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Does your NBN carrier make a difference

Does your NBN carrier make a difference

Picking a carrier

Here is a list of carriers on the NBN Gee, a long list and which one to pick?

Going back a bit NBN Co is purely a wholesaler of product and they have selected carriers to resell their product.

A problem exists for many when the carriers offer tiers of service. For instance, Telstra NBN services are also supplied by Beyond, They are just a cheaper version of the same product both owned and operated by Telstra.
In many cases with the tiered carriers, your access to support is often limited. I recently had an issue with a hosted phone system. My query went to our carrier who then had to go to their carrier who then had to go to NBN for an answer,
The result was days of wasted time.

Choosing a product

When you go to The NBN you have several choices to make depending on your needs.
Upload speed, the most common, download speed and amount of data used. More

You can also choose a basic service, medium or business grade. The difference is how much you are slowed during peak hours. For a home, not a problem, for a business may be.

Adding value

With your NBN service, you also have your Voice channels and lines. You will be provided options depending on your needs. Either an all calls inclusive package at a set value of for those that don’t make many calls a price per call.

This will be bundled in with your NBN service and most likely be saving you money.

Furthermore, you will be able to keep your current telephone number and use it on the new service.

Installation

Most likely you will require new equipment a Modem at the very least. This may be included in your package if you sign for a 12 or 24-month term. Generally, it is just a matter of plugging in a couple of cables and making a phone call to have it up and running. They have made it easy

Conclusion

In conclusion, there are a lot of decisions to make and we make it easy for you.

Finally, tell us what you want and let us quote you on an ideal package.

Peter Hanley

March 14, 2018
NBN news the Rabbit Hole

NBN news the Rabbit hole.

I was asked recently by my friend should they sign up to the NBN?

My Reply was to remind them of the fable Alice in Wonderland. Alice is enticed into the Rabbit hole and enters a whole new world. She does not do this quickly and has to be enticed if my memory serves me well

NBN is a bit like that, It carries so many unknowns and is a bit scary

Your Choice

The idea with our Broadband network is to have everyone use it. They are taking phone calls away from the copper network and replacing them on the NBN network so you share Data and Voice on the one network.

This means that if you don’t go to NBN you cannot have phone numbers for your home or business.the time for this is generally 18 months after it is available in your area.

Costing of this.

In the olden days last year an ADSL link would cost about $35. A telephone line about $28 and your phone calls at about $60 home use total about $123.

Internet speed was usually between 1.6 and 8 Mbps..
Now in these modern times, the above package costs less than $80 a month with speeds between 12 and 100 Mbps.
( iinet 25 Mbps plan unlimited downloads and phone calls. Others are cheaper)

If speed is important to you fix it

Many carriers now offer speed packages that better manage your speeds during busy periods. Now a normal home user it does not matter. A business or trader may want to pay a little extra to have a constant fast stream.

It is available from most carriers

The future

Technology is advancing to meet the telcos planned average per user at about 40 Mbps. This is currently under 20Mbps so we have a way to go.

NBN have reduced pricing to the resellers and both FFN and FTTC technologies have improved rapidly. The figure they want to achieve is in line with the developed countries actual.

You can not compare, say Singapore with Australia or other small nation countries because of distance and capacity.

Although saying that I believe within 5 years we will be able to buy speeds at an amazing 1000 Mbps. An early trial has achieved these levels.

Conclusion

The rabbit hole is not all that bad. But like any unknown venture, it puts fear into the heads of the wary.

My oft-heard comment is that most complaints come from those that can’t get NBN and that they are happy with

2 Mbps speed on the Internet. Give me a break I can’t think that slowly let alone work at it. I went to a customer recently that achieved the lower speed, I had to log in and do some changes to a procedure, After waiting for the computer to catch up I threw my hands in the air and said I will leave it until I get home. Impossible.

The trick is to pick a carrier that you can trust and will deliver.

Ask me how.

March 13, 2018
NBN News speed tests

A lot is asked of the NBN news and speed tests so we want to discover just what is happening

Different speed tests on the NBN

OK, today I thought I would do an experiment on speed tests for the NBN or any internet plan.

I selected an IINet 25 plans and chose from the internet several testing resumes

My favorite is usually Telstra which delivered an upload speed of

Telstra 23.8 Mbps

Ookla 23.9

OZ 23.18

iinet 24.109

So all in a close grouping and any result acceptable. This was mid-afternoon on a Sunday so probably the best case.

Time of day speed tests on the NBN

There is no doubt that the time of day can make a difference. In fact one day recently I was down to about 15Mbps

This is still an acceptable speed but channel stuffing ( as I call it) really has an effect.

