Give 'em a break ... they are busy blocking bittorrent sites for the good of Hollywood and the music industry.

Well for now anyway, within a blink we'll be using a censored restricted version of the internet that would make the Chinese government proud.

 Cool story bro

 Best part is that we are not going to be given a choice but to have NBN if we want any internert. Saw the ad the other day, going to phase out the old so we have no choice but to accept the new. Just like they did with analogue to digital tv. Forced to pay more to an inferior system. Yup, sounds like typical aussie government to me. 

Yes it's good to see that progress opens up all these opportunities for us. Take it or leave it and have nothing.

 I can understand this--why would you have the costs of keeping two separate network systems running? Lots of horror stories out there, you just don't hear from the people who are happy--after all, this IS the internet!

Been rolling out in our town the last few months, FTTN. Experiences have been mixed, but I'll give you this for nothing--we have a local resident Telstra tech,who is also the NBN instal tech,(if you go for Telstra) and I was talking to him last week. From his perspective, the local rollout has mostly gone well. You know what the major problem has been? People select the self-installation option for the modem, then just leave it in the box. Clueless. Then whinge how " the bloody NBN is useless" . And some optimists elected to take the 100mbps plan. Knowing full well they were on old copper infrastructure, 500 metres or more from the node. Then get all over the place bitching because they are only getting 25mbps. What the actual f**k did they expect? 

My connection is down for 3rd Jan--my average speeds at the moment are around the 12.4/0.9, latency 35ms,although this slowed down to abouit 11.5 this week no doubt due to the influx of holiday makers doing their FB thing. I've elected for the 25/4 plan, and will be very happy to get anything above 15. At 700 m from our closest node, I can't expect any better until we get the FTTC option( if ever)

 Just of average intelligence. It is simply not possible to implement a totally different overarching network and have it plug and play for everyone. So blame Labor, it was all their idea.  I"ve never been keen on the whole idea, believe it or not, I thought, and still think, it was just another Grand Vision by the "working mans' party" which is going to saddle future generations of working men with huge government debt. But getting off-topic.

So, when you set up your beloved ADSL connection, way back in the day, who did it for you? Do it yourself? Even everyday modems need some setup, the NBN ones are no different. And I was making the point that people were taking the cheapest ( self-installation )option when they were signing up, when they had no idea of how to do it. And then they bitch about it. 

There has been enough discussion on here previously to make me think that there is a reasonable level of awareness on here of what I was talking about,  not  Quote "You're just being a typical techy tool that thinks you know something (probably doesn't) & wanting people to feel inferior to you" Unquote   I'm not going to bother to reply to personal attacks like that,except to say that I'm 64 in a few days time, never been a "techy", just not willingly stupid. My advice to you -RTFM (google it)

Most of the NBN issues are generally teething problems, often caused by having to run the old network with some shared equipment--get rid of the old one, and the new one will be fine. And some parting advice--read your own signature line, and reflect on it.

edit--Billcollector posted as i was typing that. Plenty of satisfied customers, the majority in fact, but the whingers ( with good reason or not) will always get the internet attention.

You can actually get adsl/broad band ?

cool

 But your world view is definitely a minority one, although I can honestly personally see the appeal, have considered doing the whole withdrawal thing myself, and just realised it was too hard. I have a 1975 motorbike, and enjoy riding them as old as I can find them ( current oldest is 1914.) and prefer cars I can work on myself. But  I would throw your argument of hard numbers back at you though; where are the hard numbers that say the vast majority are unhappy? That's just the internet,and hearsay, IMO, at least.  Talking to another guy today, his experience, intially was certainly unsatisfactory, very slow--line tested, yep, copper up his street was F**ked ,no working pairs left, had 2 1/2 months on a 4g wifi modem supplied by Telstra while they scheduled and completed the digging up and replacement of the street cable--it was direct buried, like all the old stuff here, no easy job just pulling it through a conduit. Now he is more than happy, gets better than the basic 25/4 speeds he paid for, and he's at least as far from the end of the fibre as I am.

Some of the "pros" they are employing are not qualified, believe it or not--not necessarily well trained techs, unfortunately. 

