I have recently upgraded to FTTP as my area had fiber installed a couple of months ago. I am now on the lowest 100/20 plan that I need to get the FTTP upgrade.
I have to say, I haven't really noticed the improved speed. Sure, it technically gets those speeds when you test it and download large files, but for everything else I do, a low speed plan is more than adequate.
Has anybody bothered with the real high speed plans at 1000/50 Mbps? I just can't imagine what you would need them for.
I think I was happy using 12/1 Mbps plans when watching streaming services, and only upgraded to a higher upload speed to support video conferencing for work.
Have I gotten it all wrong and FTTN was the best technology to use afterall? 
We are still on fttn and can get about 37 Mbps max. I'm on 25/10 plan which is perfectly fine for us.
The only issue I have with fttn is with pits get occasionally full of water in winter and we get dropouts. Usually it gets sorted within few days after calling helpdesk.
It will only get worse as the copper wiring ages.
I'm in IT and also a cheap ar$3 and I see no reason to upgrade.
If you feel you don't need 100/20 on fttp, check if there is a cheaper 4G plan and cancel fttp service?
Select to expand quotegs12 said..
We are still on fttn and can get about 37 Mbps max. I'm on 25/10 plan which is perfectly fine for us.
The only issue I have with fttn is with pits get occasionally full of water in winter and we get dropouts. Usually it gets sorted within few days after calling helpdesk.
It will only get worse as the copper wiring ages.
I'm in IT and also a cheap ar$3 and I see no reason to upgrade.
If you feel you don't need 100/20 on fttp, check if there is a cheaper 4G plan and cancel fttp service?
My FTTN service was pretty reliable. I think it tested as 61mbps down and 32 up or something like that, but I ran it on the next plan above 12/1 only because of the need for video conferencing. If I had a choice, I would keep it as a backup... that's my legacy of being in comms for ages.
I upgraded because it is free in some cases, and you only need to be on the 'fast' plans for a minimal amount of time and supposedly can then change down to the lower grades.
I have an IT background also, and the only thing I did with FTTN that I think I don't need with FTTP is that I installed a UPS because the VDSL connection sometimes takes ages to resync after a power outage. The power would drop for a minute and the VDSL connection would not be available for almost 15 minutes.
Despite the insistence of my RSP/ISP (ABB) that it is not needed, I have also asked for a battery backup for the NBN service. I know I have seen it before where the power to the street is out but the FTTN service was still working, so why not do the same with FTTP?
NBN seem to be pushing FTTP upgrades in areas where fiber has been installed. I think they are pushing for people to get off of the copper network, but TBH if I were an older person with FTTN, I wouldn't bother until I was forced to. That said, it cost me nothing to upgrade apart from the need to switch to a faster plan... but I spent some money running some conduit so that the NBN stuff would actually be installed in a place I was happy with instead of the easiest place for the installer.
I was a net engineer for quite awhile. Back when sol truliano was winning global awards for charging uploads and no over country's would dare being that much of a dick so the applauded him.
We calculated how big the pile of money would have to be for him to pick it up or to walk past it which would be more profitable
Anyways
Internet speeds
1 word
Rendering
If your not rendering then there's not much else that consumes so much bandwidth even when I was the largest uploader in Australia on themixingbowl.org back when cable was fat it really didn't need that much
But if you start rendering using other computers that aren't local then yeah your gonna need some bandwidth
Or huge networks with lots of nodes all sharing **** so your work from I home requirements etc
Wait your in it formula nova? What's your ocau or tsumea handle ?
The node is on my verge. I'm tempted by the "free" FTTP and 100mbps, but I have a bad feeling it's going to cot me for trenching through and established garden and cabling though the roof of an old house. I enquired about just trying the speed upgrade for 6 months but got annoyed with all the on-selling and withdrew.
If you want (or need) faster speed, look into 4G. My router (Asus) supports 4G WAN and I can simply plug in my mobile and use that as internet. I get around 120Mbps download.
If I were after upgrade I'd be definitely checking out 4G and 5G plans as well as fttp
Select to expand quoteremery said..
The node is on my verge. I'm tempted by the "free" FTTP and 100mbps, but I have a bad feeling it's going to cot me for trenching through and established garden and cabling though the roof of an old house. I enquired about just trying the speed upgrade for 6 months but got annoyed with all the on-selling and withdrew.
