NBN purchases 1,800,000 metres of … copper. This fit's in with the NBN's pathetic target of providing Australians with ADSL internet speeds but charging people a lot more for it. The only entity that this helps is Telstra: Sauce: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/07/23/carrier_club_slams_t…
Unfortunately the fool that did this is now Australia's Prime Minister but that's the calibre of leader we now have.
Sauce: http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/nbn-co-buys…
Don't really care because my suburb still hasn't got NBN installed
Sometimes I think that is the biggest problem of our society - most people just don't care about things that are not yet directly related to them. I know one thing for a fact though - it will be too late to care about NBN when it is finished with its current design (copper instead of fiber).
At the moment ADSL2+ is fine as it is.
Again, why not to think about the future? It is only a matter of time when ADSL2+ becomes obsolete.
Please explain to me why it is a problem? I have more important things to think about. My employment and my family for example
My employment depends on the internet. I'm stuck on ADSL1. Sure, I still can work, but my work will be greatly improved with better internet.
I'm sure I need your industry just as much as you need my industry, so it may effect you indirectly. It's part of society.
But the big point is, why upgrade to a technology that is already superseded in multiple other countries. A technology that is known to start failing after 30 years. A technology that will likely not be able to keep up with the current gen technology. (For example; 4K content.) Next gen may be holographic phone calls?
Don't get me wrong, FTTN is still better than what I'm currently stuck with, so anything is a bonus. If they rolled out FTTN, then upgraded to FTTP at a later date, I'd be happy.
They probably got the copper cheap from a country that's upgrading their tech.
I'm sorry but you are demonstrating the problem with the vast majority of voters in this country. Extreme shortsightedness.
It's only broadband, not bread and butter. Don't make it sound so important.
Fortunately unlike you most governing bodies have identified the importance of the internet with the UN even declaring it a human right in one of their reports.
I have more important things to think about. My employment and my family for example.
The NBN is not just for you, it would have future proofed our country into the next century. You claim you care about employment and your family but do you realise how much more difficult it will be for your kids to find employment when our country's infrastructure can't compete with our neighbours in Asia and around the world. Excluding primary industries our biggest sectors are finance, business consulting and healthcare (biotech, pharmaceuticals) why would these companies continue to invest and operate in Australia when they could go to Singapore or Korea where FTTP broadband is already widespread and there is a large proportion of well qualified individuals.
It is important. Back in the late 90's I was using a 33.6 dial up connection. I'd get around 3-4 KB down per second. Fine for 90s games and web pages although I'd often turn off the images to speed up browsing.
Social network? In the 90s that'd be ICQ and msn messenger. Streaming video? An animated GIF that you'd have to refresh to display properly.
After a few years we upgraded to a 256k ADSL line. Super fast in comparison and you could use the phone! Then we went to 512k. Then 1.5 and eventually 8Mbit. Now I'm on an ADSL2 line and I'm getting around 12Mbit. I was getting about 18 until recently. Right about the time Netflix opened up in Australia.
In 15-20 years we've gone from a text based network to 4K streaming video.
At home, I've got 3 phones, a tablet, 2 laptops, 2 consoles, TVs, a server, a r-Pi and an amp that are all internet connected.
Netflix, YouTube, Facebook. None of those existed when I got ADSL.
At the rate that technology is advancing it is very naive to think that ADSL (or just above) speeds will be sufficient for more than a couple of years.
The problem is that regardless of your situation, if you are still only thinking about your employment and family you are not 'self actualised' and are low on Maslows triangle of needs.
People don't magically invent the internet, they discover electricity, create computers and a thousand things in between. The internet and computing are possibly the single biggest leap forward the humanity has taken, and basically you want to retard humanity by retarding progress.
Well brand me Luddite, but our suburb is getting FTTP and I couldn't care less. This ambitious project was rushed for political expediency.
Take a walk around our block and you'll see damage to existing infrastructure (mainly footpaths and driveways) because they had to lay that fibre!
Remediation work? Packed with gravel, if you're lucky.
Then there's the ugly-as-hell PCDs mounted haphazardly to outside walls. Where anyone can sabotage them. If that's not enough, they require more wall space for the internal hardware.
Don't forget a dedicated power outlet!