There's a new(ish) subdivision up on the hill, full fibre installation was mandatory for new subdivisions after a certain date, they have a brilliant service . Eventually, all the old copper will likely be replaced by fibre going past your home  (google FTTC for anyone who is interested) . Then it will be up to you whether you want fibre right to your premises, or are happy with copper for your final connection--this is the model they should have used in the first place, instead of Labor's pie in the sky drive us broke fibre into every home, or the Coalitions mixed tech approach. 

 Mine was easy to set up, Westnet had a good "how to guide" and phone support (though they did overcharge me first bill and took a push to it set right).
And the NBN has provided 24mbps on a 25 plan, we have had one hiccup in 6 months where it was off for a couple of hours.

Am I in the minority?

 So what you're saying petermac, is that you're paying the same as you would for an ADSL plan and getting good ADSL speeds on a bad NBN day. 

Still sounds like a pretty good deal to me

There's many others out there in much worse situations than you. My parents for example (who are not alone) have their line "pair gained" with the neighbours', this means they can have dial up or nothing. Their only option was to get mobile broadband which gets them 20-30gb for the cost of your 1000gb. Their other neighbour used to be an ISP, meaning there is a node that they are not allowed to connect to just on the border of their property.

Maybe it would have been more fair to leave you with your old ADSL connection and get all suburban areas up to a baseline level first.

   DISCLAIMER--I am not an NBN apologist, or favour any particular political party. Just someone who likes to look at the bigger picture, and maybe play devils advocate)

From general research and actual conversations with people actually doing the groundwork to get an area NBN ready-- A lot can go into it at the level of actually getting the fibre to the node (in the FTTN areas, which is a lot of us). Replacing the copper with fibre from the exchange to the node, installing the nodes with media converters and the like ( converting that digital signal on the copper line to light on the fibre) --in most areas, unless fibre was installed from day one ( newer subdivisions) , a lot to do. But that is where the groundwork tends to stop. Basic tests on copper between the node and consumers, yep it works.  Then the complaints start to come in  re speed and dropouts. Then they will run tests from the consumer end, acknowledge the copper is not up to it, look at fixes,which can involve replacing entire streets worth of underground cabling. Which is what they are doing here. 

If you think about it, a lot of the problems won't be obvious to the telco until people start getting connected, and all wanting their foxtel/whatever, traffic goes up enormously. Infrastructure which worked Ok before, no longer will.  I have a sneaking suspicion it is a budgetting issue--not the entire cost, which all comes out of the public purse ( sort of) anyway, but a Capex vs Opex type scenario. For those that haven't been involved in this, Capex is Capital Expenditure, which is the money you borrow or have in the bank, versus Opex, which is Operational Expenditure , which is your running costs usually funded by cashflow  from operations. Big tax implications, according to the beancounters. You have to be careful which particular pot of money it comes out of.  We've done exactly the same kind of thing on minesites---  Build something from Capex, all the time pointing out it really isn't going to do the job we want it to, and be told by senior management, don't worry, we'll fix it with Opex once it is up and running. And then throw the normal tech issues involved with getting a whole new network up and running.  Anyway, just speculation on my part.

 What ranmar is saying makes a lot of sense

 Installation consists of the local Telstra tech turning up and plugging your new modem into the first socket on the run into the house. need one with power near it, start of problems for some people. Not me, was aware and prepared. So he waits for it to light up, phone works, but a couple of lights missing, indicating the network cutover hadn't yet been done. That's not his job, contractors do that, NBN told me it would be done on the 6th and the old service then disconnected. Phone is working, internet speed is abysmal, unuseable. Expected this until they cut over, so use phone as internet hotspot--have you ever done an internet speed check while connecting through your phone? Bloody unreal, it's faster than the NBN will ever be for me up here. 

So the 6th comes, no change. I go back to work, my wife keeps an eye on it, no change. So I ring NBN helpline this morning with my order number. Strangely, I got a whole raft of notifications from Telstra yesterday, thanking me for renewing my ADSL home broadband contract--Wait, what??? Helpful NBN man tells me there was a mistake made and my order had been cancelled.. They had picked up on this before I rang, and tried to get me reconnected to ADSL to maintain a service, hence the auto generated emails from Telstra yesterday.

So, with all that in hand, I had them put me over to the billing  department, which confirmed all this. There was a note on our account linking all this back to the stuff up of the NBN order. And had a call later from our local Telstra tech, saying he had a notification just pop up to do an NBN pre-instal at our house. Which was what he had done back on the 3rd   . Apparently they had to start a whole new order to replace the half-finished one. And the phone was actually cut off in the process, how long for, we don't know, as we hardly ever use it. Was reconnected this afternoon.