This is when a lot of local activity takes place and your bandwidth delivery is compromised.

Can you do anything about this. Yes you can and we will explain more.

Your plans and speed tests on the NBN

Many companies now offer a variety of plans in the selected speed.

Light plan at say $75 Standard plan at $85 and Premium at $95 each per month

This is not a lot extra to maintain a consistent speed within a narrow band if your usage is in that band.

Certainly, the after-school period is probably the most affected. If you are winding down your day then it does not really matter.

The variables in speed are not related to the choice of plan. Everyone should be able to achieve

close to a 12Mbps plan where ever you are on a fixed network. Even 50 Mbps should be available in

most cases. The distance parameter then comes into play and only after connecting your service will they tell you your available speed.

They will not sell you a 100 plan if you have no way of achieving it. Or should I say they will sell you a 100 plan but then if it can not be achieved after you have signed up and connected offer you a consideration to dropping to a level of acceptance.
The number of attachments.

Your in-house/ business connection will be shared by many users. Voice traffic, mobile phones, laptops, computers, smart TV among the more common. You have some control but it takes management to stop some congestion when you are all on the go at one time.

Furthermore, ensure your plan is not shared with your neighbours.

WIFI and speed tests on the NBN

This is an interesting area and the answer depends again on variables.

In my home network, the modem is Upstairs and my Home office downstairs. Because I use a server it did not have an internal modem and I needed to purchase a plugin. This is easy to do, slip it into a port download the DVD and do the setup.

My speed was only around 8MBPS a disaster.

WIFI signals drift upward so Idea number one was moving the modem downstairs which required cabling. Idea two was to cable downstairs and these options were canned due to cost.
Solution. Buy a cable extender and move the dongle away from the computer by a small amount and achieve exactly what I wanted.

The difference in speed by my upstairs wired connection to my downstairs WiFi connection is negligible. Sometimes this just needs a bit of thought.

Conclusion

You can do small things to improve your consistent speed and maintain control of some of your destiny.

Buy a plan to suit.

Maximize your connections

Limit users.

Good security.

Modem placement

Lastly, enjoy speeds we have not seen in the past.

Home

March 11, 2018
Will FTTC help speeds on NBN

Will FTTC help speeds on NBN

Firstly the question will FTTC help speeds on NBN is a very important one as it changes the whole dynamics of The Industry.

What is Fibre to the Curb or FTTC

The original NBN model dreamed of having Fibre Optic running right to your premises.

Because this was great in theory but deemed too expensive and importantly it would take too long to install a National network.

Therefore to save money and time the Fibre to a Node network was envisaged as a game saver.

However, new Fibre went to a local node and then they used existing Copper the rest of the way. The problem with this is that it is distance dependent. Any copper lengths over about 400 meters killed the speed fairly drastically.

The principal of NBN

The NBN was floated on a principal of having a choice of speed. 12,25,50 or 100Mbps. Just pay for what you get.

On top of this many subscribers were connected on the old Optus and Foxtel networks so they would get good speed anyway. Wrong. As they found out the old network is falling apart and that with all good estimates It could not be made to work properly.

Half of NBN customers are now stuck on 50 Mbps or less. Old networks and distance problems caused havoc and lots of threats to sue were in the air.

If you are on the Internet you will understand that Technology changes quickly and consequently the speed of change is often brought about by necessity.

FTTC a product of necessity

With The old HFC network failing something had to be done quickly. NBN had stopped all work on the network leaving around 6 million subscribers in the cold. More here

Suddenly the cost of FTTC came down and provided a viable alternative to an expensive problem.

Initial trials in NSW and Vic are encouraging and If you are in the trial area consider yourself blessed.

The Future of FTTC

It is believed that once the Bunky FTTN network is installed retrofitting will take place. Now it is not next year but it will happen. NBN want to run at world standards with an average speed of over 50Mbps and to achieve that we really need to up our game.

Finally, this is just a brief summary of the problem. You can read endlessly about it but the fact is we want a Network where we all have a choice. To do that NBN must lift their game.

In conclusion

Most of all the NBN is a necessity to our continent. For too long, we have put up with an inferior product and this takes us a step closer to a world standard.

Peter Hanley

Home

March 6, 2018
NBN and FTTC technologies

NBN and FTTC technology

The introduction of FTTC

FTTC (fibre to the curb) was first introduced as a replacement for Optus’ Hybrid-Fibre Coaxial (HFC) cable network.
Due to this all installation with HFC were recently stopped pending investigations into performance.