Oh, and if you don't sign up for it, you'll have no fixed line phone service because the copper will be deactivated 18 months after the fibre is ready. Talk about a coercive business model!
Well they can stick it. We'll be going with 4G and I'll be billing them for damage to our property.
@mcmonte: that sounds crappy, and I know there are a lot of lazy contractors out there, but there's issues with any roll out, if remedial work isn't done properly there would be channels to complain about it.
Look at the bright side, once you get the pavement fixed they won't ever have to dig it up again for a hundred years, so you can die happy. Regarding political expediency people have to make up their minds, was the roll out too slow or too fast? Even the opposition was complaining that it was going too slow are you going to tell me the job is rushed now for political reasons? Come on. Complaining about a box on your wall is a bit rich, Optus cable required a box on the wall and people were lining up to get it back in the day.
The only thing political about upgrading our national comes network is people taking sides over it due to their predilections to certain political parties and their spin. Next you can tell me how ugly those windmills are and how they are making your dog sick.
I'm perfectly happy with my horse on my commute to my work. Why do we need cars and roads?
@Jackson:
When it was first announced, I was all for it.
Living with the disruption, damage and defacement (like my three-Ds?) is something I find objectionable. Proper channels for complaints, you say? Haven't found them, but we've had a back-and-forth with NBNCo with assurances that repairs would be done. That was late 2013.
Nothing yet.
But then, there was a disclaimer on every page of their website at the time, reminding us that the change in Government meant all the information therein was subject to change.
I believe it was rushed.
Physical security of the connection is a joke, and I predict many cases sabotage are afoot. Copper is harder to sabotage because it's underground all the way to your home. Unless someone has a special tool, they can't lift the concrete Telstra lid.
A plastic box on an external wall? Doesn't take much imagination to see the potential, does it?
Sure, damage to public and private amenities can be repaired, but they'll try to wriggle out of that too. The excuse will be cost blowouts. They're already slugging us for the additional wiring needed to use the service.
The fibre also needs a power supply. Yes our current ADSL2 modems also do, but at least we still have a phone service if there's a blackout. A backup battery is therefore needed, and you'll have to shell out for replacements over time.
All for what? I don't play online games. I don't download massive files. What's in it for me?
Personally for me, 12mbit is sufficient on ADSL2. I currently pull around 10. What isn't acceptable - the upstream. Around .7-.8. We're meant to be interconnected but I can't upload at a reasonable rate.
Like you said, you've gone from 3-4KB down to over 1000. If we were actually conservative with our usage of the bandwidth at hand I'm sure we could make better use of it too.
@airzone: Eh? Dialup used to be my horse and ADSL2+ is now my car. I don't need a Ferrari on superhighways.
@YellowDieselGolf:
I used to IRC/ICQ/MUD so I know exactly what a 33.6k and 56k dial up connection does.
As of right now I have a desktop, 2 laptops, 1 ipad, 3 iphones, 1 smart tv, 2 game consoles and 2 IP TVs. Yes, they are all internet connected. Guess what? I am perfectly fine with ONLY having ADSL2+.
I am no way naive by any mean. Why? I learn to use in moderation and I learn to only use things that I want. A fat kid can't just go in Maccas and eat everything that he sees every time every day. Otherwise it will never be enough.
@DarkOz:
I'll try and be concise.
20 years ago:
We had dialup
We used low bandwidth services.
We had typically one device connected to the Internet for only short periods.
My data usage would be less than a couple of hundred MB a month.
We were the only people in the street with the Internet.
Now:
Streaming games
High definition video
Cloud based data.
Digital downloads (like steam) that are 60+ GB.
It's not outrageous to have a dozen devices in your house connected 24-7.
Services that were impossible to imagine or predict 20 years ago are now take for granted.
People working from home.
Remote medical services.
20 years from now?
Loads more devices.
Loads and loads more data.
Unimaginable services and uses.
All I can say for sure is that ADSL era speeds will not be suitable.
Ps. Failed at being concise sorry.
I know exactly what you are saying. I think I am the odd one out that think we don't need to follow all technologies when they become available. To me they are luxuries and not necessities. They are mainly to make money out of consumers.