We took the upgrade in an old building. The tech was able to get the cable through the old conduit, only because I was there to help him, it took a lot of effort/attempts. The service isn't noticeably better.
Select to expand quoteremery said..
The node is on my verge. I'm tempted by the "free" FTTP and 100mbps, but I have a bad feeling it's going to cot me for trenching through and established garden and cabling though the roof of an old house. I enquired about just trying the speed upgrade for 6 months but got annoyed with all the on-selling and withdrew.
I think NBN are offering it free in areas where they have installed fiber as a way to push people off the copper network. My ISP/RSP doesn't seem to have a minimum period where you have to be on at least 100/20 past the initial month. So to me it is not much of a risk. But I have read that NBN expect people to switch for a reasonable amount of time. I don't know how they do it, but I suspect that each ISP will have some sort of cost that they incur from NBN and approach it differently.
After reading about the disasters on whirlpool with installs I thought I was prepared when the first guy came. I wasn't. It was a wet windy day so he used the excuse that he couldn't lift the roof tiles to run conduit to place the NTD where I wanted it. Instead he told me that I couldn't put it where I wanted it and sort of forced me to put it where I didn't want it to go. Instead of rescheduling it, he just wanted to do the easiest for him and then go. Be warned.
Think that these guys are paid per job and they want to keep the effort down, so your install might be want you want or it might be the minimum they can get away with.
They ended up having to run a new lead-in as the existing one was blocked. So the install was delayed, which gave me a chance to get someone to run some new conduit and place the NTD where I wanted it.
If I were to offer any advice to people it would be to get some conduit of the required type and specs installed to go where you wanted it so that the NBN tech finds it easy to do.
It's funny, the second NBN guy that came to finish the install was much better and very critical of the first guy's workmanship, so your mileage may vary based on who comes to do the work.
Remery, if the node is on your verge your potential FTTN speeds must be pretty good. Have you done a service test to see what the maximum is? If you do go for FTTP, NBN cover the cost of getting to your house, whether it requires trenching and a new lead-in or if they use the existing one. They are supposed to be able to connect the PCD to the NTD whithin 12 metres or so, included, but in reality they will probably want to do a back-to-back install because its faster and easier. So if you have the locations and conduit sorted out you can expect a better install.
Select to expand quoteFroth Goth said..
....
Wait your in it formula nova? What's your ocau or tsumea handle ?
Is this a secret society thing? Nobody told me. I wondered why I was missing out on all the good stuff.
Select to expand quotegs12 said..
If you want (or need) faster speed, look into 4G. My router (Asus) supports 4G WAN and I can simply plug in my mobile and use that as internet. I get around 120Mbps download.
If I were after upgrade I'd be definitely checking out 4G and 5G plans as well as fttp
I remember visiting a place in Rockingham (WA) when they first rolled out 4G. I was getting something ridiculous in download speeds near a local shopping centre, probably because no one else was using it. Now where I live performance is okay but not blazing fast like it was when I first tried it.
Unfortunately unless I am downloading disc images, the speed is lost on me. Especially when I find that the download speed is restricted by the server that is hosting it anyway.
My router is also an ASUS that has the 3G/4G support, but I can't bring myself to switch from a dedicated service.
I joined a few weeks ago...some improvement was noticed.
Telstra sent a notification the FTTN would be switched off eventually and only service via FTTP would be available.
I would recommend doing it while it is still free of charge...it can change and they will start charging (specially at jobs that will require trenching, net pits and conduits etc).
Upgraded from FttN to FttP as part of the NBN fibre upgrade programme a few months ago and it's been great. Admittedly the previous copper connection (50/20) was rock solid and never had issues but with the aging copper, that won't be guaranteed overtime and the technology is so dated that we have to get rid of it anyway.
The new connection (1000/50) has a much better ping time (see it as a response time). From over 15-20 ms on copper to a constant 2-3 ms on fibre. That makes everything notably more snappy and responsive.
Do I need the fast connection? No, 250 or maybe even 100 would do as well but just get the upgrade to fibre as it's worth it and free in eligible areas. They use the old Telstra conduit in my area so no digging or mess.
