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Australia's National Broadband Network Officially Open For Business
sydneyhype writes "The Australian National Broadband Network is open for business. The 14,000 residents on the first roll-out will be able to order an NBN service (current ISP contract permitting). Internode, Exetel, and iiNet have released their commercial pricing. iiNet has undercut Internode with prices starting at $49.95 per month for 12Mbps down and 1Mbps up with 20gb on-peak and 20gb off-peak."
Hmm Australia moved to Asia... Interesting!
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iiNet has undercut Internode with prices starting at $49.95 per month for 12Mbps down and 1Mbps up with 20gb on-peak and 20gb off-peak."
When comparing iinet to Internode, one has to remember that Internode doesn't do this on peak/off peak thingy. On peak is the download limit you have between 8 AM and 12 Midnight, off peak is the download limit between 12 Midnight and 8 AM. With Internode you get 40 GB whatever time of the day it is.
However, having been a happy customer of both iinet's and Internode's ADSL offerings, both are great ISP's you wont be unhappy with. I'm waiting for Telstra and Optus to release their NBN pricing, that should be hillarious.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
The low end prices don't tell much of the story with the NBN.
If that's the low-end, it is telling. I can get those kinds of prices here from our greedy dualopolies, without caps (USD ~= AUD these days), and that's the undercutting provider.
I hear all the prices in Australia have gone through the roof in the last decade - perhaps it's relative?
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
They don't charge you extra, they just throttle your speed down. This is what they do now on xDSL and cable connections, and so it will be on the NBN as well.
Having said that, if you are hitting your cap regularly, just pay a few bucks extra and upgrade to the next highest plan. All the big ISPs are offering plans up to 1000 GB (1 TB) per month, which is enough for almost any conceivable domestic (non-business) need. At the moment I'm only on a 30 GB plan because that's all I use. The next plan up only costs another 10 bucks a month and gives me 200 GB - a large jump for not much money, and I won't hesitate to upgrade if I need to.
The other thing you have to factor in is that Australian ISPs also typically have a lot of value-adds, including large file mirrors and access to various other Internet services that are 'unmetered' (i.e. data from which is not counted against your cap). For instance one ISP might offer unmetered streaming TV services, unmetered iTunes etc. Another might give you unmetered access to file mirrors such as Major Geeks, Tucows, Linux repositories, gaming servers etc. These are incredibly useful: about 25-30% of my typical usage per month ends up in the "unmetered" bucket and for some people it's higher.
but the cap is 40gigs [20gb on-peak and 20gb off-peak]? at those speeds you could use up your whole allotment in like 2 days, and I hate to see what the overages costs.
That's the starting cap, iinet and internode have plans that go up to 1 TB limits.
Also, no overage charges, they shape your speed down to 128 or 256 Kb/s if you go over.
BTW, 2 days is a bit rich, there's a big difference between theoretical speeds and real world speeds. Besides this, there are larger caps available so you if you dont download 400 GB a month, you dont have to pay for that much.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Dual US/Aussie citizen here who splits their time between both countries. Australia IS more expensive than the US for almost everything (except, interestingly, cellphones and cellphone plans - Australia kicks the US' ass on this front in terms of selection and price). But clothes, cars, food, rent and housing, entertainment ... everything else is considerably more expensive in Australia (1.5x for food and electronics, about 2x for everything else)
Including the Internet. It's one of the curses of being a 'terminating destination' (i.e. cables don't really go ~through~ Australia to get to anywhere else, so they have to be purpose-built and laid under 10,000 miles of ocean to serve a total population smaller than some single American cities). Not to mention that 90% of our traffic has to be pulled all the way from the US/Europe because we are an English-speaking country located distantly from the main sources of English language content. (This is a problem that doesn't affect other 'language isolate' countries such as Japan and Korea - most of their traffic is domestic and hence much cheaper).
It doesn't matter though. Prices here are higher but wages are higher. I find it balances out about the same in the end ... I don't feel like I have less disposable income in Australia than I do in the US. Plus you make savings in other areas (healthcare is free or very cheap etc.)
(* PS: Also keep in mind that the NBN plans quoted generally include a home telephone service with free or cheap national calls.)
Indeed, Australia is closer to Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Indonesia then it's closest Australasian nation, New Zealand if we want to get nit-picky.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
This is a $40 billion+ project to rip out the 100-year old existing copper POTS network and replace it with a new, independently operated layer 2 FTTH network (upon which dozens of competing ISPs will be able to offer layer 3 services to the end user). Nationwide - from the large cities to small towns in the middle of nowhere (every town with >1000 people will get fibre, smaller hamlets will get some form of 4G or WiMax fixed wireless). There will then be dozens of ISPs operating layer 3 services on this network to the end user.
That is much more significant than a new ISP.
The list of small towns which are being FTTH'd is pretty impressive though. There are places on there with populations as low as 800.
That said, the NBN outback and deep rural strategy isn't focused on exchanges and ADSL technology - it's focussed on wireless for rural and satellite for really remote places. They've a pretty good track record so far with sensible deployment decisions, and a point-to-point wireless technology in uncrowded spectrum would probably work out.
Sorry, what are you talking about??
The N in NBN is for NATIONAL. The plan is for 93% fibre, 4% wireless 3% satellite with at least 12/1 speeds available on all mediums. The fibre is to go down to towns of 1,000 premises, sometimes smaller if the fibre is going through town anyway. Those on wireless will basically be those currently on the outer edges of ADSL or beyond. Those on satellite will be truly rural.