Something very simple for example. I am fine with using Windows XP or 7 at work and at home. I only upgraded 2 Win XP computes when the HDD died. What Windows version are we up to now? 10? We don't need to keep up with the greatest and latest. I am even using an iPhone that is 4 years old and my new iPhone every 2 years goes to my wife because she uses a lot of social media. I refuse to keep spending just to keep upgrading to keep up to date. I was still using a CRT TV last year, that lasted 15 years, until the they switched off the analogue signal.
@DarkOz:
Oftentimes it's not about having the latest and the greatest. It's about being in-touch and leveraging the benefits afforded by technological advances.
All of our entertainment is derived from Internet-based sources (be it VOD/streaming services, music or video games). It's not all pleasure though. I telecommute atleast 20% of the time. Moreover, both of us (my partner and I) have ongoing academic/professional up-skilling requirements. Almost all of my peers (mostly in the 30s to 45 age group) have similar usage patterns; although the ones with kids have a slightly higher reliance on tech. Especially when it comes to education and entertainment (the two e's that are a must have for a child).
This is the way our future is shaping up to be. Burying our collective heads in the sand, palms pressed against our ears, yelling "NANANANANANNA I CANT HEAR YOU" isn't going to change the future. :)
On a side note, if you have a Windows XP system, you may consider upgrading. It is an end-of-life system that is and will not be receiving updates and security fixes. Windows 7 is fine.
@gearhead:
Don't get me wrong. Not using and not wanting does not mean not knowing. I am very well aware of the benefits of NBN and all the current latest technologies and upcoming technologies. It's just that it doesn't benefit me one iota and thus I don't care. I don't need it so I don't want it does not mean I am burying my head in sand.
Two of my machines are still running Windows XP. They are fine as it is since they stopped updating one and a half year ago. They won't be any better had I upgraded them to Windows 7.
Yeah but maybe they are in their 90s (according to their comments). They wont be alive when it'll matter. We should just applaud their ability to communicate online. Good job nanna. Rest in peace for the future and what not.
That's what they said when ISDN came out and saying telephone line - Dial up copper telephone line is useless.
Singapore spent massive to implement ISDN 128,256 and 512kbps.
Then the technlody improves and using the same telephone line to provide ADSL and Singapore regretted the investment of ISDN being the "fastest" high tech country.
Don't worry they want to charge you more that is slower. Or at least that's what Turnbull**** is intent on doing, hopefully the ACCC actually works for consumers rather than Telstra.
I only want low pings world wide for online gaming. Australians are just too crap at video games that we will never evolve unless we adapt to the US and asia.
"I only want low pings world wide for online gaming."
….. You do know how pings work right? I have 100/40 and my ping to USA is no different to when I had 13/4 adsl…. Ping = latency which is primarily based on distance from the server
Getting NBN still knocks off 30ms from what I've seen.
Hmmn, that is more likely to depend on what routing our ISP/RSP uses, than the raw speed of your connection afaik
I was assuming it would go faster as well.
At my parents place who have NBN, I've noticed a drop from ~35ms to sub 10 on Aussie servers.
One of my clients has 100mbit business grade? fibre (TPG) and they 1MS pings. It is glorious
The quickest a ping from Sydney to the USA could be is ~140ms (due to the speed of light in fibre optics and the length of the current cables).
In games my ping to the USA is ~145-160ms. It sucks. For local games I'm 16-20ms. Using Traceroot I can get a reply from the USA in 145ms.
I'm on ADSL2+ though a congested, regional, non-NBN exchange with a rubbish phone line (I have 9 reflections apparently).
If we somehow used a vacuum instead of fibre optics we could lower that ping to just under 100ms, but it would still suck for gaming.
I negged you because I want faster porn downloads.
Errrr… c'mon dude. my ADSL2+ had no issues with any of the free porn sites. You can't be seriously watching 10 sessions simultaneously!? Can you?
We want 4k though.
I just mı̸̸̸̸̸̸̸̸̸̸̸̸̸̸̸̸̨ade you wipe your screen.
@Davo93: No you didn't, the trick is to scroll up and down the page very quickly and you'll know its in the text.
At the moment ADSL2+ is fine as it is
How is a family or a sharehouse with only 4Mbit downstream and 0.8 Mbit Upstream considered "fine"?