In the near future, NBN will also offer higher upload speeds on fibre. That is not something they can do on copper as it's already maxed out. That is particularly something I look forward to as large file sharing (windsurf videos) will be much faster. 50 mb is still kinda slow.
Regarding 4G or satellite. It's not stable, try in stormy weather;) Especially the ping I mentioned above is terrible, can easily be 300 ms and will vary a lot. I wouldn't consider that if you can get fibre.
Select to expand quoteFormulaNova said..
Remery, if the node is on your verge your potential FTTN speeds must be pretty good. Have you done a service test to see what the maximum is? If you do go for FTTP, NBN cover the cost of getting to your house, whether it requires trenching and a new lead-in or if they use the existing one. They are supposed to be able to connect the PCD to the NTD whithin 12 metres or so, included, but in reality they will probably want to do a back-to-back install because its faster and easier. So if you have the locations and conduit sorted out you can expect a better install.
A service test sounds interesting. I regularly check with speedtest.net and it's usually 54mbps. I often wonder how much faster it can go. I asked about signing up for the 100mbps without FTTP upgrade but got the runaround, so went back to insulting ant-vaxxers.
Select to expand quoteremery said..FormulaNova said..
Remery, if the node is on your verge your potential FTTN speeds must be pretty good. Have you done a service test to see what the maximum is? If you do go for FTTP, NBN cover the cost of getting to your house, whether it requires trenching and a new lead-in or if they use the existing one. They are supposed to be able to connect the PCD to the NTD whithin 12 metres or so, included, but in reality they will probably want to do a back-to-back install because its faster and easier. So if you have the locations and conduit sorted out you can expect a better install.
A service test sounds interesting. I regularly check with speedtest.net and it's usually 54mbps. I often wonder how much faster it can go. I asked about signing up for the 100mbps without FTTP upgrade but got the runaround, so went back to insulting ant-vaxxers.
With Aussiebroadband you can go onto their portal and do a 'Line State test' and it comes back with the attainable rates. At the moment, my FTTN service says 80/35.5 Mbps and estimated distance to the node of 490m.
Your speedtest you are using is only going to show you the throughput of what you have provisioned, whereas the line state test will tell you what you can theoretically get if you have a plan that high.
Are other ISPs hard to deal with? ABB let you change your speed online and in some cases it can happen instantly, in others you have to wait for the plan renewal date at the end of each month. I could change my FTTN service easily online to whatever it sees fit that it can offer. Which seems to be a 100/40 service for the FTTN I have.
With those sort of throughputs I could see myself otherwise sticking with FTTN if the copper service was reliable (it was with my service). My only issue I have ever had with FTTN was how long it takes to resync after a power outage.
This is what you get with 1000/50. Pretty sure it's my router being the bottleneck but 900 vs 1000 isn't really noticeable. Time for better upload speeds.
Select to expand quoteptsf1111 said..
This is what you get with 1000/50. Pretty sure it's my router being the bottleneck but 900 vs 1000 isn't really noticeable. Time for better upload speeds.
You remind me of when I had an Indian phone scammer on the line. He started out with 'what is your internet ping times?'. I told him 3ms and that it was a gigabit link. His reply was 'oh... that's very bad performance. You clearly have a virus.' I think he got discouraged when I told him my router password was 'get lost scammer', told me he wasn't a scammer, and then hung up.
I think these guys are wisening up and cut their losses sometimes.
Do you think the upload speeds are a technical limitation or just trying to match a ratio most people would use if they are not hosting something? I can imagine that the ISPs may have a subscription model with NBN where they map upstream traffic to certain values.
You would hope that they could give you a symmetrical service, but maybe there is something with GPON where the subscriber traffic is aggregated and limits the upload speed? I know in 2-way satellite comms, the upload speed is dramatically restricted because of the way the access mechanism works.
Select to expand quoteFormulaNova said..
...Have I gotten it all wrong and FTTN was the best technology to use afterall?
nope. You weren't wrong. But you are still wrong.
Can we go back to that NBN thread ? I feel it may make interesting reading.
As I said then, the "best technology" is FTTP. But the "best solution" is not to spend tens of billions of dollars on the "best technology" when 99+% of people do not want or will not use the "best". As I said then, FTTN speeds or "lesser technology" is what most households are fine with, but at a relatively significantly less cost.
