NBN Providers ??

[VK4ADC]

We are expecting that FTTN NBN will be connected at the home QTH within a month or two. 

We have started receiving NBN leaflets in the letterbox and I have visited a few provider websites but they aren't going to tell the real story.

Given that there are so many NBN providers around, I am wondering if existing NBN users can provide feedback on the "good ones" (in their experience) as I have yet to select a provider.....

TIA
Doug VK4ADC

PS Preferably providers with static IP options.

[VK2MUS]

I too expect to have connection very soon - if you are already connected to the internet why not stay with your current provider if you are happy with their service - I have been with the same provider (Aussiebroadband) for many years first on satellite when on the farm then adsl when I moved to town - very happy with their service and have never had a complaint against them I will simply change plans with them - the NBN plans are basically the same no matter what provider you get and basically the same price so the decision basis is Service alone. If you are happy with your current service then stay with that provider.

With the fibre to the node the problems are not provider problems it is NBN problems so no matter which provider you get if the copper is overloaded all providers on that line will have the same problems
John

[VK4ADC]

John

I might stay with the same provider BUT the plan options would be higher than most of the other NBN providers I have seen so far. The cost involved in the ADSL plus phone from them at the moment ( about $120 per month) would be continued the same under NBN without relief (their statement), while others are doing effectively the same configuration plans a fair bit lower in price. 

Hence my question about alternative providers. Others ??

Doug

[VK4SMJ]

I just got the NBN on. I stayed with my ISP i've had for years.. Mainly because I didnt need to change email etc.

I went from 12meg ADSL, too 100meg FTTN(VDSL2) for less! Remember there is no line rental fee for the phone, its all 1 in the same with the NBN Plus now as all calls are VOIP, the few calls i make are 18cents. There are a few ISP's that have free VOIP.

My advise would be to choose 1 of the big 3 just to be safe. (TPG(iiNET, Internode, westnet all owned by TPG) Optus, or even Hellstra)

[VK2MUS]

if they are charging $120 I would certainly go and find another provider- they would be ripping you off at that price - moving from ADSL to NBN would in most cases be a lower cost.

For voip I currently pay $20 a month which gives me unlimited free national calls including calls to mobiles when I swap to the NBN I pay the same.

[VK2CSW]

Oh to have these problems.

"Maybe 2020" is the latest date...

[VK3ALB]

I'm with iiNet on their 25Mbps unlimited plan FTTN. It includes local, national and mobile calls. They transferred my phone number to their included voip service and I just plugged my cordless phone into the socket on the back of the router. One thing I found disturbing was they asked me to waive my rights to a minimum service guarantee for the VOIP service or they "might not be able to provide any service to our premises". Consumer affairs advised that they are within their rights to do so. Only Telstra must adhere to a minimum service guarantee for voip.

The cut over service was rough and they messed up our mailboxes, sent us emails while we had no mailboxes and no service advising of new accounts and passwords. The support people on the phone did not understand the stupidity of such a process.  Since iiNet were taken over by TPG their phone support is appalling.

We live 20km from Geelong and I guess that makes us rural. There are pockets of FTTP in our town but it is unlikely that will become the reality for most of us any time soon.

We have about 800m of cable from our house to the node. Speed tests from a Linux box on my home network regularly report download speeds between 18 to 22 Mbps but I think the reality is much less. before I cut over my ADSL service was providing around 7Mbps. I do not use Ookla, I think it lies. 

Overnight I downloaded 7.5GB broken down into 15 files. I used FTP from a reliable server. Each file took on average 3300 seconds to download. Do the maths, it is nowhere near 25Mbps.  

Read VK2OMD's blog re download speed vs nominal plan speeds for iiNet. I concur with his findings. Having said that, a friend in Geelong (also with iiNet) has just sent me a screenshot of his Ookla speed test showing 519Mbps download. He lives a few km from the iiNet exchange in Geelong and receives his service via the Optus cable in the street.

I made a saving of $25/month over my ADSL plan with the same company and my service hasn't really changed for normal internet use including Netflix, Stan, Youtube etc. I can't say I'm at a disadvantage moving to NBN. I do question the crap we've been fed by nearly everyone about how great the NBN will be. Your mileage will vary and you cannot hold anyone to account for what you ultimately receive from your chosen ISP.

[VK4NJ]

I'm with MyRepublic - a new ISP from OS started early Nov last year, had many startup issues but these seemed to have been smoothed out now.
In a nutshell they will give you 100Mbps or the best they can (within NBN) to your location at a base price - and unlimited. I have FTTN and get 104Mbps from the node, but from the node out onto NBN land it can vary with time/traffic etc but mostly see anywhere from 70-98Mbps. Distance from the node is around 200m or so. Unfortunately as this area was one of the first to get FTTN it will one of the last to ever get FTTP if ever...

Andy
VK4NJ
Bribie Island.

[VK3YCQ]

I have been using NBN FTTN for about 6 months now, at a nominal maximum speed of 50 Mbps, unlimited download and VOIP included with all local and national calls included (but not mobile). The provider is Tangerine, which I found out later is a Richard Branson company (Virgin).

