Dreaming of an internet speed faster than Usain Bolt

andye says:

08:05am | 17/12/12

I think a lot of people don’t understand how this actually works here. Neither does the author, apparently:

“To start with, Optus took over two weeks to connect the new service. When they finally did, there was a mountain of problems that came with the new connection. “

This was an ADSL connection. That means Telstra was actually connecting it. Telstra connects the ADSL connection, no matter who you get it through. Telstra have a wholesale monopoly PLUS they are a provider. Conflict of interest?

The NBN is a wholesale monopoly, which at least removes the conflict of interest here.

TheRealDave says:

09:44am | 17/12/12

Absolutley correct Andye. A lot of people fail to realise that no matter which company you go through - Telstra is ballsing the process up somewhere in their.

Under ADSL1 they are ALL re-sold Telstra DSL tails - no matter who you go through. With DSL2 it gets murky because the big majors have their own DSLAMs in a lot of exchanges (because Telstra refused to flick the switch for DSL2 Australia wide unless they got a strict monopoly of the service - meaning they held back DSL2 fromt he Australian public for near 3 years and only turned it on onc ethey started hammoraghing customers to internode, iinet, TPG etc) but Telstra are still involved in theprocess to move your line from the Telstra racks to your providers DSLAM.

Telstra have been fined millions of dollars over the past decade for their deliberate anti-competitive practices.

This is how ‘Private Enterprise’ runs the current broadband infrastructure.

Paul says:

11:56am | 17/12/12

Optus and the other telcos can’t even have a technician walk into an exchange without a Telstra escort.  The sooner Telstra are removed from the equation the better.  What people don’t realise is that the real benefit of the NBN is that it will solve most of the issues that we currently experience in establishing a new connection.

A few examples:
- Due to poor maintenance practices the records of where most houses in australia (yes, >50%) are connected in the pillars are simply wrong.. The street techs do not follow their own procedures and call their call centre to ensure the records are kept up to date.
- The delay in connecting up new users, line maintenance etc. are due to the long wait times to get Telstra techs to accompany non-Telstra techs to the phone exchange.  Telstra won’t let certified non-Telstra techs in on their own.
- When transitioning between 2 ISPs there can be a delay if you are moving across infrastruce owned by different companies (eg. Telstra DSLAM vs Optus DSLAM).

Personally, I think the NBN is a hugely needed change to how we run our telecommunications services in Australia.

Rubens Camejo says:

01:03pm | 17/12/12

@andye

Almost right….Optus uses what are known as ULL lines. These are lines that they lease off Telstra and are connected BY Optus to their network at the exchange.

The line was more than likely a Telstra line and it would have taken 3- 5 working days to switch it to the ULL network, depending on the exchange and the workload on technicians.

Once the line is switched, Optus, the ISP portion of it, gets involved placing the speed and billing codes, etc, onto the line. Again, this is a schedules issue. When switching lines from Telstra to Optus is involved, somewhere inside two weeks is normal and inside one is rare.

In due course, (granted, a long curse), when the NBN is fully rolled out, there will be no exchanges and your fibre-optic cable will be connected directly to a service provider where a few strokes of a keyboard, (maybe voice command by then) will have it done.

I can see you being able to connect yourself to the service provider of your choice in maybe a longer course.

That is, of course, unless one certain dogmatic bunch of pollies get into power and decide to ruin our telecommunications future and leave us with the likes of Telstra and Optus fighting over who connects whom to the node that sits over 500m from your house and that will give you no better than ADS L speed., (when not too many are on line)

andye says:

01:34pm | 17/12/12

@Rubens Camejo - Yeah, apparently I am only mostly right about that and there are some exceptions. Mind you, every ADSL connection I have had has been through Telstra and I have never actually gone through Telstra.

TheRealDave says:

09:47am | 17/12/12

Wayne - try living in major residential subdivisions in capital cities that have been built since the mid 90’s. It was far more economically feasible to just run RIM’s around the place instead of propelry cabling these areas - and this is why hundreds of thousands of peopele, families and businesses run on prehistoric services

Sundress In Sydney says:

10:29am | 17/12/12

I am with you Wayne.  We moved into an apartment at a major resort on the Central Coast.  We rang Telstra and paid for a technician to install our lines to be independant of the resort.  We received our nice new modem and our T-Box.  Then when I couldn’t get internet (and so of course not the box) I phoned and the delightful Indian lady told me ADSL2 was not available to me, despite the fact that it was two doors away.  So they sent me a wireless modem.  I was asked to pay twice as much for this service of 5G as I was to be paying for the 500G and T-Box.  I said nope, and sent the lot back.  I received a bill for $2,200 and carefully shredded that too.  Telstra are pathetic.  We ended up just using our mobiles (pre-paid $39 a month unlimited calls so much cheaper, and no line rental of course) and going to K-Mart for a prepaid wireless modem.  The service is pathetic and the worst part is you can’t argue because I can’t understand a word they are saying to me.  By the way, we are not remote, we are in a major resort in a very large city on the Central Coast, so there reallyl is no excuse.

