Sounds expensive to me.

Under Malcolm/Tony/Rupert's FTTN plan, the solution is, I am happy to report, far more efficient and definitely cheaper: ignore those homes and move on to suburbs where it'll be easier. Solved!

* - Not so sure about Brisvegas but I presume Perth is better as much of it is newer.

5Mb/s?

That's my normal speed in the Melbourne's Eastern suburbs and that's after Telstra rewired from my socket out to the road.

Rain knocks me offline completely, as do high-temperatures.

Rain, shine - there's always an excuse.

Even more scary than politicians talking out of their backside, is the issue of Asbestos in the pits. According to the Telstra fact sheet( http://www.telstra.com.au/uberprod/groups/webcontent/@corporate/@about/documents/document/uberstaging_241654.pdf ) The PMG box in your picture contains asbestos, which is a little more alarming than snot or dog cocks. Interesting to see what the cost of remediation will be.

5 Mbs

Out here, in the ass end of the universe, I'd kill for your 5 Mbs speed.

I cant' discuss this topic anymore. It fills me with anger that people voted in the Coalition and they are destroying the only project that would have brought this country a new lease of life in the 21st century. Whenever I hear a complaint I just say, did you vote for them? You made your bed,... now you lie in it. Bloody Idiots.

I have to say that I also have been impressed by the promptness of Telstra's techs fixing faults. Not impressed that the line has to be completely (or almost-completely) dead before they'll do anything though.

I've had to report my line being down twice over the last six years. Both times it was actually fixed on a holiday (once a Saturday and once on a public holiday, Queens birthday IIRC). The first time it was actually just the voice that dropped out: ADSL2+ continued to work and I could report the fault via VoIP. The second time the ADSL2+ kept dropping out every couple of minutes and you could barely hear the other person on the end of the line through the scratchy sounds. They did tests and couldn't fault it but couldn't deny the noises on the line. The tech even called and said "it sounds perfect" - no, they had diverted the line to a mobile. He plugged his own handset in at the pole and confirmed the fault was upstream, then he switched us to another line and everything came back. I do worry how many spare lines there are!

Thinking back, every house I've lived in during my adult life has had issues with the phone line at one point or another. Whether "too far" from the exchange to get ADSL (when next door neighbours on both sides had it already) or simple water damage. I'm not sure if FTTP would be better in this regard, but it couldn't really be worse!

ADSL tropical misery

I work for an small IT company in Darwin, much of our job involves spending hours on hold to Telstra about our customers ADSL issues.

If you phone them they push all the blame back on to the Customer. It happens like this They spend an hour on hold get told to reset the modem, yes reset, nor reboot, usually clearing the config and username and password. After this fails to get them back on line Telstra say its the modem, even if it isn't.

They can tell the sync speed from the exchange end, and they can see if your username is hitting the radius server. However they won't check that untill you on a second level, repeated call at minimum. They can tell the historical sync speeds and the fact that before your line died it was deteriorating, again you have to get up to very senior level before that comes out.

After a while they have no choice but to call me.

If they are lucky they have a modem I can retrieve the password out of, or they pay me for an hour blagging it out of Telstra. If they are really unlucky I've given away, lent out or mislaid my red dust encrusted old analogue phone. Test one: Does the line even work? Often the answer is "no" - oh and its the modem according to Telstra.

Effectively If you don't have a spare modem, and the nous to set it up (and your adsl username and password), with which to test your line you'll get nowhere.

A mate got me to help out with her Internet - after hours of phone calls to Telstra, she called me I picked up the line she'd been using to call telstra and the noise was dreadful. Telstra support could barley hear her over dreadful telephone line and are helping her to reprogramming her Router!

Fibre was so ideal for Darwin, we have lousy power, cuts and spikes. My all my office's phones phantom ring on lighning strikes. "the Cloud" has lightning bolts raining out of it. This time of year the rain will make Noah Swear and don't get me started on the bugs.

Now we have to put up with unmaintained copper - cos if you were Telstra and the NBN was coming you'd really have spent the last few years investing in the old wires.

And avoid Naked DSL because Testra Engineers told me "we just plug in till we find a quiet pair and assume its free."

So lucky...

We got our NBN order in before the election. We are now totally on an FTTH connection for voice & data. The install of the termination was done to 10 townhouses in our block but so far we seem to be the only ones taking up. Prior we had ADSL2+ costing $130 a month plus a telstra phone & line rental

for about another $40 a month. This is now a single account for $95 a month including voice & data.

We run a VOIP phone with the old number migrated across. The old ADSL was lucky to get 5mbps

out of an advertised "up to" 24mbps. Our new FTTH gets 70/30mbps during peak periods and

about 90/35mbps offpeak out of an advertised 100/40mbps. The equipment installed included

the terminator outside. When they turned up to do the internal setup, they wanted to go right

through the wall where our TV was on the other side. Instead we requested the link to go upstairs

in our home office. There was an issue with cable length associated with this, as it is Single Mode

fibre, But they worked it out and an ONT fibre to ether box and a little UPS plugged into the mains

to keep it up. The cost of this equipment I was told was about $2500 including installation

but it only cost me $50 setup fee via the ISP who arranged the NBN guys to turn up. Excellent

value.

There are downsides to this. We still need a UPS to keep the gigabit switch and

the phone up, as we drive the VOIP off that. The switch we use hangs up sometimes and has

to be restarted or it will not keep VOIP registration going. The ISP we use is non interventionist

and resells bandwidth from big suppliers so tech support depends your own initiative. But the

service is excellent and we are planning to launch a set of small enterprises on it eventually.

rachel

FTTN wiring

FTTN/FTTC is just ADSL with more frequencies and fancier coding - squeezing a bit more bandwidth out of the same wire. No need to replace copper that works with ADSL, just connect a different filter/splitter at the first socket and replace the modem.

Now, if you have a lousy line, yes, it'll still be lousy - and if it's bad enough to need replacing anyway, or you're building a new development and putting in fresh wire anyway, FTTH/FTTP makes perfect sense.

Here in the UK, we're going FTTC (fibre to the cabinet, FTTN in NBN-speak) almost everywhere, with FTTP limited to some new sites and an expensive option for those who really, really want it enough to pay through the nose for it. (Personally, I'd love to make the jump to actual fibre - but when I get 80/20 down plain old copper with FTTC, it's too hard to justify the expense for now.)

Faults are still a pain though: I had *SIX* engineer visits recently, before BT admitted there was actually a core network fault - and then auto-closed the trouble ticket. Then tried to arrange a seventh visit before agreeing to re-open the ticket until the problem was actually fixed. Thank goodness for having a tenacious enough ISP to fight BT for as long as it takes to get the issue fixed properly!

Doesn't this just show that fibre is going to be costly?

Your neighbour's connection was working wasn't it? If you have to pull those connections for all the working premises, aren't the costs going to be way higher than just leaving the copper that works? Of course, when you have to replace the last mile because of an issue like this, you replace it with fibre. It's not that hard to do this piecemeal.

Meanwhile in New Zealand

At least here in NZ we seem to be going in the right direction. FTTN was in place for most urban areas about 5 years ago, and VDSL is available for those nearest the cabinet. I get 14Mb/s ADSL2+ on an unremarkable suburban street, and the fibre guys were digging around last month so 50/20 or 100/50 fibre broadband is on its way too, for the same price as ADSL. There are some funding issues with the fibre program but it should mostly all get done before 2020 at least.