A Question About NBN Speeds

PCH (Paul) · #1 11-06-2017, 11:47 PM

Hey guys,

hopefully this will be a straightforward answer to any telecom techs here...

When I first got NBN FTTN connected on a 25/5 plan, the speeds were very impressive at around 23/4 which was lightning fast compared to the 3/1 or less I used to get with ADSL.

However, as more people in our area move across to NBN, the few remaining on adsl are getting faster while the ever increasing NBN service is becoming slower to the point where I now only get about 10/4.

So this is my question...

Would there be any point in me moving to the 100/25 plan?

My hesitation is because I'm thinking if the line can't manage 25Mbps, how could it ever possibly be faster just because I'm on a different plan?

Any ideas anyone?

Thanks in advance

luka · #2 12-06-2017, 01:44 AM

Likely it is not the line, it is your ISP. Most likely they are overselling the bandwidth, suffering from congestion and throttling downloads.

Who is your ISP?

acropolite (Phil) · #3 12-06-2017, 07:14 AM

Complain to your ISP, I had a similar problem but after lodging a complaint my speed miraculouly improved. There is some anecdotal evidence that the service providers are knobbling some traffic to keep the speeds up for Netflix, my testing seemed to confirm, despite getting less than 10mb/s I was able to stream Netflix at Hd. Also be careful how you test, my iPad often shows slow speeds on WiFi, test only with a lan connection and make sure the PC you test from isn't loading updates etc in the background.

doppler (Rick) · #4 12-06-2017, 08:09 AM

My lad went for the 100mbs but could only get 32mbs out of it, the ISP said this was ok as it was better than 25mbs , so rather than paying for something he wasn't getting he down graded to 25mbs and that seems to run at full speed. His node is only a couple of houses down, but the copper at his address is 40+ years old.

PCH (Paul) · #5 12-06-2017, 06:55 PM

Thanks for your input Luka, Phil and Rick.

Luka, my ISP is iiNet and I totally get what you are saying. I heard similar reasoning on a radio program so the concept is not new to me.

But with NBN I wasn't sure if they could somehow 'shape' the line to accomodate faster speeds so that with a faster plan, whilst it may not give me the full advertised speed, it may well improve on what I'm getting.

I think I'll go down the complaining path first and see if that produces anything.

tlgerdes (Trevor) · #6 12-06-2017, 09:05 PM

It's called oversubscription, it's how they make money when they don't own the infrastructure.

And people think fibre to their house was going to miraculously fix this.

The_bluester (Paul) · #7 13-06-2017, 10:47 AM

With FTTN you have a few issues to combat.

First is "Coexistence". Until the cutoff date when old services back to the Telstra exchange are cut off and you are NBN only the node is somewhat nobbled. They talk about vectoring (Which is a noise reduction/mitigation technology) but vectoring can not be properly effective until the device doing it has control over all pairs in the cables.

The next is luck of the draw, how good and how long your line from the node is.

Then there is the real killer and likely something that is impacting you. Ignoring politics (Which led to the cobbled together mess that is being built now) one of the things I will say that the ALP got wrong is the pricing model. To sell you a service a provider has to firstly buy an access circuit and then they have to pay for CVC (Connectivity virtual circuit) which is effectively bandwidth in the NBN part of the service, it is sort of an analog to the old line rental then service charges. One is to have it, the other to use it! the CVC is expensive and some carriers are getting to be notorious for not paying for enough CVC to provide decent services to the customers they put on in a POI (Point Of Interconnect, the aggregating point at which services are taken out of the NBN and into your RSP's network, and something that IMO the ACCC badly cocked up)

TL;DR

I would put money first on your RSP either not having enough backhaul capacity to whichever POI you are on or not buying enough in the CVC space. If your speeds are OK in the middle of the day and crunch through the evening it is usually one of those two. If speed is now down all day then I would call up and get a fault logged.

If you are on fixed wireless like me you can also add tower congestion into this mix which I suffer from. That is an NBN problem and takes even longer to fix. During the day I can see up to about 40mb/sec download and in the evenings I can be back into single digits. Call that one success ballast.

leon · #8 13-06-2017, 11:21 AM

Buy the time this NBN is laid and installed to all households it will be obsolete to over seas standard/speed at present.
Australia really needs to catch up.

Leon

The_bluester (Paul) · #9 13-06-2017, 11:59 AM

That is the pity of it. The fibre to the home component of it is already capable of speeds ten times what is being delivered but the CVC pricing makes it so expensive to deliver as to be unviable to offer plans that people will pay for, therefore no RSP offers it and that in turn is being used to run the argument that no one wants it. The same argument is currently being used to argue that (Effectively) no one wants the 100/40 on offer now.

While you could accuse me of being one of our esteemed PM's "Fibre zealots" I would have to agree that only a small percentage of the population as of now could justify a 100/40 service except for "I want it" however that will change. It is only about fifteen years since dial up was normal, 1500kb/sec was "Fast" and our communications minister stated in public that people only wanted broadband for faster access to pornography.