Those speeds are obviously incredibly obsolete, not to mention some people get even less than those speeds.
I don't know about your household but my household is fine. I get 10-12Mbit downstream and 0.8 Mbit upstream.
You know the speed deteriorates based on distance from the exchange, you're lucky to get 10-12 Mbit.
Split that up between 4 people and you get 2.5-3 Mbit which is horrible.
I'll need to come back to this post tomorrow to allocate more neg votes.
Please revisit 7 more times. I am almost crawling over the century mark.
Really, it is so sad that again it will again be double or more service usage costs overtime. With more and more free to air services being mirrored or a more complete version provided on line, we are going to PAY FOR and USE data services to obtain these standard services. True in UK you have a fee http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/ and now we will eventually have an 'any one use fee' paid to the companies that provide internet….. http://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=roy+orbison+workin…
I wonder on two things, if the twisted copper pair has to be replaced , how much would the same in glass cost? And more than most homes will have and do have extra copper going into homes, why could not that be utilised? This is one service that cannot be sent by air. The power lines. And the engery providers/local governments could earn money . Apporogies for spelling/grammer errors its a d day.
You completely misunderstand what is being replaced.
And you're free to not pay for Internet access if you don't want/need it.
The glass is likely cheaper, but the work to pull it past each house and then to each house is where the cost is.
Finally, Internet can't be sent by air, you're a fool if you think that wireless is the solution to fixed broadband.
We'd need a wireless transmitter at each node just to match ADSL speeds, and homes would need to replace all their devices to receive the new transmission standard you'd need to use (unless you intend to beam internet to a router type device to then be redistributed to devices).
"My fellow Australia's, wireless is the solution to fixed broadband." Prime Minister of Australia - Malcolm Turdball
I'd be happy with wireless is latency was low and sustained 5MB/s symmetrical speeds for under $100/month were possible.
@malouphix: So you just want unlimited 4G for less than $100 a month. Completely reasonable to me :)
All Satellites currently in operation are really old tech (10+ years old).
NBN just launched the first of 2 Satellites as upgrade to replace the old Satellites.
They cover rural and remote areas. People in Metro areas won't know any different.
2 speed plans: 12/1M and 25/5M.
Since the Satellites sit 35km above earth, Ping time (latency) will be about the same.
reference:
http://www.nbnco.com.au/connect-home-or-business/information…
And you're free to not pay for Internet access
I don't think that's realistic these days. Some jurisdictions even say it's now a basic human right.
He/She's the one complaining about duplication of services over the internet…
I love things like iView.
From my perspective it's a waste of money to broadcast TV at all.
If he/she wishes to not pay for duplication of services, he/she's free to stop paying his internet access bill.. I have no recourse to stop TV being broadcast at me!
Turnbull has many of the exact same policies as Abbott (health cuts, education cuts, $100,000 degrees, inferior NBN, cuts to penalty rates). He has even said he is going to keep the same policies as Abbott in parliament.
Don't be surprised you have such a bad NBN under Turnbull as many of the same incompetent and elitist MPs are still around him. Who will he fool in the next election?
It was in surplus because the Liberals try to sell just about every public asset under the sun.
It's easy to be in surplus when you sell sell sell but you are damaging the revenue streams for the generations to come.
I'm pretty amazed at the shortsightedness of a lot of the folks who hold your view of the "needs of Australia".
Mining and resources are slowing down, the way to the future is to leverage the EXISTING highly skilled workforce and make Australia the hub for high-end services. To be able to do this, the country would need to invest heavily in future proofing telecommunications infrastructure.
Have a parochial (and frankly quite asinine) view that faster Internet == MOAR PRONZ & TORRENTZ LUL… is just /facepalm
Using 4G (or next gen LTE features) is untenable if the backhaul and cellular congestion cannot support it. As an example, try using Telstra/Vodafone 4g in the CBD. I guarantee that you will get less than ADSL2+ speeds.
To give an idea of the need for a faster Internet, let me paint a picture that is not too distant in the future. A household with 4 people (2x parents and 2x kids).
- 1x Parent telecommuting - VPN+teleconf on occasion+file transfers etc.
