THE NBN (Australia's National Broadband Network)

Please Note; This page is out dated and is being worked on (12th Jun 2020) (First Published 19 Mar 2016)

As most people know the NBN is now in Australia and yes it does allow for faster downloads but there is a lot on bad parts to it that most don't know.

The best parts is;

Higher speed downloads for 90% of Australia's

The worst parts are;

No hard wired phone
No direct hard wired links
no backwards compatibility at all

What does any of this mean.

There are 7 main types of NBN (Clicking on one of the 7 bellow will open a new window with info from NBN Co),

People who can only get "Fixed Wireless" & "Satelight" will not have most of these problems bellow but that depends on the exchange in the area and if there is any FTTN's connected to it, but this can be changed too at any time.

ALSO any one that uses 3G, 4G &/or 5G for phone &/or Internet this does not apply too.

NBN is not your internet provider, Most Providers (Telstra, Optus, Iinet, Dodo, ......) the one your might be with now are what deal with your internet.

MOST house's (Out side of the Capital Cities that don't have pole supplied Cable TV) will have (FTTN) Fibre To The Node, this means the NBN will be connected to the old phone line to your house BUT there will be no hard wired (pots) phone to use at all, (Some may get FTTC depending on the towns they are in instead of FTTN)
(this will also include most high rise buildings which will have (FTTB) installed no mater where they are).

(FTTN) & (FTTB) use all most the same technology as ADSL, its called VDSL most homes will have to upgrade there modem as the older modems don't support VDSL.

Note: (FTTB) Fibre To The Building is (Most of the time) the same as (FTTN) Fibre To The Node, the Node which is the new green boxes installed on the street, its equipment inside it is installed inside the building comm's room.

(FTTC) is almost the same as (FTTN) but in stead it has a NBN Power injector that does almost the same as the VDSL, (FTTC) is powered by the house's its connected to from the NBN unit.

(FTTP), (FTTC), (HFC), (FW) & (Satalight) DON'T require a ISP Modem for Internet, you only need a good Router that has a firewall and DHCP for your network as the provider side is connected via a Network cable, but note some ISP's have some different settings for a connection to there network to work (eg PPPoE) so the device must support it.

(FTTP) & (Most)(HFC) has a phone port on the NBN connection, but some ISP's dont use it and so you may need a SIP supported device to have phone connected.

(FW) & (Satelite) will normally still have there old Phone line for normal calls, but some may need a SIP supported device to have a phone over the internet.

Any one that has equipment like, Home Phone, FAX, Hard wired Alarms, anything reliable on the old phone at all will lose out, tho some ISP's can support these services on the NBN its not a reliable service at times.

When FTTN (Or FTTC) is turned on in the neighbourhood EVERY home that wants Phone &/or Internet MUST move across to the NBN (Normally within about 18 months) but people that only use phones and don't want internet will have to have internet to have a phone or no phone at all, that's right NO PHONE with out internet as the phone will have to be switched to VOIP.

Then there is business (eg; every Bank, Post-office, supermarket, service stations ...... the list goes on) they have to move to the NBN too and that means thousands of dollars spent per site to upgrade them to the NBN if they even can as most have direct secure links between the sites and main data office, this means there could be less safety in some ways and more cost passed onto the customers too.

Sites like the Post-office for a example use a direct link to a provider (eg there head office) over that the link is encrypted, then there is another level of encryption between sites, then another one for things like Eftpos which is all ready encrypted 3 times in its device that's just on the old link without thinking of NBN.

But then we come to Lifts, Fire Alarms and a lot of every day things that use the hard wired phone system, a example is the Lifts in most buildings the phone &/or 2way emergency system in then will not work when the NBN is turned on unless they upgrade which cost big dollars too, these services will have to move to ether a ip based service running on NBN &/or 3G Mobile service.

Yes I am having a rant a bit but it's a bit understandable.

They state on there site at "emergencies and outages"
"Equipment connected over the NBN network will not work during a power blackout" *

They also stated (2016) of "what services will be switched off" and that the services bellow will also go but later.

Access service	Product bundles
ATM (over copper)	ATM (over copper) ATM (rebill, over copper) Wholesale ATM (over copper)
CustomNet Spectrum	CustomNet Spectrum
Data Access Radial	Data Access Radial
DDS Fastway	DDS Fastway DDS Flexnet DDS Local Area Service (LAS)
DDS Low Speed	DDS Low Speed DDS BIN (bank interchange network)
Ethernet Lite BDSL	Ethernet Lite Business IP Ethernet Lite Connect IP Ethernet Lite GBIP (Government Broadband IP) 1 touch video
Frame Relay	Frame Relay Business IP Frame Relay Connect IP Frame Relay GBIP (proxy)
ISDN10/20/30	ISDN Diverse Access ISDN10/20/30 Businessline ISDN Dual Node Business Connect /2 Business Options Connect Business Premium Connect Corporate Connect All-4-Biz
ISDN2	ISDN2 Businessline ISDN2 Enhanced BusinessLine ISDN Xpress Business Connect / 2 Business Options Connect Business Premium Connect Corporate Connect All-4-Biz (newly released)
Megalink	Megalink
Payphones	Payphones Customer-operated payphones
STS / ADSL / ADSL 2+ (only if supplied for remote telemetry or Telstra secure)	Remote Telemetry Telstra Secure
Telstra Traffic Light Service	Telstra Traffic Light Service
VGDL	PAPL Tie Lines Voice Links /td>
Wholesale Business DSL (W-BDSL)	Business Data Access Service
Wholesale Transmission - CRA163 - Telstra domestic tail transmission capacity service	CRA163 - Telstra domestic tail transmission capacity service

These services are the first to go on the NBN

Dialup Internet	All services that use the old dialup.
ADSL, ADSL2+, SHDSL	All internet services that use the telstra exchange, (that includes your local ISP at the exchange).
POTS	All phone services, Normal Phones, Faxes, Alarms....
Cable Internet	All cable internet services, (Telstra)

In the Cites that have Cable Internet from Telstra/Foxtell to the house, NBN has taking control of most these services and making the customers move across to NBN HFC if they have not installed a FTTN in the area, That's right some area's will have to go to FTTN as the NBN deam the Cable useless but then the worst is for large apartments who will also be forced to go to FTTB or FTTN as they will stop there services for cable to the building (The only services not effected yet are the cable TV, Optus Cable in most area's still have there own Cable but NBN has taken control of some area's and wants homes to move across to a NBN provider ASAP).