The pity of it is that when even 100/40 becomes "Normal" a large chunk of the population will be unable to get it because of the mess that is being built right now. And it WILL become normal and justifiable to an average household.

Exfso (Peter) · #10 13-06-2017, 06:41 PM

I am with IINet, and will bet my left one that it is a backhaul issue. They are simply not buying enough to satisfy the customer needs. I got the 100/40 connected last week and am around 150-200 metres from the node. During the day I get 95/37 until about 6pm, and last night it dropped to 8/25. By around 11pm it was back up again. I complained and they want me to jump through hoops doing all sorts of tests. Plain and simple like Telstra, too many customers and not enough bandwidth.

Shano592 (Shane) · #11 15-06-2017, 07:59 PM

Also, keep in mind that your physical distance to the node, won't necessarily correlate to copper cable distance between the node and your house.

My example is a good one. My home line was connected to FTTN just over a month ago. The node is at the other end of the street, about 400m away. The distance of the copper cable - wait for it - came back as being 931m! It goes around the block, rather than in a straight line down the street. Thanks Telstra.

Saying that, I still get 38/12, and because of this, I only pay for a 50/20 connection.

At work, I have the 100/40 FTTN, with 221m to the node, and 335m copper distance. I routinely get 63/35.

Most likely, Paul, is what others have said. You are the mercy of TPG with iiNet. It is likely that they have the bare minimum CVC in your area.

EDIT: Interesting reading... https://forums.whirlpool.net.au/foru...t=2413856&p=31

leon · #12 15-06-2017, 08:15 PM

Shane, I am sure you know what you are talking about, but to a nearly 70 year old with all your.

100/40 FTTN, with 221m to the node, and 335m copper distance. I routinely get 63/35.I still get 38/12, came back as being 931m!

Is like Russian to me,

Some times members should realize that not all members here especially the older ones know all the abbreviated jargon that you young people know

Leon

Shano592 (Shane) · #13 15-06-2017, 08:31 PM

Sorry Leon,

In a straight line, the node is about 400m from my house. Logic would suggest that the copper cable from the node to the house would also be about 400m. The reality is that, because it was a Telstra fixture, logic had nothing to do with anything, and instead of a straight line, the cable does a trip around the block and is over 500m longer than it needs to be. More copper means more signal degradation, so instead of a possible 60-70Mbit connection, the most I can get is around 38Mbit.

Typically, nodes are placed within a few metres of the good old Telstra pillars. I could say I'm 400m from the nearest pillar. Basically the same thing.

The 100/40, 63/35 and 38/12, all refer to NBN speeds. Basically, download/upload speeds.

FTTN - Fibre to the Node, or "Malcolm's Folly".

julianh72 (Julian) · #14 16-06-2017, 10:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by leon

all your.

100/40 FTTN, with 221m to the node, and 335m copper distance. I routinely get 63/35.I still get 38/12, came back as being 931m!

Is like Russian to me,

Leon,

The sad fact is that it is precisely because most people don't understand all the jargon (and shouldn't need to!), that this sad farce of an MTM (sorry - that's "Multi-Technology Mix") is being foisted upon us, and the NBNco (National Broadband Network Company) is getting away with it.

In simple terms - faster is better. We need to remember that what is "fast enough" today won't be fast enough in the near future. Those of us who have been "on the 'net" since the late 20th Century would remember 14.4 and 28.8 kbps (kilobits per second) modems shared with a phone line, and we got by. Right now, a typical internet-connected household needs at least 12 Mbps reliably at peak hours (for watching streaming TV etc), and plenty of us need much more. In five to 10 years, who knows what the average household will need? (But it's a sure thing that it will be a lot more than 12 Mbps - and peak users will need a lot more speed than average households.)

Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) is capable of delivering 1 Gbps (Gigabits per second) or more today, and can scale to much higher speeds in future. The other technologies which are being rolled out (FTTN - Fibre to the Node, HFC - Hybrid Fibre / Coax, etc) can't, and almost certainly never will.

The more copper wire there is between the end of the fibre and the premises, the lower the theoretical speed that is attainable. In the case of "legacy copper" (i.e. the old Telstra phone lines used in FTTN, and the Foxtel cable that is being used in HFC areas), the length and condition of the copper wire imposes additional constraints. Put simply - if you're unlucky enough to be at the end of a long copper loop in a FTTN neighbourhood, the maximum speed you will get could be a lot lower than the "up to" speeds that the internet companies will sell you. It MIGHT be "fast enough" for your current needs, if all you need to do is browse the IIS site, send a few emails, and watch a bit of Netflix, but it won't be enough to "future-proof" your neighbourhood.

The current MTM NBN is ensuring the "digital divide" is firmly built into Australia moving forward - to me, that is a criminal legacy that is being delivered to Australian taxpayers.

