This is News Corp, which seems to have ramped up their anti-NBN
propaganda again. Then again, maybe I just haven't been paying attention. ;)
The more I see, the more I fear that nbn™ has made such a mess that
we'll be rebuilding the NBN within 15 years. The better part of $50
billion wasted! It takes talent to reduce potential century-plus service
life to less than two decades.
<http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/technology/australian-households-businesses-on-nbn-slam-unreliable-connection/news-story/96755a883806958fe2233ff2bdbf4243>
John Rolfe, Cost of Living Editor, News Corp Australia Network
March 12, 2017 10:20am
HOUSEHOLDS on the NBN say they are getting less than a hundredth of
the speed they were promised when they joined the $49 billion
broadband network.
Meanwhile businesses are losing customers because of the NBN’s
unreliability.
Formal complaints about NBN faults — including slow data speeds and
drop outs — soared by a staggering 148 per cent last financial year to
7480, data from the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO) shows.
While NBN customer numbers also rose sharply in that time, fault
complaints increased 17 per cent faster than customer numbers, News
Corp Australia analysis reveals.
“The level of fault complaints are particularly high and concerning,”
said Australian Communications Consumer Action Network CEO Teresa Corbin.
NBN Co, which is building and operating the network, did not provide
an official explanation.
However, sources within NBN Co have told News Corp Australia that
racing to finish the network is affecting quality. The pace of the
rollout doubled in 2016, with an extra 90,000 premises now
“serviceable” each week.
Gosford train driver Neil Dallimore pays $120 a month for the top NBN
package, which is meant to offer download speeds of up to 100 Megabits
per second. He tests the service every morning and evening. The other
day the download speed was 0.67Mbps.
“I’m paying top-dollar for dial-up speed, basically,” Mr Dallimore said.
It was rare to get better than 5Mbps in the late afternoon when his
three children want to use the internet to research homework
assignments. But at 4am the household gets 88Mbps.
Mr Dallimore believes the price he pays should be reduced until higher
speeds are available in periods of peak demand. He has made a formal
TIO complaint against his retailer.
Double Bay’s Greg Conomos is also on the top 100Mbps package but
usually gets only 1 to 3Mbps.
Mr Conomos said “the NBN network isn’t capable of maintaining a
constant dial-up modem speed let alone being the latest and fastest
network in Australia”. He said he was effectively being forced to pay
an extra $40 per month” compared to the ADSL service he had before.
Mr Conomos said a technician for his retailer told him 40Mbps was as
good as could be expected.
Linda Brander of Avalon said she was paying for a 25Mbps service but
it often offered less than 0.5Mbps.
“It has been an absolute disaster,” Ms Brander said. “My service is so
slow it is really not worth having.”
Gosford’s Les Raics is on the same NBN “tier” and his speed recently
improved — to 2Mbps.
“But they take our money every month without fail,” Mr Raics said.
Lynette Mitchell said a computer expert tested her NBN service and
found it was only providing 0.6Mbps.
Kellyville’s Craig Stewart said he was paying for download speeds of
up to 25Mbps but getting 2.35Mbps. He said his testing shows the
problem is congestion during busy periods.
“Failure to provide sufficient capacity to deliver the product is a
failure of NBN Co to deliver the product they have advertised,” Mr
Stewart said.
Trevor McIntyre was getting up to 35Mbps on cable before switching to
the NBN. He’s getting 23Mbps now. He bought a 100Mbps service.
Pharmacy manager Linda Jukic said a decision to install eftpos at her
South Hurstville chemist had been delayed because the NBN service was
unreliable. The business was also missing calls and faxes from
hospitals, doctors and customers — their phone is connected via the NBN.
The pharmacy’s owner Emil Sidhom said he can get his mother’s phone
fixed faster in Egypt than he can get his fixed here.
“We are in Australia,” Mr Sidhom said, “This shouldn’t happen.”
Ksana Natalenko said she had been without a landline or internet for
six weeks and had lodged a complaint against her NBN retailer with the
TIO.
“They have caused me thousands of dollars in lost revenue, as I work
from my computer at home,” Ms Natalenko said.
Another work-from-home business owner Karen Taylor said: “I am losing
money by the day because of my lack of access to the internet. I’ve
had to resort to my portable Wi-Fi which costs $50 per day.”
Kathy-Maree Bartle, who does bookkeeping from her home on the Central
Coast, said she had endured 17 breakdowns in the year since connecting
to the NBN.
“I am so hesitant in telling people to get NBN because it is not
reliable,” she said.
All households and businesses are due to get access to the NBN by
2020. Existing internet and phone connections will be shut off 18
months after NBN access is available.
NBN Co declined to provide its targets or performance on congestion
reduction. It did argue that it wasn’t solely responsible.
“The network experience in relation to any congestion is dependent on
which provider is delivering the service,” an NBN Co spokeswoman said.
NBN speed was determined by the “technology used to deliver the
network as well as some factors outside our control like equipment
quality, software, broadband plans, signal reception and how your
service provider designs their network”.
Users such as Mr Dallimore shared the view that retailers were partly
to blame for not having bought enough bandwidth.
News Corp Australia requested NBN Co data for faults and outages but
it was not provided.
However, its spokeswoman said: “Our data shows that fault rates are
running in line with our internal targets and that we are fixing the
vast majority of faults.
“We acknowledge that there are a relatively small number of total end
users on the NBN who have faced connection issues and take this very
seriously as we want to deliver the best service possible for all
consumers.
“As with any project and technology change of this scale, it isn’t
always smooth sailing but we are doing everything we can to ensure
that we deliver fast and reliable broadband to all Australians,” the
spokeswoman said.
ACCAN’s Ms Corbin said the “solution to the number of fault complaints
was a broadband performance monitoring and reporting program”.
Last Sunday News Corp Australia revealed the Australian Competition
and Consumer Commission was preparing to call for 4000 volunteers to
be part of that program.
One who wants to volunteer is Bill Yeomans of Young, who loves the NBN.
“I have the opposite of a horror story,” said. Mr Yeomans said he
consistently gets download speeds of 95Mbps and that in his view, many
people’s complaints were due to things outside the control of NBN Co
or a retailer.
“Others here in town are complaining about speed, but I’ve discovered
lots of complaints are caused by incorrect self-install of equipment
such as ADSL filters left in line and telephone equipment still
connected to other wall outlets,” Mr Yeomans said.
NBN customer satisfaction increased to 7.2 out of 10 in 2015-16, up
from 6.6 in the prior financial year.
--
David Boxall | My figures are just as good
| as any other figures.
http://david.boxall.id.au | I make them up myself, and they
| always give me innocent pleasure.
| --HL Mencken
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