And the worst part (for people with the old Phone lines)...

If you have 2 or more numbers on the same line (Eg duet and other types) then every time your ISP puts in a application for NBN and to port you number it will come back as rejected due to complex services.

Some ISP clams first up you can port all the numbers across as they have been told too, But they are wrong, only the main number to a fixed line or a CDNO (Call Divert Number Only) can be done, and CDNO Cost to create &/or port across.

Personal Business Problems with NBN

I was told the day my NBN node was to become live and after 2 months NBN had not sent out the package they are required to, it was not just for my place the hole town is the same.

But it came live on the Friday and I my self put a order in on Monday and Wednesday came back 'Rejected', Thursday spent 1/2 the day talking to my ISP and the Phone company and by 7:30pm all was so call fixed, Friday the ISP resubmitted it and Monday its come back again 'Rejected', after a lot of calls I found the problem and there was only one way to fix it, I had to remove the service but would not pay the Phone company to create the service on other as the cost was not worth it, once the services was removed I had to weight 7 days before the ISP could get approval to be able to move the service, then it took another month to have a NBN tech to enable the service.

I was told the NBN tech was going to contact me on the day when they was going to setup the link, but lucky I monitored the link and saw the tech working on the line, once the line was enabled which only took 10 min for my NBN link was up and running, but it took another 5 days for my main line phone number to be ported across to my ISP. The service is fully up and running now and after I had to fix some problems on the ISP's end that they could not figure out my service has been up and more reliability then the ADSL service but at typing this there is only 30 customers out of the 1000 that will be linked to the unit.

Then the worst of NBN "the outages", it does not mater what type but if its in the NBN system it will take a long time to be fixed.
I my self had one outage and it took 15 hours to come back on line, and there is no one we can complain to as such since the NBN claim there outage was listed on there system.
One of the latest outages the provider was told it will be down for 10 min, try over 4 hours.

And a BIG warning, most ISP will port you home number across for free as part of the NBN but some can not port at all and others charge, then comes you old provider, like Telstra that now charge for any porting away from them no mater who the company is with or uses, if you don't use Telstra for your NBN when you move across then they charge you.

Now the next problem.

All has been working great for a long time till the power company needed to replace the power pole next to the office.

At 7:45am our office internet went down and I found a tech on the pole (Sent by NBN) just cutting the phone wirers, after talking to him I found out NBN had know of this job for over a month and not told anyone (Customers or Whole sales) that this was going to happen, it took the power man a few hours to replace the pole and once done the Phone Man came back to reconnect.

The Phone lead in cables was all renewed but when the person reconnected the office something was wrong, by the time our modem synced the man had left, that was 1hr, then came the problems.

Later that day our modem kept reconnecting and was given a IP from another ISP and then some times back to ours.

I talked to the up stream provider and they did a test which placed us back on our right IP, but the next day things went down hill, our connection at 3am reconnected to the other isp and at 8am my provider did a lot of looking at there end to then tell me they can't log a fault as NBN was doing maintenance in the area from 7am on the Tuesday to 7pm on the Friday (Yep 4 hole days).

THIS IS ONE BIG PROBLEM WITH NBN, at any time they can state they are working in the area and so no faults can be logged till after it.

Friday at 8pm I called the provider and they finally was able to log a fault.

Saturday a NBN Tech from Melb came up and was working on another line to a place off the same pole they started to cut wires in the junction box, the office went down and came back just after they reconnected the other but office still had the wrong IP, the tech didn't even go to the other place to make sure they connected it right (They didn't).

Our office was meant to be fixed on the Tuesday after noon but the Tech didn't turn up, after a few worded calls they told the tech he had to do the fix ASAP and so he turned up Thursday.

He found many problems at the Post and the NBN FTTN box and fixed my problem.

The office stayed working fine from this spot but when I saw another Tech outside the Saturday after my fix I asked him his problem, it turns out that the last Sat Tech didn't fix the problem tho he claimed he did for the other place, I warned the person to just watch what he touches as every place has had problems and why they had.

The person showed me the other places problem and it looks like our office was places on the wrong pair last Saturday and the other place wasn't even connected.

Sorry but the Tech from Melbourne this is the ones that worked on the pole in the first place and the Saturday after all need to stay down there as they don't know what they are doing, our Tech and the one after all lived local and both was not happy they are light in work. (Sorry that's my ripe)

So for now all is working like it should, we hope (Touch wood) it stays that way.

* = Some equipment will have battery backup if installed with it but it does not work if the network its connected to does not too.

I am not affiliated with the NBN in any way its just EVERY customer I deal with wants to know what the NBN will do so I have stated in MOST of my own words but also parts listed from the NBN Co's website.

Haddow Internet

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THE NBN (Australia's National Broadband Network)

These services are the first to go on the NBN

And the worst part (for people with the old Phone lines)...