We are told that NBN has confirmed that it will deploy FTTC in areas where the use of Optus’ HFC network was planned.

An exception being the already launched network in Redcliffe, Queensland.

Reportedly Leaked NBN documents published by Fairfax last year revealed internal concerns about the quality of the Hybrid-Fibre.
Coaxial (HFC) cable, describing it as “not fully fit for purpose”. The documents suggested that some Optus equipment had reached the end of its life and would need replacing.

Since adding FTTC to its bundle of technologies, NBN Co has expanded the scope of the FTTC rollout.

The new technology t will be now be used instead of FTTN in select areas. We believe that the cost of this technology has come down allowing a greater roll-out. Trials have been run in NSW and Victoria and speeds of up to a Gigabyte are possible.

NBN G.fast, what is it?

G.fast is a new technology for carrying faster broadband signals over existing copper wires. This is achieved by adding spectrum to copper, which could be seen as the technology equivalent of adding additional lanes to a highway.

The G.fast standard allows the NBN to get more mileage out of old copper. When testing with G.fast in a Fibre-to-the-Building deployment, NBN was able to achieve speeds of 600Mbps across a 100 metre stretch of 20-year-old copper.

G.fast was designed for copper lines shorter than 250 metres.

This is ideal for a technology like FTTC and means FTTC connections will eventually be able to deliver speeds of up to 1Gbps.

Can I upgrade FTTC to FTTP?

NBN Co offers a “Technology Choice Program” where you can change what technology you use to connect to the NBN.
After FTTC connections become available, there won’t be anything stopping you from requesting an “Individual Premises Switch” to FTTP.

This would see NBN Co remove the final stretch of copper and replace it with fibre optic cable directly to your house.

NBN has yet to provide details on the pricing of an Individual Premise Switch for FTTC customers.
An initial quote will set you back $660. The network builder currently says a premise switch can cost anywhere between a couple of thousand and tens of thousands of dollars.

Given the smaller amount of fibre optic cable required to change a FTTC connection to FTTP, we’d expect a switch to FTTC to be on the lower side of that scale.

Just having FTTC would immediately allow full 100Mbps speeds to any premises regardless of the distance from the local Node.

In conclusion and as an NBN user, supporter and sometimes critic I believe this technology would eliminate most of the complaints against NBN.

Consequently complains with regard to speed and technology would mostly be eliminated.
Plus we would increase the use of higher spend bands.
Furthermore this, in turn, increases the NBN revenue stream and assists our passage to a world standard High-speed Internet.

Peter Hanley

March 2, 2018
NBN update 2018

NBN update 2018.

The best news is the early arrival of FTTC that will allow vastly increased speeds both up and download without a price hike.

Introduced to a trial 200,000 customers throughout NSW and Victoria FTTC showed that speed deterioration is a thing of the past.

In Fact, speeds off up to a gigabyte will be available on the technology.

What does it all mean

What is the difference between the current FTTN service?

Fibre to the node service uses fibre to the node but then copper wire to your premises. This copper connection dramatically slows the speed at a distance over 400 meters which is experienced by many of us now.

The new system still uses the node network but adds a fibre link to the front of your driveway. The only copper is from there to your computer. This means no slow down of the service and the 100Mbps maximum speed available to any connection.

Evidently, new cost parameters have made a jump in technology more available to the consumers. This is really exciting stuff as it moves our connection technology into a new era.

The growth of the network

Furthermore, the growth of connections continues to increase with 95% of households and businesses in design, construction or ready for connection said NBN CEO bill Morrow in a recent statement.

NBN grew their revenue from $403 million in the year ending December 2017 to $ 891 million for 2018 a handy figure indeed.

There are reportedly 6.1 million premises ready to connect and in December 2017 around 3.4 million paying customers.

Downsides include the HFC network plans still in technology trials as they try to work a fix. This will affect many subscribers who used the old Optus or Foxtel network as they are unable to connect until the problems are resolved.
FTTC is being considered as an option to replace the ageing HFC
Infrastructure

In Conclusion, I believe that NBN is happy with the performance to date. They are also confident that they can achieve that 2020 destination target.

Finally, we will keep you posted if they will go back to the FTTN customers and start an upgrade path to have us all on FTTC.

Peter Hanley

Home

February 28, 2018
NBN Benefits 4

NBN Benefits 4

We are up to NBN benefits 4 Looking at why the NBN is good for every Australian.

As Internet users, we needed a national system available to all users that would eventually pay for itself.

