NBN Pricing

[Franco Cozzo]

I'm paying $128 a month for 100GB ADSL2+ from Telstra, but I'm getting 13mbps, no where close to the "theoretical" 24mbps.

If you're on Telstra Wholesale like me, theres not much options out there for cheap fast internet, since I live in a small country town its Telstra or nothing.

I welcome the NBN, especially all that extra upload speed, host a webserver/game server from home, bandwidth within Australia is very expensive. You're looking at $300+ a month for a decent game server, if I could do that for $100 a month I'd be very happy.

[Polyal]

Fmc351, I see your point about infrastructure but the difference here is that there is already a system in place. If it's all foe entertainment then what a waste.

Surely a better analogy is a high speed rail network. We already have normal rail you don't need bullet trains going to rural areas. (not picking on country people, just an example).

Most of these good reasons for the NBN are pretty weak and certainly don't make up for the investment IMO.

[charles_wif_xf]

The retail pricing for the NBN is nothing short of highway robbery. I currently pay $50 a month for 150GB ADSL2+ (I routinely hit 1.2MB/sec sustained) and I'm struggling to see how they can justify the prices they have set.

I personally think the market should pay for the NBN. If the demand is there, it will be built and market forces would ensure prices are fair.

What I find I have the biggest gripe with is that the copper network will be shut down to be replaced with the NBN. I say leave it in place, as there is a lot invested in it as it stands.

[cheap]

Originally Posted by Big Damo

I'm paying $128 a month for 100GB ADSL2+ from Telstra, but I'm getting 13mbps, no where close to the "theoretical" 24mbps.

If you're on Telstra Wholesale like me, theres not much options out there for cheap fast internet, since I live in a small country town its Telstra or nothing.

I welcome the NBN, especially all that extra upload speed, host a webserver/game server from home, bandwidth within Australia is very expensive. You're looking at $300+ a month for a decent game server, if I could do that for $100 a month I'd be very happy.

Your post is exactly why people don't like the NBN and why some taxpayers view the NBN as a huge waste of their money. You've mentioned the NBN fulfilling your game requirements twice. Some people equate gaming to being a complete and total waste of human activity, the technological equivalent to a 1970's beach bum <just sayin'>

[cheap]

Originally Posted by flappist

The reason why the 100% Government owned Telecom Australia spent $bazillions on the DMO is that before this we had analog lines on poles.
Less than 10% of houses had telephones.

Australia has one of the least dense population in the developed world (you are obviously excepted) and in order to connect all of the new customers remote integrated multplexers were installed in the middle of new sites with a bearer, usually fibre, back to a central exchange.
This allowed an extremely low cost way of attaching thousands of services on quickly.

Unfortunately the DSL bit of ADSL is not very fibre friendly and while a 2Mb E1 could handle 30+ concurrent vioce connections it is still only 2Mb so highspeed data was difficult.

DMO was the first NBN which was 100% Government and the reason why there were affordable phones in the 80s.

You've lost me on how DMO is the first "NBN"?

Rewind to early 1980's, Telecom is the monopoly, without any competitors and could do whatever it wanted and how it wanted. Affordable phones could be a point of argument, I recall it was only with the deregulated telecommunications act and especially with Optus available that phones and calls became more affordable.

Fast forward to 2010/11 and so many things have changed.

I'm just not seeing the connection (no pun intended) can you explain further.

[snappy]

I can see the nbn as a good thing .
But my worries are how much it will cost ive allready heard the the quotes has come in well over 38 billion .
Will they get the return in investment
And maybe its a bit overkill maybe cable for the cities and a good wireless 4g network for the country people like myself .
And im not sure how we will go in a emergency type situtation like queensland floods at least with the copper line it would run when the power went down

[z80]

A lot of people think that faster internet is purely for games and movies.

I look forward to being able to make a full resolution video telephone without the stupid 2-3 frames per second skype rubbish.

I also look forward to being able to check on my property in full motion video and a variety of industrial control applications currently unuseable.

[dave351cid]

i just hope that we get NBN through here, sooner the better.

atleast then we will be able to use the computers at work to do whats expected. they are so slow now that it just not worth trying to do a lot of jobs. even our online training becomes a joke. takes up to 15 minutes to download a 30 second video for example. emails with photos can take an hour to download or they just freeze up. and work is only about 300 metres from the exchange.

here at home it is not much different. i`m about 1.5 km from exchange. friends who live on a farm about 10km out of town only have dial up or satalight as their options, niether of which work to an eceptable standard .

[snappy]

Originally Posted by mondo_broady

there's more than enough info out there on the benefits if you bother to look somewhere other than the Murdoch Press or talkback radio for it. business and education will be the ones to benefit the most. wireless cannot sustain the speeds of a fibre network and copper just doesn't cut it. it's obviously more convenient to politicize it...

as for the topic, NBN pricing, for $10/month more than i pay now, i can get 10 times the speed i get now...