Potato says:

12:59pm | 17/12/12

Wayne….NBN is coming to the Central Coast. Rollout has started and the first connections will be made before Easter… Rollout is happening in my street as we speak…..

Look at the NBN website, 80% of the central coast to be services I first few years.  I think the woeful nature of the current communications and the way that lots of small settlements are spearhead around the place(plus terrainetc) helped secure the coast as one of the first roll out locations

TheRealDave says:

01:14pm | 17/12/12

Potato - and who can you thank for the fact that areas liek the Central Coast and large rural communities are some of the first to get hooked up, rather than people in capital cities who can already get DSL, DSL2 and Cable?

That right, Oakshot and Windsor - the same two blokes the Coalition are trying to demonize for sticking up for the bush….you know…what the N in LNP is supposed to be doing….

Potato says:

01:36pm | 17/12/12

Realdave….

I don’t give two wombats who we can thank for it….

I just made the comment that’s its happening (actually, guys in my street now)

Why does every topic have to become some political football with nut bags taking extreme left or right views..

I’m currently eating a toasted ham sandwich, but I suppose some political party had something to do with that too?!

Sundress in Sydney says:

03:00pm | 17/12/12

@potata, thanks for the update!!  I really do want to do better than what I have now.  Will be interesting.  How do I find out when they are doing my area?  Don’t know anything about this really except everyone is bagging it.  Well, going to go jump on Google and hope.

Riversutra says:

08:03am | 17/12/12

Having worked for Telstra for 18 yrs , I can tell you those Aussies doing the job were so corrupted by their union, the CPSU, into fighting every change management made to improve service, it’s no wonder jobs went overseas. Australians don’t do Customer Service well in the Public Service. FACT. And Telstra staff were told by the union they were the ones who should be making management decisions. Think QANTAS, same result, get the operations out of Australia and survive.

A Concerned Citizen says:

12:42pm | 17/12/12

“Corrupted” is how I’d define Telstra overall. A useless, lazy, greedy company that harasses people for leaving (with a non-English speaking caller, no less), and whose greed and stubbornness in mishandling their part of the network are arguably a large contributing reason to why the NBN project collapsed.

Like Qantas, it is simply a crap company that did poorly post-privatization, with ridiculous prices for poor service, is now floundering badly despite holding a monopoly, and is such a drain on Australia that this country would actually be better off if both of them collapsed entirely and made way for fresh competition.

Needless to say, every time I get an Indian cold-caller from Telstra asking me back, I am immediately reminded of why I left them- and not just because their ‘deals’ are inferior to the most standard packages of major competitors

Rubens Camejo says:

01:10pm | 17/12/12

@ Riversutra

So, Telstra service levels are down t the unions and they were the ones running the show, even after privatisation?

Goddamn those union thugs, they’re worse than Darth Vader with the power of their dark force.

I say; kill off all unions and put the likes of Gina in charge for she IS our Skywalker

Bob says:

04:07pm | 17/12/12

Spent years working with Telstra while working for an ISP subsidiary of theirs.

Private or public, it was a sick company. It might have been a private company then, but it had a public service mentality that was frankly scary. When Ziggy moved over for Sol, the entire company shut down from top to bottom No decisions made, no cheques signed, I’d like to say that they did the bare minimum required to run the company, but that would have been a dream.

David says:

11:49am | 17/12/12

Their billing systems seem diligent. I left Telstra in 2004 but still receive an invoice each month telling me that they owe me $9. I think it’s just telco hi-jinx.

Gregg says:

09:45am | 17/12/12

You might hope the NBN will solve connection problems but then how many pieces of hardware are going to be in the connection chain?

So something is not working quite rightly and so who is going to be determining and servicing whatever is the problem and in what timeliness and at what cost?

A bushfire or a storm goes through and it will be interesting to see just how reliable the communication superhighway is and how well the tarmac stays serviceable.