Over the past Decade, we have had a host of broadband companies putting Fibre into the ground to operate fast internet.

Capital cities had it all

Nearly all of this went into the capital cities and was not available for the average punter.In fact, in many cities, multiple companies had fibre to compete for the big end of town.
Didn’t do us any good as we were out of the city by a couple of Kms.
Telstra, who owned and operated the ADSL service worked on a profitable basis and had no need or desire to cover the hard areas where it was expensive to service a community. These communities included a lot of very well known areas where speeds were below 2 Mbps and there was nothing you could do about it.

Now, I am the first to admit that the NBN system being installed is not world leading but it is designed to deliver High-speed Internet to the masses.

What do the masses want?

The masses only want 25Mbps if the take up in Australia is any indication. Over 80% of applicants have opted for this speed.
Home and small business are by a long way the mass market and they have spoken.

The NBN is capable of delivering this speed in almost all cases except satellite areas so where are the problems?

As well, NBN will up this with pricing incentives to increase the uptake to 50Mbps as the new average.
Why would they do that?
The simple answer is they want to look good in the standards achieved across developed nations. It really is just makeup.
No doubt 25Mbps is more than adequate for home and small business if you take out the high rollers that are gaming or gambling. It will cover voice and data at a good speed.

The only change you will see is a better service at a better overall price delivering mostly world standard service.

Most complaints come from those without NBN.

Regards Peter Hanley

What’s good on the NBN 3

February 27, 2018
What’s good on the NBN4

What’s good on the NBN4 carries on our discussion on the benefits of the Broadband network.

Are there still more good things?

Are there still more NBN good things to go. Well, hell yea and one of the best.

Speed my friend, good old Download speed and upload if that is important.

Client tales.

Spoke to a country client today who is hesitant to go to NBN because of all the scary stories.

So, I guess you are happy where you are at I said. Let’s do a speed test whilst we are online
I said, try the Telstra one it is easy and quick.

When he said his download was good for the day I thought he was pretty lucky.

His download speed was 1.8Mbps he boasted to me, up from last week.
When I picked myself off the floor and the belly laughing stopped, I explained that was an
awful result and one that I could not work with.

I also rang my Daughter the other day an Optus user who stated her speed was Ok. So,
I said what is it and the rely was 19, no, that’s the ping time I said the next one, yes 2.2 Mbps
Oh, glory be so fast, Not.

Went to a client recently who had phone problems, I needed to log inter her spare computer to set up
a dashboard for her. I threw my hands in the air and shouted, I can’t work at this speed to her shock
she thought that the 2Mbps was quite good.

There are still so many homes and businesses suffering from third world internet.

What was internet speed?

Previously I had reasonable ADSL2 at between 6-8 Mbps, mostly at the higher figure. So, not a lot of problems.
Now at nearly 25 Mbps, I am working OK for a home office.

I will agree the carriers do mess with the speed and play games with channel loading and peak time deterioration but generally, they are now OK. I am here typing at 4.45 in the afternoon, kids are home from School, gamers are out and I still managed a 9-second ping, and 23Mbps upload and 4.5 Mbps download.

I pay for 25 Mbps download so I sit comfortably with that. Now, where are you at? NBN speed tests.

What speed should you pay for and what can you use?

It is deemed that from 25 Mbps is considered a high-speed network and nearly 80% of connected Australians have chosen that speed. The push will be on to move users up the channel because the average speed affects our world ranking. The target is an average over 40Mbps so we need a lot of users above the line. It will get cheaper and I for one will move with the times.

The Internet use is currently increasing dramatically and we are just on the up curve of the scale.

The advent of items like Google home has added a single new dimension to so many households.
Do I have one? Yes, it was a present but just another device on my network.

Where are we heading with the NBN

It was not that long ago that the internet would drive just a single devise in a computer but add them up now. Our house alone has two computers, two laptops, an I-pad, Google chrome plus every Grandkid has the pass to log in when they are here. Our mobiles swap to a local network when we are home and now consider the following

TV’s, fridges, alarms, printers, CCTV’s the list goes on and all in one single house.
Oh, and the big one is all the home telephone voice traffic to add another user.
If you have a gamer in the house you really have a need.

They are all going to eat your bandwidth and we will move with the demand to need higher capacity
as the world changes to a cloud environment.

Is the NBN a lousy model?

It is argued by some that our NBN is a lousy model and that it will not deliver what we need.
Is it better than ADSL, yes, by a country mile, is it world standard, not yet but some of that is growing pains and the capacity will come as they expand the base? It is the best available at this time yes it is and it does deliver what most of us need.