- 1x Parent watching Netflix on the TV (streaming at 1080p)
- 1x kid studying for assignment for Uni (streaming audio from uni/ downloading course notes etc)
- 1x kid playing video games while broadcasting to twitch/youtube etc.
I can guarantee that this an ADSL2+ will be woefully inadequate. In my household at present, with just the two of us, I need to QoS the Mrs (unbeknownst to her) just so that I can actually play my online games with teamspeak, while she's watching TV.
Alternately, when I'm working, and my Mrs is talking to her parents on facetime/streaming lecture podcasts etc, we have severe bandwidth issues… and this is when we get 14-16Mbps down (0.5Mbps up). Suffice to say that if I'm doing a major commit on a project, or doing a cloud backup, nothing else works.
So no… faster Internet has a very valid use case for any household that actually is reliant on Internet based services.
The question isn't just the cost of replacing copper, also, how long does glass last?
I don't know for certain but I'd wager a piece of fibre would last a HECK of a long time compared to copper which degrades (perhaps I'm completely wrong,…… I'm speculating)
This liberal idiocy is madness.
Yet it was only last week that Mitch Fifield (new communications minister) claimed that no copper was being replaced.
So glad the adults are in charge these days!
Copper!? Wasn't that developed by NASA for the Apollo missions?
Well if its good enough to send man to the moon, surely its good enough to order pizza over the internet.
but no one has ever been to moon, thought it was just a scam ;-)
+1
Suprised they risked the constant drop outs on such a critical mission.
I admit I do not understand the intricacies of the NBN, but I imagine the copper from the node substitution is so in 10 years then can slowly roll out fibre when they have more money to waste. I bet they simply ran out of money and could not do Fibre even if they wanted to due to all the changes made over the years.
Eh?
Are you seriously proposing that they can extend fibre from the new copper?
I know you said you don't understand the intricacies, but that's hardly an intricacy!
They're likely doing it cause it's cheaper to buy and install new copper than to cut the existing copper to connect it to the Node. It's also less downtime for customers (a few minutes versus a few hours).
The Money is pretty much irrelevant. The network will pay itself back over the years (through both subscription fees and in increased productivity - ie more tax) no matter what technology is used.
Money is imaginary. The government could announce today that there is an extra $1 trillion dollars in our economy and it would be so immediately.
It's also less downtime for customers (a few minutes versus a few hours).
Why do you think there is a few hours downtime for customers? In an FTTP installation, the fibre lead in is typically independent of the copper. Depending on how your ISP chooses to do it, you can essentially have nearly zero downtime.
Replacing copper has nothing to do with FTTP.
It's being replaced for the FTTN rollout.
@scubacoles: Do you think there will be an option to pay for individual FTTP once the existing FTTN is in place or will the cost to an individual be prohibitive? (obviously depends on your distance to the node)
I don't even expect it to be available as an option.
The fact they're rolling out FttN to everyone without asking is a good sign that it's not even in the planning.
(It would be cheapest to offer the upgrade while they were rolling out).
@dogboy: http://www.nbnco.com.au/connect-home-or-business/technology-…
Individual Premises Switch refers to the option to switch eligible individual premises to an alternative nbn™ technology.
The cost to change technology infrastructure for an Area Switch could range from tens of thousands of dollars to a few millions of dollars and for Individual Premises Switch from a few thousand dollars to tens of thousands of dollars.
Things to consider
To manage expectations regarding application eligibility, please review the following information that nbn considers with each application;
Individual Premises Switch cannot be used to bring forward the proposed installation schedule;
In FTTN and FTTB areas, applications will only be processed once the originally planned network has been deployed to the premises. In Satellite and Fixed Wireless areas applications will only be processed once the fixed line network adjacent to the individual premises has been deployed;
The extent to which Individual Premises Switch can be performed within nbn’s existing design and construction regime;
The availability of third-party infrastructure and its relative cost;
The timing of the application and proximity to already constructed nbn™ infrastructure.
(emphasis added)
So they're forcing FttN on to you and then, once all their crews have left the area, you'll have to pay extra to get them and their equipment back into the area to perform the upgrade, thereby adding immediately a few grand to the total before a single shovel hits the soil.
And even if you're happy to pay that, NBN reserve the right to say no that can't "be performed within nbn’s existing design and construction regime".