TheRealDave says:

10:15am | 17/12/12

As opposed to the current network Gregg? How quick were services restored to areas devasted during Black Friday - for example? Brisbane floods??

Same same.

And, in more normal less ‘disaster’ incidents, given that NBNCo will be the ones who own and maintain the entire infrastructure, rathert than a number of companies owning bits ‘here and there’ - I’d say their fault finding and resolution would be a lot quicker. An not have say - Optus telling a client to put a central filter put on the line that Telstra actually owns and needs to be the one testing, for example, which is also one of the first things EVERY ISP in the country says as one of their first ‘troubleshooting’ steps which is rarely actually needed.

Gregg says:

12:23pm | 17/12/12

@TRD
” Same same.”
You may hope it will be all plain sailing under the NBN but then their services side is really unproven and that is only with relatively few connections having equipment that is relatively new.

Whether it’ll be same same in five, ten years time as componentry ages and whether the NBN will even have the resources to keep up is another matter.
They sure cannot keep up with their proposed installation program right now and many new housing estates have residents waiting, waiting and waiting some more.

TheRealDave says:

01:17pm | 17/12/12

If cetain ‘vested interests’ would stop sticking their oar into the rollout process every 5 minutes with ‘technicalities’ and ‘referrals to comittees’ the process would be a lot further along.

But lets pretend that hasn’t been happening shall we?

Rubens Camejo says:

01:37pm | 17/12/12

@ Gregg

Ok So you’re negative on the NBN and can only find fault with it, ( I suspect for political reasons). At the same time, I notice you you’re not jumping to defend the status quo.

By status quo, I mean the myriad of service providers that have to go cup in hand to the owner of the network whose commercial interests don’t include making it easier for those other service providers to connect their customers.

We have a situation where all those in the market have to ask their biggest competitor to help them compete with it.  Commercially, that is a total joke.

The one thing you overlook, Gregg, is the way ISP will compete when the NBN is fully rolled out.

Their viability will depend on their quality of service, content and price. The biggest factor about the NBN, apart from its future-proofing our our telecommunications future, is that it is a system that allows any business to provide to provide internet services, not just the four or five large ISP’s we currently have.

A bank, for instance, might offer a service with each mortgage, or a sporting body like AFL, NRL or FFA, might offer an ISP service along with a subscription that bypasses the likes of Foxtel… think about that for a moment

If you think about the possibilities of an NBN network with infrastructure that can be accessed by any business willing to provide a service, you’ll understand how it is a monopoly killer and a business creator for those that can now not compete or that rely on others for getting their product out to the market, such as professional sports.

Once you understand that, you’ll understand why it is that bodies such as SKY news, News Ltd and commercial TV are backing the opposition with their editorial policies and commentary. The cash cow that is sports broadcasting, is at risk.

The price for the political backing is the killing off of the NBN. That is a price that we will pay by having to put up with the current telco situation for decades to come.

Of course, you, Gregg, might have a better alternative to the NBN, and if you choose to tells the positive story rather than the negative, fault finding one, we’d all be interested, I am sure.

PJ says:

01:47pm | 17/12/12

The government’s total investment in the NBN project ...
- will now be $30.4 billion, up from $27.5 billion.
- Operating expenditure will be $26.4 rather than $23.2 billion.

Yes it’s more Budget blow outs I’m afraid from the Cock up Kings of Finance.

The rollout is painfully slow.

* Connection to Old Homes

June 2012 there were only 13,500 premises connected up via fibre, fixed wire or satellite.

The December 2010 Plan said:
419,000 connected by June 2013.
But this has been down graded to only 93,000 by June 2013.

It’s crap and costing Billions.

In pursuit of the Big Australia people crush,the Gillard Government’s Mass Immigration program has farmland turning into new estate houses at a rate of knots.

- in June 2012 NBN admitted it had connected up only 1000 new homes.
- at the same time NBN said it had received applications for a further 130,000 Lots.

Thanks to the Government forcing out Private Contractors so the NBN has monopoly, latest housing statistics show 74,000 new homes are without any Fixed Line Comms at all.

Now thats shocking in anyone’s language.

In Parliament the Gillard Government was asked to explain how the Contract was given to Fujitsu in 2011 to begin rollout of NBN to new estates and nothing much has happening. Given the above situation, the Coalition also asked why the Fujitsu contract was renewed? No answers were forthcoming as usual.

By contrast, in the past 18 months
- Telstra has connected over 35,000 homes with copper,
- Opticom and others have connected over 8,000 homes with fibre. 
So the private sector is still delivering where it is permitted to operate.