Fear not the NBN because it will deliver what you want now and bring more to the table in the future.

Peter Hanley

NBN1

NBN2
NBN3

February 22, 2018
NBN speed test

NBN speed tests

Here we look at NBN speed test and what it means to the average punter.

I had a conversation today with a guy in Queensland, he stated no way he would go to the NBN because he had heard all bad reports and was really happy with ADSL 2.

We talked about speed and I asked him to do a speed test. The answer was 1.5Mbps download speed.

That, my friends, is precisely why the NBN is necessary.

NBN and what you pay for.

You are paying for a speed of 12Mbps with ADSL 2 and you only get a couple of megabytes why aren’t you unhappy and screaming from the roof? They are with NBN, they are suing Telstra and Optus for just that reason.

The majority that achieves a good service never complain the few that do get messed up are very vocal.

I will say again, most of the complaints come from those that don’t have the NBN just like my Qld friend.

Working at fewer than 2 Mbps is like driving a T Model Ford. It gets you where you want to go but would you want that every trip you went on? It is ridiculous that speeds like that have been pushed down our necks for years without an alternate option.

NBN Speed tests

Anyone can do a speed test, just type speed test into your computer and choose from a selection. The one I prefer and use mostly is Telstra You will get three indicators, Ping, the time to connect to a server, Download speed what you pay for and Upload speed that follows download.

Speeds will vary with the time of day unless you take a premium package that ensures a constant speed.

If you are on NBN you should get a minimum of 12Mbps, that’s actually quite a handy speed but nearly 85% of those signing for NBN went for a 25Mbps package.

With ADSL-2 It could be anything, I was lucky and regularly managed about 8Mbps but many of my friends are in the very low numbers.

In conclusion, I have written a lot more on speed at Fig-solutions

Peter Hanley

February 22, 2018
NBN and faxing

NBN and faxing are somewhat of a misnomer because NBN does not do faxing nor intend to in the future. So what do you do when the NBN comes to town and you still need a fax service?

Who needs a fax

Who still needs a fax and it is worth the cost?

Unfortunately, a lot of work is still done on the humble fax machine in medical, building, government and of course marketing.

It is my belief that having a fax number also shows an element of caring for your customers by offering a choice of communications medium.

I am being specific to the Australian market because in the USA as in many other countries the fax is still a supreme and legal medium.

NBN does not provide a fax service nor will they in the future. It is interesting that a lot of carriers that are trading the NBN have also stayed away from a fax service.

What does this mean to you?

Well, first up you will lose the fax number you have had for years and is probably printed on every bit of literature you own.
They can’t do that you might say, well yes they can and yes they will.

All normal telephone services disappear about 18 months after NBN appears in your area. No telephone line, no fax number and no way to recover, all over red rover.

I have reviewed several business telephone bills recently that have moved to the NBN. They have all shown a PSTN fax line and number that is set to expire. Were they told? NO, they were not because the carrier did not have an option to supply to them.No NBN and faxing.

How does Fax to email work?

Somewhere in a back office ( ok the cloud) is a machine that captures your incoming fax and converts it to email and sends it to your email address with any attachments.
It is the same going the other way you address an email to fax number@abc cloud.com and it goes to the same machine that changes your email to a fax and sends it to the right number.

Like any service, there are good ones and not so good but the principle remains the same.

It will save you a bundle of money.

First up a fax service from a tier one grade supplier is cheaper than your fax line probably by at least $6 a month.

Next is the cost of the machine with, power, maintenance, drums and extras to keep it working.

We also must consider peripherals like paper, ink, toner etc that really add to the cost line.
Finally, and most importantly is labour. Standing around a machine fixing paper jams, waiting on an incoming fax, feeding countless pages into the beast, copying to electronic files cost you money.

With a fax to email, it is Save, forward or delete, pretty damn simple.

The email to fax advantage.

Every desk can be a fax service to send an email to fax and attach pages of details. You just register the user and agree to pay the outgoing fax rates and away you go.

A local or national fax with 8 pages of attachment will cost you from around $ 0.10 fax, probably a lot less than you are paying now. so more savings.

Good for the Environment

Because there is no need for chemicals or waste of any kind you are doing your small part to save the world.

One service I recommend is Vonex, tier 1 grade service that works at a very reasonable price. You can’t buy from Vonex because they are the wholesaler but you can get the service through me.

You can have a new fax number in your state range, a 1300 number or churn your number to them at a small fee.

Contact me link

Call me on 1800116116

Peter Hanley

February 17, 2018