@scubacoles:
Not only that but they then turn it into a project and immediately add project overheads and other planning costs.
Determining Financial Contributions
After reviewing an application, nbn will provide a quote that outlines the financial contribution required as well as the overall payment structure.
An applicant’s financial contribution will be the difference between the cost of the originally planned rollout technology, and the new technology chosen for the Switch. These costs will include:
- The design and build of telecommunications infrastructure (including any civil works that are required to remediate or build new pits and ducts);
- Acquiring access to third-party infrastructure (if applicable);
- The construction of a ‘lead-in’ to the property (if required); and
- The installation of the equipment in the premises
- Project management cost and any required environmental and planning approvals.
I understood that they were doing Fibre to nodes, and keeping copper to the premises right? Its still a step forward with Fibre to the node, and in the future they can change the premises cable with fibre?
I read that it's not a simple as extending the fibre to your house, most of the hardware in the node will need to be replaced, again.
@Scyl:
The issue is around the design rules of the network. A single node will be provided with 2Gbps or 4Gbps of backhaul (the throughput provided to each node by 2 or 4 fibre cables). This backhaul is to be shared between 48, 192 or 384 premises. This means that all if two fibre links are used, providing the node with 2Gbps of throughput capacity, and all 48 houses/premises were online and using the internet at full capacity, the speed would be limited per premise or house to 41.7Mbps. Note that this gets worse as more people are connected to the node. Going by my previous example, if 192 people were connected to the node and using the internet it would limit speeds to 10.4Mbps. Even worse, if 384 people were subscribed to the one node, speeds would be limited to 5.2Mbps.
What this means: The node would require to be provided with more backhaul if people wanted to access fibre to their home and achieve the faster speeds fibre is capable of. It also raises the issue that passive, FTTP architecture would need to be installed in the actively powered node.
Thats… not how it works
Further down the track that copper can be used as VDSL which is capable of the same speeds we're currently getting with FTTP, so it's not the end of the world.
They're replacing a few metres of copper between node and pillar, that is all.
They're not replacing the hundreds of metres of copper from pillar to home (except where there aren't enough individual pairs to service the number of houses in the street - and I don't know how they're going to cater for all the subdividing that's going on in the suburbs!).
As such, the copper from pillar to house is still 50 years old and corroded, and a good 20m or more has been exposed to the sun wind and rain for that long as well.
Subsequently, the performance of VDSL in Australian suburbs is not going to be remotely close the the lab scale perfect conditions (tens of metres line lengths, brand new heavy gauge copper with no joins) level that barely competes with fibre.
You'd be surprised. I've been involved with the setup of VDSL outside of a lab and it has performed very good in comparison to our current FTTP network.
I'm more than happy to be surprised.
But I don't expect to be, if only cause the upload is so completely pitiful, even in ideal circumstances. And in my opinion, upload is where the real benefits come. Because it allows creation (and therefore wealth generation) rather than just consumption.
I should have real world knowledge in a few months.. They started work to install a node adjacent the tophat at the end of our street this week.
What sort of distance was that tested under and did it turn to crap when it rains?
@twig: Can't remember the exact distance, but it's roughly ~3km from the node and no issues with rain so far.
@Clear:
Either your level of surprise is incredibly low, the distance is WAY less than 3km or Wikipedia needs an update;
VDSL2 permits the transmission of asymmetric and symmetric aggregate data rates up to 200 Mbit/s downstream and upstream on twisted pairs using a bandwidth up to 30 MHz. It deteriorates quickly from a theoretical maximum of 250 Mbit/s at source to 100 Mbit/s at 0.5 km (1,600 ft) and 50 Mbit/s at 1 km (3,300 ft), but degrades at a much slower rate from there, and outperforms VDSL. Starting from 1.6 km (1 mi) its performance is equal to ADSL2+.
(emphasis added)
@scubacoles: I did say I can't remember the distance. Infact I've probably confused it with another test or technology. I'm involved with a company that tested a lot of technologies over the last couple of years.
@scubacoles: Can confirm VDSL 2 sucks at distance. I'm getting 30/1mbps and I'm paying for 80/20mbps.
@Clear: Aaand I checked this morning and that was a completely different test. So ignore me, but VDSL is still very viable for businesses within CBDs.