-cf SMH - ‘NBN costs blow out by Billions’

you’ll never know the truth of it with a 1600 PR spin army costing $150 mill ......

PJ says:

02:09pm | 17/12/12

i wonder how many Australian jobs were smoked by handing the monopoly for new homes to NBN?

I would how NBN charges will be kept low when they have the monopoly in new suburbs?

SimpleSimon says:

02:12pm | 17/12/12

Sorry I don’t have time to reply to your entire post, @PJ, but I’ll hit a couple of key points.

The idea that “the Government forcing out Private Contractors so the NBN has monopoly” is false. The line from NBN Co has been, from the beginning, that they are the service provider of last resort for laying fibre to new estates. Why don’t those new estates have fibre? Because the developers refuse to pay the contractors to do the work. NBN Co WANTS the private contractors to do the work!

I suspect I’m beating my head against a brick wall, and you’re not interested in the discussion, but if you want to know what’s really going on with the NBN, I suggest you look outside the MSM. The Australian, SMH etc, are pure FUD.

Gregg says:

03:14pm | 17/12/12

@Rubens Camejo
First off, I do not have any concerns politically as to what party may be in power and more to the point is that what they initiate on behalf of the Australian public is financially sound.
There has never been any financial justification at all done for the NBN and there can likely be no idea whatsoever what ultimate cost will be or just how well the money can be recouped.
” The one thing you overlook, Gregg, is the way ISP will compete when the NBN is fully rolled out.

Their viability will depend on their quality of service, content and price. The biggest factor about the NBN, apart from its future-proofing our our telecommunications future, is that it is a system that allows any business to provide to provide internet services, not just the four or five large ISP’s we currently have. “

The viability of any ISP might also depend on what the NBN will need to charge them and just how much consumers will be prepared to pay.
Regardless of just how many companies want to dabble in iinternet services ( and that alone is somewhat scary as to what quality of service could be expected ) if the NBN eventually costs X$ and there are Y users, the NBN will need to recoup $Z for every connection on average to cover capital costs, interest, management and maintenance.

What happens if the numbers of users are far less at say U?
Either the NBN goes broke or they have to put up charges to ISPs and what do you reckon will happen next?
Yep, another lot of users will say stuff that, they can get nicked.

Ultimately, you are going to end up with an indefinite government subsidy for an indefinite time and the idea of it being a valuable service that the government can recoup its money on by selling will be the myth it already is.
It will just become another budgetary drain foisted on to all future governments by this totally inept one.

I suppose if Australian taxpayers are eventually paying something like a few billion$$$ PA, maybe even more, you will be quite content to know that that money is not going towards something like the NDIS, Medical care or Education etc.

Sure, there have been conflict issues with Telstra being both an infrastructure owner and a service provider and though there has been some separation, problems still exist and all that means is a closer look at what is occurring should occur.
It would probably be a lot more simple than the likely mess we can expect to have with some people on Fibre Optic, some probably still on copper and some on satellite for a basic phone service that just needed more copper at a much lower cost.

Twenty years from now, even with the same government we would have a real hodge podge of a network and still likely have many people unconnected to the NBN and new housing estates still waiting years with a massive cost and borrowings to boot with a massive interest bill.

TheRealDave says:

03:34pm | 17/12/12

*shakes head* at the level of hypocristy some people need to justify their political position….no matter how many times they’ve been proven to be wrong.

A Concerned Citizen says:

12:49pm | 17/12/12

I was hoping the NBN would BE that secondary network; but when I heard Telstra would be made into stakeholders, I immediately knew not only the project would fail to deliver, but would outright stall and collapse before it was even completed.
If Telstra were even half-competent, THEY would have built that network themselves long ago.

Potato says:

01:04pm | 17/12/12

Wow Monty, great idea…

But what would you call this new network…

Some type of Broadband network that’s national….many call it BNN…

I wonder if any govt will have the foresight to introduce such infrastructure for the future…?!

sunny says:

11:32am | 17/12/12

I heard Samuel Morse will be guest speaker at the Opposition’s Communication Policy release and will give a speech titled “Effective Comms Don’t Need No High Falutin Fibre To The Home”.

Rubens Camejo says:

02:25pm | 17/12/12

@ Gregg

You fail to understand the technology involved. The NBN is just a cable, an optic-fibre cable. The hardware involved , to put it simply,  is a power supply, (much less power than transmitting through copper), some connecting points and not much more. The things that can go wrong with it are not dissimilar to the the things that can go wrong with a copper network, such as natural disasters damaging a portion of the cable, etc.