AndrewJ · #15 16-06-2017, 10:29 AM

Sounds like we are FUBAR

That said, i recently lost most of my phone access after rains ( but my internet still worked at about 0.04 Mbps.
The Tech who came to fix it let me wander around as he tried to find the problem. It went back to the copper line coming into a large ( supposedly ) watertight plastic connector pot in the pit.
The fine internal wires had copper rot going back under the insulation for about 8inches. He ended up swapping the 2 unused cores over and making them the primary cores, so it is technically not wired to spec, but it does work.
After looking at the state of the cables in the pits near my place, i have no belief it will get better any time soon.

Andrew

leon · #16 16-06-2017, 01:54 PM

Guys you don't have to be sorry thank you for trying to explain it.

Thank You.

Leon

jenchris (Jennifer) · #17 16-06-2017, 03:09 PM

Basically I'm better off using my mobile as a mobile hotspot and getting 20 plus mbs most of the time.
I refused to use Telstra hard line over ten years ago when I saw the state of the copper wiring in a flooded pit about300 yards from my place.my wires were in there in an upended coke bottle.

The_bluester (Paul) · #18 16-06-2017, 03:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by julianh72

Leon,

The sad fact is that it is precisely because most people don't understand all the jargon (and shouldn't need to!), that this sad farce of an MTM (sorry - that's "Multi-Technology Mix") is being foisted upon us, and the NBNco (National Broadband Network Company) is getting away with it.

In simple terms - faster is better. We need to remember that what is "fast enough" today won't be fast enough in the near future. Those of us who have been "on the 'net" since the late 20th Century would remember 14.4 and 28.8 kbps (kilobits per second) modems shared with a phone line, and we got by. Right now, a typical internet-connected household needs at least 12 Mbps reliably at peak hours (for watching streaming TV etc), and plenty of us need much more. In five to 10 years, who knows what the average household will need? (But it's a sure thing that it will be a lot more than 12 Mbps - and peak users will need a lot more speed than average households.)

Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) is capable of delivering 1 Gbps (Gigabits per second) or more today, and can scale to much higher speeds in future. The other technologies which are being rolled out (FTTN - Fibre to the Node, HFC - Hybrid Fibre / Coax, etc) can't, and almost certainly never will.

The more copper wire there is between the end of the fibre and the premises, the lower the theoretical speed that is attainable. In the case of "legacy copper" (i.e. the old Telstra phone lines used in FTTN, and the Foxtel cable that is being used in HFC areas), the length and condition of the copper wire imposes additional constraints. Put simply - if you're unlucky enough to be at the end of a long copper loop in a FTTN neighbourhood, the maximum speed you will get could be a lot lower than the "up to" speeds that the internet companies will sell you. It MIGHT be "fast enough" for your current needs, if all you need to do is browse the IIS site, send a few emails, and watch a bit of Netflix, but it won't be enough to "future-proof" your neighbourhood.

The current MTM NBN is ensuring the "digital divide" is firmly built into Australia moving forward - to me, that is a criminal legacy that is being delivered to Australian taxpayers.

I do have to correct one thing there. It is most definitely not NBN co that is "Getting away with it" It is the coalition government, most specifically Tony Abbot who directed then comms minister, Malcolm Turnbull to "Demolish the NBN", a job he has actually turned out to be spectacularly effective at. All the while delivering something that will let him declare "Job done" about actually building the NBN and be believed by an unfortunate portion of the country.

It is MT who directed the change to a predominantly fibre to the node build (Before his hand picked team of agreemeisters could even get around to finishing their review and agreeing with him) and I really doubt he will be recalled fondly by Australian households in ten years when we are doing it all again to replace the copper bits of the MTM with fibre, and it IS inevitable that it will happen sooner or later.

To top it all off the design of the FTTN component of the network does not give much support to a clean upgrade, most of it and in particular the most expensive to bits to build (The "Last mile" stuff into houses/businesses etc) will have to be rebuilt from scratch. And that is after the MTM (Malcolm Turnbull's Mess) has blown out in cost and time to more or less match what a realistic estimate about the original version would have been.

toc (Tim) · #19 19-06-2017, 08:19 AM

When I first got my FTTP NBN line I was seeing some issues at around 9pm with speeds. (This was not long after the area was completed). Others in my location had similar issues - after about a week some adjustments were made by the ISP and I have been in 100/40 heaven for the last few years. It has been unbelievably reliable and there is no way I will settle for any other type of connection now

. The speed is rock solid.

Perhaps I am being a bit over the top, but I think it is a national shame what the Libs did to the NBN. No matter how good the wireless 4/5/6G technology gets, it is never going to beat the speed of light

The_bluester (Paul) · #20 19-06-2017, 08:52 AM

One thing that is ALWAYS glossed over when they talk about radio speeds is that the data rates they "Achieve" are for a single user, whereas in real usage there will be many concurrent users. We are on a ?G wireless service on NBN but I would dearly love to have a fibre connection. The issue is I like my rural lifestyle more than I want a fibre connection. I would not move in to town to get it.