+ $7000 of your tax dollars
I have no doubt it will be good but surely we could set somthing up thats really good with out costing quite so much.
We are not exactly rolling in it anymore last i heard -26% of gdp maybe now is the time to show some restraint

[z80]

Originally Posted by snappy

+ $7000 of your tax dollars
I have no doubt it will be good but surely we could set somthing up thats really good with out costing quite so much.
We are not exactly rolling in it anymore last i heard -26% of gdp maybe now is the time to show some restraint

I doubt any tax payer will get a tax invoice for $7000.

Repeated liberation of Abbott rhetoric does not make it fact.

[snappy]

Originally Posted by z80

I doubt any tax payer will get a tax invoice for $7000.

Repeated liberation of Abbott rhetoric does not make it fact.

No sorry didn't mean it like that , 38 billion works out to 7k a home

quick to judge or what , Attack is not allways the best defence

[naddis01]

I don't think anyone is arguing that the increased speeds won't bring benefits. What people are against is the massive cost (supposedly all without a cost/benefit analysis). Anywhere from $38 billion to $50 billion depending if you include the payout to Telstra, and that is before any cost blowouts which seem all too common in recent times.

Like Snappy has said, surely it is worth showing some restraint until we can actually afford such a HUGE outlay?

[Dr Jekkyl]

Internet access will never be equitable if left to the private sector alone.

Sure you might say that this is the price people pay for living in regional/rural areas but recall that these places are also sources of essential industries such as agriculture and mining.

Government involvement is therefore essential to provide equity.

It has been revealed that should the govt built a far cheaper FTTN network then they would be open to legal action from Telstra, the cost of which would match the cost of the planned FTTH network. The cost is high, no doubt about it, but it is largely due to the bad joke that was the privatisation of Telstra without separation into retail and wholesale components. As such this high cost is the legacy of the Howard govt.

The NBN will provide a means to diversify the Australian economy - something that will be sorely needed in the not-so-far future.

[Franco Cozzo]

Originally Posted by cheap

Your post is exactly why people don't like the NBN and why some taxpayers view the NBN as a huge waste of their money. You've mentioned the NBN fulfilling your game requirements twice. Some people equate gaming to being a complete and total waste of human activity, the technological equivalent to a 1970's beach bum <just sayin'>

Just like how I see the F1 a big waste of money, skate parks, money spent on maintainimg metro roads, I don't use them so why should I pay?

Sure I only use the net for games but things like Netflix, being able to work from home for some people. PayTv, internet, phone via 1 cable? Win in my books.

[glavas]

i dont see how looking at websites is good for 38 billion.down with socialism.

[landau460]

Originally Posted by Professor Farnsworth

yes, also:

No one needs a telephone, when telegrams are adequate for most messages
No one needs a mobile phone, there are many public phone boxes
No one needs television (picture wireless) when the radio plays enough big-boppa for the whole family
No one needs a computer, calculators work just fine
No one needs the internet at all, newspapers and the TV tell us all the accurate and completely un-biased info we are told we need to know

I guess it's my IT background but just take my (and others here) word for it when i say that no matter how much bandwidth is offered to the consumer, it WILL be made use of, and WILL benefit the whole network, and the people accessing it. In 20 years people will be laughing at an archived version of this thread while posting about it on their 500Mbit+ connections.

I agree with everything here you said there is no need for most, if not all of these things. With the exception of the phone that has worked not to bad for the best part of a century, these are all destractions from life for most who use it, the world worked fine before the internet so it is only a want not need.
And when it comes to 20years time i would expect that 500 Mbit to be a very very pour quality.

Is the internet a NEED or a WANT? I would say more a want. So say it is a need given the fact that the internet is working fine. Why after only 20 years does it need this connection speed? I'd say the answer would be because technology moves faster nowadays. i would think that by the time its paid we will have such technology that we will look back and laugh at what we would have spent 38 billion on. That billions of dollars would probly be a drop in the ocean but that will be then and not now it is not a drop in the ocean!

The phone works fine and has for such a long time they went wireless! The internet works fine and has for 20 years and then it went wireless, at who's expence? And who was forced to use wireless phones?

[glavas]

maybe under howard this would have been a good idea when we had tens of billions in the bank but not a good idea now when were under so much of labors debt.

[fmc351]

Originally Posted by Polyal

Fmc351, I see your point about infrastructure but the difference here is that there is already a system in place. If it's all foe entertainment then what a waste.

Surely a better analogy is a high speed rail network. We already have normal rail you don't need bullet trains going to rural areas. (not picking on country people, just an example).

Most of these good reasons for the NBN are pretty weak and certainly don't make up for the investment IMO.