I bought the recommended modem/router from them, which is 'unlocked' which translates to 'the user can fiddle with all the settings'. This can be a double-edged sword, particularly as the Netcomm AC has a particularly user-hostile menu system. If you do not feel confident in changing the settings you can of course get help... just be sure you have a mobile phone, because your new VOIP service will not be working! Also, NEVER trust your ISP to care a damn if they 'accidentally' left remote admin switched on in your modem. It is up to the user to make sure the settings are NOT manipulated from afar. It is quite possible for the address of the DNS to be shifted to 'who-knows-what', and also for your VOIP incoming calls to be diverted to 'who-knows-where'. This happened to me. After I spent a day or two scanning the computer for trojans, viruses and other nasties, the penny dropped and I discovered the DNS hijack which no virus scanner will ever pick up. Never again will I fully trust the Tangerine technical help, although I should have known better... but I just wanted the damn thing to work, particularly the VOIP, as I needed it for emergencies. Big mistake.

Every provider advertises an optimistic, positive vision about the NBN, but the reality is somewhat less wonderful than the vision.

In my experience it is not the speed that is the crucial factor, it is the reliability. And remember, as the user, you contribute quite a bit: the reliability of the power feeding the modem/router; the susceptibility of the cabling to interference from radio-frequency sources; the reliability of those cheap RJ-type crimp connectors and the rather cheap cable used. Believe me, the call centre help will get you to check all of these things and put the blame at your end before checking anything else. I saw one installation (yes, it was Telstra) which was an absolute nighmare, with cables being tripped over, the modem router 'tucked away' into a spot that guaranteed the WiFi signal would never escape, the wall -wart power supply in to a dodgy power point... need I continue? What a disaster!

The modem-router I purchased has been known to spontaneously reset itself; once it went into a strange mode where incoming calls simply didn't get through. I have had to do a hardware reset more than once, re-loading the configuration file that I previously saved. I wonder how on earth non-technical people will ever be able to make the NBN work when the call-centre help seems to speak a strange dialect and the menus on your router are about as indecipherable.

The system here seems to have stabilised, to give the ISP credit where credit is due. I now go weeks without a disconnect. But there were a few times where there were 10, 15 even twenty disconnects a day! Try streaming Netpics movies or loading stuff to Faceache or Twitbook or using your VOIP under such conditions! Many times I was ready to find another ISP and tell the present mob to take a hike. But the rest of the time, the system works. The speed of the connection is fantastically fast compared to my old ADSL2+. The VOIP quality is very good. I did not have to get any extra cabling to get the NBN installed.

It remains to be seen if the system holds up in peak season, because I live in a tourist precinct that swells in population at least tenfold in the summer months, and they all want to use the interwebs to watch cricket or whatever it is tourists do. We shall see.

I bought myself a mobile phone in case the VOIP fails when I need it. That's progress for you, a previously reliable telephone network trashed by neglect, and now we have this forced VOIP stuff that simply isn't as reliable.

Take the advice in another post and go with the big providers, if you dare. Good luck with that! My spies tell me they are just as bad as the smaller players. They seem to all use overseas call centres, although I could be wrong.

Ian VK3YCQ

[VK4ADC]

All

Thanks for the varying comments. It looks like the NBN experiences are like Forrest Gump's proverbial box of chocolates.

I will either try out Exetel or will stay with the current provider and try to talk them down in $$$ since I have been a customer for about 7-8 years.  One of my criteria is a static IP address but most NBN providers only seem to allocate them to their business plans or don't say anything at all about static IPs.

Regardless, step one seems to be to save the router configuration file (as supplied by the provider) to a PC before trying to make any adjustments. I have always done this after the setup is actually working but usually not beforehand.


The NBN providers all seem to suggest 2-3 weeks for a changeover (even from ADSL ?) but that surely is not the "disconnected time". It would have to cover the paperwork trail to arrange the physical connection change and the actual disconnected time would only be more like a day.


I have a wireless "hotspot device" with an active SIM card plus a mobile so I can handle a short-ish interruption ok. 

My QTH is about 200-250 metres from the closest green FTTN NBN termination box along the footpath so I would anticipate quite a healthy connect rate even if I only go for the likes of a 25/5 plan.

Thanks all for the guidance.

73 Doug

[VK3ALB]

My ISP gave me a 12 hour cut over window 2 weeks forward from when I placed my order. To their credit, the cut over happened in that window and the outage was only a couple of hours.

On the subject of speed, I think we are all at the mercy of the service offered by our ISP.  Download speed is the most obvious feature of internet plans and the cost of plans is tied to this nominal speed.

I agree with Ian's sentiments that reliability, service and support are a big part of any plan and judging by comments on whirlpool and telecommunication ombudsman pages all ISPs can (at times) be tarred with the same brush.

I suggest you run some kind of speed test to get a baseline of your service before and after cut over. In my opinion the normal speed tests do not tell the full story. In my case, I need to download large files for work and this activity shows my service in a different light to the popular speed tests.

This site give you the ability to download big files using FTP and HTTP and get a real feel for the performance of your service. The tests I've made against this site confirm what I see when downloading files for work. http://speedtest.ftp.otenet.gr/

[VK4NJ]

Another point re FTTN technology using VDSL2 is to keep copper runs as short as possible as VDSL is not as forgiving as ADSL.

From the node to the pit at the front of my house the distance is around 200-250m. When first fired up I was connecting to the node at around 86Mbps, however from the pit into the house via a termination box there was at lest another 40-50m copper run and was this was also split into 3x parallel runs to other parts of the house. I disconnected the unused copper pairs at the termination box so to only have one direct pair to modem and the connected sync rate from the node to modem increased to 104Mbps.

Andy
VK4NJ