So someone in a backroom somewhere f*8cked up our order royally, making grief for all the people who have to deal with the end user. At least they were onto it and had picked up their mistake and were working to rectify the problem, and they were all talking to each other. That, I find the most amazing thing of all.

The next amazing thing will be to get working internet inside the next week--fingers crossed.

edit--and my thoughts above on how thw whole thing is managed was confirmed 100% by the tech--they do all the new infrastructure, then connect people up on the final run of old copper , and wait for the complaints. Complain, and it gets attention, enough reasonable complaints, and cabling is relaid. Doesn't mean you can sign up for a 100mbps service on an old line and expect them to deliver that, though. 

 After their intial stuff up of cancelling my order half way through, a new order was generated and the work performed as scheduled yesterday. My wife rang me to say the Phone 1 and 2 lights on the modem were on, whch means that the cutover to the NBN was done. She hooked up to the wifi , reported it seemd to be working well. Walked her through running a telstra speed test last night, and it came up with 23.25Mbps download, 4.85Mbps download, and 16ms latency. Now, I only paid for the 25/4 ( basic) plan, as I just didn't think the local copper would go any faster. So I have 23.5/4.85, which you could consider a good outcome. It is just on  double the best speed we could get previously, and it was done at a busy time of night. That latency thing I mentioned is just a test of how many corners it has to go around to get where it is going--poor latency means that an other wise fast service won't seem very fast. Kind of like a HSV with a maniac behind the wheel trying to get across Perth only using backroads, where the little old lady in the Hyundai drives up the freeway and beats him there. 16ms latency is very good.

Now, Foxtel, where's the IQ box I paid for?

We are hooked up as of Friday after building in a new estate in 2009 and being forced to pay for a phone line to get ADSL1 which constantly drops out. I’ve forgotten what fast internet is.

ranmar , you had a better deal of than us with your conncection to the nbn

telstra advised us back in sept , they would contact us on the 10oct to remind us and walk through the cut of on that datee and the new modem set up ...

new modem arrived ok , 10 oct arrived no reminder etc, we just got a practical reminder at 4pm on that day when the adsl was cut off, no internet at all to our home

ok , no biggy i thought ...unplugged all the old stuff , read the modem box , as no telstra tech was going to help us ......

anyway , long story short [ full story here [http://fishwrecked.com/forum/finaly-nbn]

we had no internet for over two weeks totaL , there modem was a dudd , then the phone didnt work and another dud modem was sent out ....all the while we waited , no tech support , no bugger all just told to wait till the new modems arrive each time , then a do it yourself set up again

we are on modem no 5 at present ........ nbn has settled and no probs since mid nov ...... it does work well now , however it was a frustrating swap over in oct last year ...

but waiting on the line to telstra for help /is akine to a slow boiled death ime ......

 Sounds like everything that could go wrong, did. Ours was relatively simple, just a couple of phone calls, no internet for 2 weeks and the phone disconnected once. makes you wonder how the management between Telstra and the various NBN providers. And the contractors they use to do the cutover. I reckon this is what it really is down to--if one company owned the whole process, maybe??  Anyway, experiences up here have been very varied--lance55 on here went from crap internet to good, no issues. Some report everything was great, a couple of horror stories. I actually started tracking the "horror"s stories up here, and came to the conclusion that it was a couple of genuinely bad experiences that were being blown up into a town -wide problem, and they'd been fixed anyway. Seems if you want a really good fast service, buy into a subdivision which has been developed within the last 8 (?) years or so, where fibre to the premises installation was mandatory for developers. We have one of them here, and apparently the whole thing is pretty brilliant. And, straight over the boundary to the older subdivision right next door, they have been put on NBN satellite, because things were so bad. 

Just after my last post, I had a phonecall from the NBN following up--everything OK ? , all working? , apologies for the F*K up . And an undertaking that Foxtel would be on to me within 48hrs to arrange an appointment time for delivery and installation. Still waiting on that, clock is ticking.

Don't you like listening to that cracked, distorted, endless repetition of that horrible Telstra "waiting, waiting " jingle  nah, I don't either, but that's what speaker phones are for.  Put it on speaker, and do something else more pleasant. My approach, anyway...