I was reading about the feasibility of VDSL deployments in Australia. The long and short of it was that it would not be pragmatic due to the copper infrastructure and the large number of untenable lines that would make vectoring challenging (if not impossible).
Unless they do a blanket overhaul of ancient copper infrastructure across the whole nation. :) If you're doing that, may as well go Fiber to last well into the next century.
@omgwtfbbq: It was viable only in a few instances, but was overall scrapped in favour of everything else being installed today. Fortunately we don't have the headache of installing it. Though our submarine cables can be a nightmare too.
I would agree based on my experience deploying VDSL2 for five years, it actually handles bad copper better than ADSL. And the upload is far from pitiful, not that most folk use that pipe to any great extent unless they are hosting services or P2P
@markis10:
People don't use it cause it's crap!
Total Chicken Egg scenario, the most obvious use of upload would be cloud storage, which would be perfect for off-siting your home backups, but with current and planned VDSL upload maximum is not going to be viable if you have more than a gig of data.
EH? VDSL is what is being used now in the FTTN rollout. Are you referring to G. Fast?
We have users (in Belmont in NSW) on it already - he's reporting 70Mb in a thread on Whirlpool. Whether that is the exception or the norm, who knows until more are rolled out.
"we're currently getting with FTTP" - currently getting is the operative word. The current speeds on FTTP are purely arbitrary, with a flick of a switch 1000Mb can be enabled. Maybe with Gfast and a 1m copper loop you might get that (download only forget about upload) speed but its pure fantasy to think that copper is in any way comparable to the capabilities of fibre.
I guess you could call it a 'prototype'. It was a line installed prior to the FTTN rollout for testing.
No, it's VDSL2.
CURRENTLY being the operative word.
Tests recently in Switzerland had 76 PETABYTES PER SECOND of data moving over a distance of 54 KILOMETRES. OK that was an endpoint to endpoint lab test, so not a full network, bet Telus just announced a 260/60 one in Vancouver. Imagine. Wherever you live, guaranteed 260Mbps. I also read that businesses here can apply for 1Tbps.
How does that compare to your 100Mbps if you're lucky over 800 Metres?
When fibre is in, all we do is replace the hardware at each end when it becomes feasable. VDSL is NEVER going to do that.
Do it once, do it fibre - this whole thing is such a complete waste of time and money it's not funny. The ONLY positive is that companies building it get to employ people that's about it.
EDIT Did forget to mention the 76 Petabyte test was was a new type of fibre that Australia is currently NOT using in any roll-out, but apparently is a negligible price difference over standard fibre. It is apparently more difficult to terminate though, so please only use it as an example.
I was more thinking of a business environment. VDSL is viable within a CBD where the node is <1km away as the copper can be difficult to access and replace without causing major disruptions.
Telus just announced a 260/60 one in Vancouver…wherever you live
Wish we had that!
But note what Telus doesn't provide
1. It hasn't promised 260/60 through fibre to 90% of the Canadian population
2. As one of several private companies in Canada developing Internet infrastructure, it hasn't provided a government-controlled monopoly
And what Telus has provided before
1. VDSL2 (as well as ADSL/ADSL2+)
So Telus itself is not an example of 'do it once, do it fibre'
It is an example of a private company competing in the market place, trying to stay ahead of its competition, incrementally and by-location if necessary.
This is the issue, that we aren't thinking further down the track, that we have reduced the rollout of GPON Fibre used by NBN to provide internet via fibre all to the way to our houses. Around 60-70% of the cost involved in rolling out FTTP is civil side of things. If we upgrade now or upgrade later, we will have to bear this cost, and it will time consuming and expensive to dig a trench to lay new fibre to a house. And Fibre is capable of providing 100,000Mbps over 20KM! Not 20M like copper. 20 metres is the length of a driveway. We should still be aiming to do rollout as much fibre to each premises as possible in the fixed line footprint.
I'd be happy with copper if I could get at least 5MB/s symmetrical speeds for under $100/month.
Be set to be disappointed then…
Upload speed is up to 5mbps, so unless you have a node on your front lawn, you're not going to see that.
DarkOz on 21/10/2015 - 08:39 Comment score below threshold.