The problem with that theory is it relies on limited imagination, no offence. All the no brainers (entertainment, gaming etc) are the only things really being talked about, everything else people are keeping a lid on until they have the chance to present that to the market. Some of it is out there like medical consultations over the net, thenif a visit is required that can be arranged. Just on that medical, imagine living 1000ks from the specialist, and going all that way to find there was no need. This will provide the opportunity as someone mentioned to sit in the local quacks office with the quack, linked to a specialist who asks the quack to do certain tests or checks over a HD quality video link, and works out if you need to travel that far, at your cost. The potential for change is limitless, yet we seem focused on the obvious stuff like entertainment and games.

The other thing is there is no point improving the infrastructure to a standard that is 10 years in the future, when making it as future proof as possible is an option. There is unlikely to be a need to redo this in 15 yrs, while the other possible tech would likely need changing.

Costly, sure. But so is an FPV compared to the base Falcon, or in the case being put forward as an alternative, a modified E series. But there are real benefits to those who know, or care, unless all you want is a shopping trolley. But the government will recoup the investment over time with both wholesale access costs, and the eventual sale of the network. Personally Id like to see them keep it, but que sera.

[flappist]

Why is it that only good ideas can come from "your side" and everything from the "forces of darkness" must be pure evil?

As to explaining why this is a good idea, I suspect it would be easier explaining the colour red to blind person than to illuminate some of the closed dark prejudiced minds that are starting to become far too common on this forum.

All I can say to those who think it is too expensive and we can't afford it YOUR TYPE are the reason there is not a 4 lane freeway from Cairns to Sydney which was offered to be built by USA after WW2 as a thankyou for our help.

The Sydney Harbour Bridge, Snowy Mountain Scheme, Sydney to Perth railway et al. are projects we could not afford at the time and took decades to pay off but are major components of building Australia.

If you don't like the idea of a national broadband network, DON'T USE IT and donate $7,000 to a charity of your choice (Variety is the one I support) therefore saving your tax for something you want to support instead.

And finally, if you don't like what the Government are doing you have two choices.
1) Vote in a different government
2) GO AND LIVE SOMEWHERE ELSE

Whinging and moaning on a car enthusiast internet forum (which will actually work better after NBN) will achieve very little.

[GTpilot]

No one has bothered to stop and ponder how much was spent all those years ago by a government owned and funded company called Telecom. Wrapping the country together in now redundant copper, building exchanges in every locality to terminate and join all this wire etc. Something we all take for granted. Relative todays costs 38bn for a fibre based upgrade is peanuts.
Wireless is a useless alternative for VoIP and streaming due to congestion and latency.
There is much more in returns than providing high speed Internet when you realize the bigger picture here!
Telecommute! Think roads, rail, capital cities are choking, by moving people out of the city to regional areas to work and run business etc this will ease that problem. lack of availble low latency bandwidth right now does not help

[sgt_doofey]

Originally Posted by snappy

And im not sure how we will go in a emergency type situtation like queensland floods at least with the copper line it would run when the power went down

You do realise that there is a battery backup system at the telephone exchanges to keep the copper network running in the case of a power outage? Once the batteries run flat (and generator stops should it have one) then the copper network fails as well.
Part of the NBN install is to install a battery pack in your house to keep the phone running in the case of a blackout.
Failing that, who doesn't have a mobile phone these days?

The battery backup is shown in this blog post from the first SA customer: http://www.raajmenon.com/2011/06/the...-depth-review/

[sgt_doofey]

Originally Posted by GTpilot

No one has bothered to stop and ponder how much was spent all those years ago by a government owned and funded company called Telecom.

I think it was called the Postmaster General back at that point in time. Telecom came later.

Wireless is a useless alternative for VoIP and streaming due to congestion and latency.

Not to mention blackspots due to landscape and other things like electro-magnetic interference. It's it a great medium to compliment fixed line broadband, but it is not a replacement of it.

[Dusty1]

Telecom/PMG didn't turn a proved until the mid 70s. No one here is complaining about that. Or the money we spent on other lag infrastructure projects in the past. We haven't had one for a long time.

[mcnews]

Originally Posted by cheap

NBN (you know that thing "we" (the tax paying members of society) are subsidising to the tune of at least $38,000,000,000 .... $38 Billion) well Internode has just released its NBN pricing...

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/tec...721-1hqbn.html

I guess if you've inherited lots of money or won a substantial lotto division, then these prices will probably work for you, for everyone else it would seem a tad unrealistic.

Still you'd have to wonder what the NBN pricing would be without the $38,000,000,000 tax payers money to make it "affordable".

If you look closely and rearrange the NBN letter you get HUGE FLAMMIN RIPOFF! go figure???

I think this is one of the most visionary projects recently undertaken in this country, where no infrastructure generally ever gets built to any reasonable standard. From comms to road, to rail to public transport, we are by and large behind plenty of asian countries where people live on a few bucks a day, live in relative squalor and work huge hours in shocking conditions, but have access to fantastic public transport and fast, reliable internet.