The NBN are planning plenty of backhaul to their POIs. Congestion isn't going to be an issue within the NBN. Your ISP (now known as RSP), well that *could* be a different story, especially if you go with one of the cheep and cheerful providers.
Ever stop to think
I so want the NBN service now. At the next election, there is likely to be a change of government and the current opposition claim that they will cut back the scope of the NBN project (like only provide wifi and/or fibre to the neighbourhood instead of providing fibre to the home).
I want the NBN to do my town before the next election (we are on the list, but it could take years for them to get to us).
I am anarch of all I survey.
I am an American living in South Korea. My cable internet (60 Mbits down / 5 up), cable TV (75 channels), and broadband phone are included in a single package that costs 21,000 Won a month. This is roughly $19. I am not even in Seoul. Your statement is wrong.
20 gigs? For that price? You gotta be kidding me - I get 20 gigs easily in a week just from work (yeah, when you can mount a .iso from your computer to install in vmware and the speed is about equal to actually first upload the image to storage server you get lazy...) and those speeds - it is now 2011, not 2000 when 12/1 Mbps was hot.
Here 100/10, 19,90 euros / month. No caps. Gasoline however costs a crapton and half a year it is freezing and dark but at least connectivity is good and cheap.
The basic plan isn't very compelling, but for $65/month you get 200GB (100/100) and 25mbit/5mbit. That's definitely better than ADSL, for only $15 more.
Meanwhile in Europe im getting 25mbit/5mbit for $15, no caps.
Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
In Germany we're getting 100Mbit down 6mbit up and truly unlimited bandwidth on fibre for 20 Euro a month. That's a normal residential connection with Kabel Deutschland.
The NBN is an improvement but Australia is still a rip-off for internet connections.
Pre-canned Evolution Links for all those Slashdot holy wars.
Australia's minimum wage is AU$15.51
The PowerPC includes for this purpose two instructions called SYNC and EIEIO.
Where in Europe? Even in the Netherlands you can't get a connection for that price.
Poland. http://www.aster.pl/internet :)
I pay 100zl for TV + internet. TV is 50zl, internet another 50zl
$1 = 3.3 zl
internet = $15
Granted its "only" 20/2 and not 25/5 like in the post above me, but still
Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
Still sucks. The price is high, the caps are low, the speed is low.
I'm paying 39.90€ a month for 24/1 unlimited. Practically get about 1.8M/s down and 90k/s up.
and that is considered slightly on the expensive side.
40Gb cap i would blow through really fast, then again i'm a business owner.
Pulsed Media Seedboxes
Internet costs more in Australia due to distance from the rest of the English-speaking world (i.e. where 95% of internet hosts we want to access are located), huge area and small population. We will never be able to compete with Europe on price. Also you're picking the entry-level 12/1 40 GB plan for home users (which includes a home phone service with untimed national calls BTW, not just internet) to compare with ... and it only costs only a few euro more than what you pay (59 AUD = ~42 EUR). That ain't bad, considering what prices and speeds are like now. Besides, if it ain't fast enough, up to 100/40 Mbit is available to everyone, and gigabit for business plans.
The relevant comparison is between what Australians can get now (generally ADSL2+ on which for most people get 10 Mbit unless they live close to the exchange), and what we can get on the NBN (same cost - much faster). Not between what you can get in Australia vs. what you can get in densely populated Europe. It's a pointless comparison - EVERYTHING costs more here (but wages are very high too - it all balances out in the end).
It's also likely unlimited plans will be offered by some ISPs on this network too. You have to remember - all you are seeing now is the first batch of pricing released from the first batch of ISPs. Once more get on board and the rollout gathers pace, prices will decline, just as they have been for the ADSL2+ offerings over the last decade. ISPs like TPG already offer unlimited ADSL2+ for $29/month, so I foresee them offering a similar thing on NBN eventually too. It's still early days.
Indeed. Clearly this is an expenditure the first world country with the lowest sovereign debt of all developed nations cannot possibly afford, in a world where major growth industries are being increasingly dominated by IT companies.
the pattern is usually a low starting price to lock you in and then the price floats up at the end of the contract period, either 6 months or a year later. NBN promises a roughly equal service to most people in Oz, some of us won't see much speed difference, others will. The downside is that rural customers will only get the service they have now, that is, poor ADSL, or 3G wireless, sat doesn't really count as it's usually subsidised and services so few few people. NBN isn't planning on going into towns smaller than 1000 people.
You are the second person in this thread to try and claim that rural people won't see any benefit. The NBN is to provide AT LEAST 12/1 speeds to 100% of the country (at the same (wholesale) price for all). Those in towns of less than 1,000 may not get fibre, but they will get high speed fixed wireless or satellite. Those who are on the dodgy ADSL / 3G will definitely see a benefit, possibly by an order of magnitude.
As the average Australian download speed is ~8.5Mb/sec down and 1.28Mb/sec up (according to Netindex), even the SLOWEST NBN speed of 12/1 will be a 25% improvement for most people. Don't forget that there are speeds up to 100/40 for now and those speeds will be increased over time.
There will be very few people in Australia who won't get an improvement in download speed and virtually everyone will be able to get massively higher UPLOAD speeds.
I'm not sure what you mean by the "price float". In Australia, virtually all of the price movements in ADSL (or even 3G) over the past 5 or more years have been downwards. There have been new plans with larger quotas from time to time that do cost more, but noone is forcing you to move to them. (I've always been able to stay on my current plan if the new ones didn't suit for whatever reason)
Ever stop to think