What was it in the early NBN trials ? I recall something like less than 7% of people wanted to pay for anything faster than could actually be delivered by the existing copper.
Thank goodness for the political decision to deliver the NBN by the "most reasonable technology available" and not deciding FTTP for 100% of households in Australia must be the solution based on two numbers on a paper napkin.
Now, just need rest of the Seabreeze.com.au forumers to admit that when they spent the best part of 12 months decrying anything but fttp, they too were also wrong.
Select to expand quoteFormulaNova said..Has anybody bothered with the real high speed plans at 1000/50 Mbps?
Yes, love it.
Nothing beats watching my dl from huggingface @ 140MB/s vs forver and a ****ing day with FttN, ****ing usless **** good for nothing.
Also love the fiber LC OM3 I have in my house... most of my switches are 2.5G, but I do have a 10G NIC and SFP+ ones.
Just browsing... why even bother with NBN?
FttN connection speeds might still be acceptable for many people today, but will certainly be different in 5, 10, or even 15 years as data consumption will have doubled or quadrupled by then. Investing in FttP was a good decision and albeit way too late at least now the final miles are also upgraded so we're ready for the future.
Australia is so far behind the rest of the world when it comes to average connection speed. Not having decent speeds available to the population will influence many things.
If you'd had kids with a PlayStation 5 or similar, you probably get a good idea where the world is heading. Game downloads can be up to 100 GB, which will take close to 8 hours on a 30 mbit line or less than 15 minutes on 1000 mbit (1 Gbit).
In Europe, ISPs are now offering up to 5 Gbit download speeds over fibre.
No copper can do speeds like that. You don't have to participate in this and can stay on low speeds if that works for you but many people will have different needs.
To answer the upload speeds question. It's not a technical limitation and NBN will offer 100 Mbit speeds from next year. The technology in the residential fibre NBN can't do symmetric speeds at this time (business NBN can but you'll get a different fibre pair to your premises).
Yep, it iscertainly not a technical limitation of the fibre optic cable, the same core of fibre that connectes to your home I've witnessed running at 12Tbps.
The limitation is the active electronics hardware (GPON). XGPON is much better with XGS PON the next gen. Ultimately it all just upgrading to higher speed versions of the hardware.
Select to expand quoteshaggybaxter said..
Yep, it iscertainly not a technical limitation of the fibre optic cable, the same core of fibre that connectes to your home I've witnessed running at 12Tbps.
The limitation is the active electronics hardware (GPON). XGPON is much better with XGS PON the next gen. Ultimately it all just upgrading to higher speed versions of the hardware.
I am not sure if I quite understood GPON. Is it correct that the mux is passive and all the signal gets sent into each subscriber's fibre, and it relies on encryption to know which stream is yours?
No, I think you can see the splitter as a demux and it will only send the one signal to your ONT, not everyone else's signal too. You'll still share the bandwidth with the other subscribers though so technically we're probably limited to 2.5 Gbps shared with up to 64 end users.
Select to expand quoteptsf1111 said..
No, I think you can see the splitter as a demux and it will only send the one signal to your ONT, not everyone else's signal too. You'll still share the bandwidth with the other subscribers though so technically we're probably limited to 2.5 Gbps shared with up to 64 end users.
GPON seems difficult to find great info on, but if the splitter is passive, there is no way to separate a unique signal for each user. It uses WDM but only to separate upstream and downstream signals. The splitter really just seems to be an optical only device.
I did come across something that said upstream data is based on a TDMA mechanism, i.e. timeslots, so it again suggests that it is a common signal for everyone from that original fiber.
I am sure I came across something that suggested each endpoint uses encryption to separate 'your' signal from other subscribers. It makes sense as you are sharing a common feed. Upstream is different as it will only go one way as far as I can tell, to the OLT.
I had a phone rep at Aussiebroadband 'knowingly' tell me that when the local power to your house goes down that the FTTP service dies too. I ignored their 'advice' as the whole point of GPON is that you should be able to go 20kms without any active devices, so that gets you from the exchange all the way to the end user with only passive devices inbetween. Heck, even FTTN seems to have some local power at the node, so surely FTTP can reach further without power.