The higher technology will be held in the ISP’s premises. The speed that that date will be able to travel down its length will depend very much on that equipment, not the cable itself. barring something breaking a cable “Krappers”, will be a rare occasion.

Like your F1 analogy, you’ll be going like the klappers most of the time because traffic won’t slow you down.

As for the need for speed. It’s short sighted to look at needs based on today’s requirements. I am sure 20 years ago 56 kbps was good enough for electronic mail; letters, in other words. Since then our whole economy is mostly based on our ability to transfer data via the internet.

Thinking the way you and many opponents of the NBN do, ignores our very recent history.  The NBN is not for you or I, it is for the generations to come in the next 20, 40, 60 years time. What will be the speed requirements then?

As I said, the cable’s limits are set by the equipment that an Optus, or an iiNet has in their premises.

There are people now sitting in some control room in the States flying drones remotely in Afghanistan killing people with the push of a button. Sad as that is, what will we be able to do from home in the next several decades? Will we have to travel to an office at all?

Will we have to waste two hours per day travelling to work? Will governments have to spend billions on transport and housing infrastructure in major cities as our population increases or will we be able to work from Dubbo or Port Macquarie for a company based in Albury, where their factory or administration infrastructure is houses because it is a cheap site?

Will that not make that company more competitive globally when compared to a company based in Ryde and paying top dollar for its accommodation?

Will we be able to operate machinery remotely? can you predict what our telecommunications will be beyond faster speeds for movie and games donwloads, something that is so very now and ignores the future?

Do you disagree that a fibre-optic network IS the infrastructure that would allow for such developments,and is so , what would?

Perhaps you think the world won’t change and our needs will remain the same?

TheRealDave says:

11:15am | 17/12/12

“more speed and then more giggas and more giggas at speeds to download movies or play games etc.”

*le sigh*  The usual LNP crap that only pirates and pedophiles need ‘more speed’ for their depraved porn and movie downloads.

“now just use a PAYG mobile wifi modem and are paying well less than half of what I ever paid for usually higher speed.”

So because thats how you use the net we need to limit the entire country and its economy based on your needs? Maybe we should take your woefully innacurate Formula 1 analogy and make it jsut as irrelevant and silly by saying - just re-build every racetrack on the planet to be suitable for a 1971 Hillman Hunter because thats ‘all you need’ to get to the shops and back and its only people who want to run over puppies who need anything bigger and faster?

Gregg says:

12:34pm | 17/12/12

@TRD
” sigh, sigh and more sighing “

I have not mentioned pirates, pedophiles or running down puppies, let alone porn and I think you might just find that there are many more internet users who would be more than happy with a reasonable if moderate speed rather than see the country forking out billions$$$$ that we are borrowing just for a select few to do their playing with whatever.
Industry and other high need users could just as easily, probably far quicker and cheaper been provided with appropriate IT by the IT industry.

I would say my F1 analogy is far more appropriate than anything stupid you attempt to call analysis.

TheRealDave says:

03:44pm | 17/12/12

Gregg - outside your own litlte bubble there is a big country full of hundreds of thousands of users all over the country, all connected via a number of ways higgedly piggedly according to what was most profitable to a number of providers. Thats why our broadband and communicatiosn infrastructure is a complete abortion. What works nice for you and your ‘simple needs’ is manifestly inadequate for most of the population - let alone business, government and education needs. ‘Private Enterprise’ has had its chance to do something - they chose to extort their customer base for as much as they could while providing minimal service. Why do you think Telstra rolled out RIMs for so long? Why do you think the likes of Telstra charge businesses tens of thousands of dollars a month for connections we will soon be getting for under $100 a month under the NBN?

This is exactly why people who have no idea about the technology and communication sin general should probably sit out and watch or at the very least do 5 minutes worth of research before dipping a toe into the conversation. Of course, if you’v edecided your position based purely on politics becasue you have no idea of the technology and infrastructure rollout then why stop now?

Using your 3G modem as an example of broadband use in this country is beyond stupid. Well, unless you are in the LNP and beleive that all we need for the next few generations is enough bandwith to download fart noise applications while sipping a latte in a Coffee Shop….

Bengeck says:

11:50am | 17/12/12

“I don’t need it so screw you mate” WoW

Btw NBN prices are cheaper per Gig then what we have now, you know this right? you can paid more for a crapper service but some of us like shopping around and getting the best bang for our buck.