Finally we get something that a country as prosperous as Australia should have available. About time governments spent some taxpayers on money on investing in services to improve Australia's pathetic infrastructure.

$60 for 30gb at flaming world class speed sounds good to me. Although I would probably go the largest or second largest plan possible and revel in the wonder :-)

Those prices look fine to me. Oh, and by the way, I haven't used a PC to play a computer game for more than a decade :-)

As for OUR tax subsidising projects of national infrastructure, WTF is the problem with that? Isn't that why we pay them?

I am getting well sick of people whining and carrying on like they are a poor third world dog while having to pay their share of tax. That's life, get over it.

You earn 150k a year and you have to pay a heap of tax? Well here is some news for you, so you effin well should. It's called part of being society and if that is what it costs to live and have the opprtunity we have in Australia, and the safety net for the disadvantaged, then so be it. Some people can't see any further than the end of their own nose.

When did people in this country, that has never been so affluent and prosperous as it is now, become so small minded. And to be honest if you are struggling in this country, it is your own fault. Plain and simple.

BTW - I earn good money, pay plenty of tax, have never been in a government assistance office in my life and wouldn't even know where one was. And that is how it should be.

For god sake people, get a grip! We live in what right now is perhaps the luckiest country in the world. Despite the mean spiritedness and narrow mindedness that seems to beset the population courtesy of things like Murdoch press beat-ups and the adominable state of Australian politics, this is still the lucky country if you have half a brain and a dose of desire to succeed.

Obviously if you spend too much time on the bottle or the bong it might be all too hard and instead make you want to rant about how bad everything is, but for anyone with at least one eye half open, it has never been and probably never will be better than it is right now.

RANT MODE OFF :-)

[sgt_doofey]

Are people also forgetting that all of the plans Internode have listed also include a VoIP phone service to replace their current phone service?
So, take the price of what you're paying for phone and internet and that's a more indicative pricing structure compared to those NBN prices. (For those on Naked ADSL, this doesn't apply of course)

So, for me who is currently paying $50 per month for 50Gb of ADSL at 8Mb/s speeds, plus another $21 for line rental for a phone service that I do not use*, I could spend $80 for a 12/1 200Gb NBN plan and still be a couple of dollars in front.

* I use VoIP for my home phone service

[Professor Farnsworth]

as far as i can tell from this thread, those who are opposing the NBN, have arguments weaker than wet tissue paper to support their stance, and provide absolutely no logical backup for not pushing technology ahead.

I've got an idea, let's put the tax money into a green car fund to help the local car industsri.... oh wait. Let's instead put it into some sort of premium on the emissions that we create, oh hang on a sec.

How about we vote for a party to put a stop to all technological advancement, because if a person has absolutely no concept of how technology has improved their life, and has no grasp of I.T. in general, then it can't possibly benefit them.

So, AFF, is the 'A' for Amish?

[GTpilot]

Originally Posted by Professor Farnsworth

as far as i can tell from this thread, those who are opposing the NBN, have arguments weaker than wet tissue paper to support their stance, and provide absolutely no logical backup for not pushing technology ahead.

I've got an idea, let's put the tax money into a green car fund to help the local car industsri.... oh wait. Let's instead put it into some sort of premium on the emissions that we create, oh hang on a sec.

How about we vote for a party to put a stop to all technological advancement, because if a person has absolutely no concept of how technology has improved their life, and has no grasp of I.T. in general, then it can't possibly benefit them.

So, AFF, is the 'A' for Amish?

Right on the money. This includes the op as well!
And Cheap that's not a personal attack, it's a fact!

[cheap]

Originally Posted by GTpilot

Right on the money. This includes the op as well!
And Cheap that's not a personal attack, it's a fact!

There are many ways to deliver services and there are many ways to deliver broadband technology, NBN prescribes a solution and then has mandates applied to support their solution. My feeling is NBN is just another big ugly monopoly which will struggle to deliver to the promised expectations yet charge every increasing prices. To support the NBN monstrosity, competition will have to be appropriately managed. Those of us old enough have seen this behaviour before and it is simply unsustainable.

I will be surprised if NBN is still in business by 2017, by then it will have consumed vast billions ****ed up against the NBN wall and we will be left wondering where its all gone.

[gtfpv]

i cant technically contribute to this thread . but i have learnt a bit from it .
what i have learnt is the difference between morons , and people who can backup reasonably good information and practicality of purpose .
most threads have a mix of these two , but this one blatantly shows us the mix , as ive suspected for some time , some people a darn right dumb .
rant over .
now looking forward to reading further into information hardware tecnology and where it has brought us , and where it is yet to take us . cheers .
those saying we dont require the internet .
please , go back to the 20th century .

[fmc351]

rabble rabble rabble