Fed Up says:

03:28pm | 17/12/12

No…if you want to go faster than what i have you’re going to pay more.
Frankly i dont see the need to go faster than fast.
My bill includes landline,mobile and broadband ( 500 Gigs per mth)...averages out between $160-$180 per month depending on the o’seas calls.
There’s no need to have the NBN everywhere…BIG waste of the tax payers dollar

TheRealDave says:

03:52pm | 17/12/12

Yep - this is the typical LNP attitude - I’m alright Jack…but come the day I’m not - then it will be everyone elses fault!

Funny, its always the same LNP supporters that keep claiming its going to cost you ‘more’ despite the fact that every major ISP in the country has a web site with a plan pricing page that shows the NBN connections are either the same price or cheaper with higher data caps AND much much much faster connections.

For example, I already pay $100 a month PLUS local call charges on my VOIP phone…..lets call it $110 a month (doesn’t go much higher than that). For that I get 400gb in data and connect at around 16-17mb. Again, unlike LNP shill accounts I don’t get the full ADSL2 speeds because of cable length and quality….apparently every LNP shill account lives IN the exchange cause they all claim they get 20Mb or better already….*rolls eyes*...from the same provider I will be jumping straight in their $100 a month plan that will offer me 1Tb of data..yes a whole Terabyte….or 1000Gb if you prefer AND they’ll give me a 100/40 connection?!?! Thats 100Mb coming down and 40mb going out. No more Telstra strangling upload data to preserve their extortion on voice/data lines!!!! You cannot ever compare the value.

Of course….a 3G dongle also rocks…apparently…..when it can connect….

SimpleSimon says:

04:02pm | 17/12/12

@Fed Up - your experience is atypical, and your analysis short-sighted. It’s atypical because there are a huge number (arguably the majority) of Australians who can’t get what you term “fast” connections, let alone reliably, because of the infrastructure Telstra has built. Corner cutting has resulted in a big slice of the fixed line telecommunications market pie - myself included - who are technologically unable to get a decent broadband connection. The NBN will rectify that huge failing.

It is short sighted because, once the NBN rolls out, services will become available that do utilise the “faster than fast” speeds. And, once that connection IS typical, those who elected to opt-out of the NBN will be members of the second-tier telecommunications world (as I am now) and simply unable to enjoy things that those on fibre connections will be taking for granted.

Bob says:

04:19pm | 17/12/12

I should mention I vote Liberal. However, the NBN is good. Was it worth Conroy’s price of internet censorship? Not at all. However it’s good and it’s necessary. Fiber has lower maintenance costs, is capable of vastly more, and this is something that has to happen sooner or later. Our copper network is decayed, outdated and just not worth keeping alive. Also, prices drop as time goes on. I’ve seen dramatic price decreases over the last five years along.

TheRealDave says:

03:56pm | 17/12/12

You’d think that a political party that allegedly supports the business community would be keen to embrace anything that will improve business efficiencies, productivity, availablity, external relationships AND cost less per month on the company bottom line…wouldn’t you??

Apparently not, but only because it wasn’t their idea….

St. Michael says:

05:56pm | 17/12/12

I can speak for iiNet.  In short, a shitload better service than Tree, Telstruck, and SubOptimal put together.  Yes, you do have waiting times, and the Indian call centre thing is there, but they actually seem to know what they’re doing, which is always nice.  Never had a significant problem with them, and if I did have a minor problem they usually got it fixed during that call or within 24 hours maximum.  Thoroughly recommend them.

Pro says:

12:08pm | 17/12/12

When you pay $130 a month to have internet that only works a quarter the speed it’s supposed to and not when the phone is busy, you kinda want your moneys worth. Btw i may sound insensitive, but we shouldn’t worry about the 3rd world problems until we fixed our own here, internet ranking last on our to do list. All we do about the developing countries is give money which doesn’t end up in the right hands anyway. So, you go on and worry about the rest of the world. Go live there, without your 3G internet, clothes, computer, food, water, home. Think of the bright side. You won’t be paying bills or a mortgage!

TheRealDave says:

03:59pm | 17/12/12

Exhibit two - fast internet is ONLy for porn and pirates.

Yup, lack of originality is also a common LNP shill account trait.

Bob says:

04:23pm | 17/12/12

Wireless is a crap solution for the masses. Plus, roughly half the developed world’s economy relies on the internet in one way or another. It’s worth it. My one hope with this government was that it survived until the NBN was progressed enough that it would be necessary to keep working on it. Beyond that, the failure has been epic.