# Australian goverment confirmed, FTTH for aussies!



## Mussels (Sep 7, 2010)

So to those who have no idea what that means, we finally have our new government decided, and they're giving all aussies access (over the next few years) to FTTH - fiber to the home internet.


100Mb is the initial rollout, with business options going up to 1Gb per line. speeds are confirmed at a *minimum* (assuming you pay your ISP for these speeds) of 80Mb down, 40Mb up.

Most early speeds will be similar to our current offerings of 10Mb down 1Mb up, thus lowering the load on the network in its early stages.


so... comments from americans on fiber? jealous foreign countries stuck on dial up? aussies who are shitting their pants that we're finally getting off tel$tras copper network of overpricing and poor service?


bit of side notes for non aussies


Spoiler



Telstra is the main phone company here, and due to them previously being owned by the govmt, they own ALL copper phone lines in australia. that means every phone company and every DSL ISP has to pay them first, to offer their services. even with multiple middlemen, these other companies are often tons cheaper than telstra, with far better business practices.

This new fiber network will no longer be owned by telstra, thus kicking out the very expensive middleman - not only will out internet speeds go 10x faster in most areas for connections to our homes, congestion in the exchanges will also lessen severely stopping everyone's internet from slowing in peak times (i'm sure american cable users in apartment complexes know what i mean there) and prices will drop severely.

Hell, we may see the return of unlimited data plans here in Au at last, since fiber has scared Telstra our biggest internet plans have rocketed from roughly 100GB a month to 1TB a month in the last three months - for the same price (see what i mean about the bad prices? they can suddenly offer 10x as much at the same cost >.<)

I'm also expecting TV over internet as well as voip to pick up massively, similar to how cable internet, TV and phone are all bundled together in the USA.



edit 2:
since questions about the internet filter came up, i'll comment on that as well.

Its split somewhat evenly in government (and very anti-filter outside of there). 

The two groups are basically:
Old guys who are IT illieterate saying "think of the children and support the filter, or you're a pedophile" and the group saying "umm, supervise the damn kids instead?"

the technically minded  in charge of the filter know its a pile of crap, it only blocks HTTP web addresses, so you can still do all sorts of naughty things via proxies or torrents.

at the moment its dead in the water - hopefully the new govmt is willing to scrap it completely, and focus on making money from the NBN instead.


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## crazy pyro (Sep 7, 2010)

Lucky Bastard!
Does this government dislike daft things like the filter etc?


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## Mussels (Sep 7, 2010)

crazy pyro said:


> Lucky Bastard!
> Does this government dislike daft things like the filter etc?



the filter may still go ahead, but for now its dead in the water.

most people i know follow the one line of thinking:

vote for whoever gets the FTTN network up and running, then vote for whoever opposes the filter next election.

did an edit to the first post with a spoiler section, giving a bit more insight for you foreigners.


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## Solaris17 (Sep 7, 2010)

Mussels said:


> the filter may still go ahead, but for now its dead in the water.
> 
> most people i know follow the one line of thinking:
> 
> ...



lol we need the insight and your the one just getting fiber


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## crazy pyro (Sep 7, 2010)

Solaris, in the UK we have patches of fiber and patches of not fiber, unfortunately I'm stuck in a patch without fiber!
Good news about the filter at least being dead in the water though Mussels!


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## Mussels (Sep 7, 2010)

Solaris17 said:


> lol we need the insight and your the one just getting fiber



not many foreigners would know who telstra is, and why we hate them 


no one else could get away with running phone lines zip tied to an electric fence on farm properties and charging the customer money for it even when it doesnt work.


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## Solaris17 (Sep 7, 2010)

Mussels said:


> not many foreigners would know who telstra is, and why we hate them
> 
> 
> no one else could get away with running phone lines zip tied to an electric fence on farm properties and charging the customer money for it even when it doesnt work.



hahaha that was halarious. im surprised their hasnt been some sort of revolution. down their in OZ


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## <<Onafets>> (Sep 7, 2010)

F.m.l...


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## Mussels (Sep 7, 2010)

<<Onafets>> said:


> F.m.l...



why? fiber for you!


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## Luke (Sep 7, 2010)

When i get home tonight i will post some pics of my phone line then you will see the zip ties and electric fence


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## Solaris17 (Sep 7, 2010)

Mussels said:


> why? fiber for you!



hes the CEO of telstra bro :/


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## DriedFrogPills (Sep 7, 2010)

and it was the NBN that secured the backing of one of the indies as well.  And as for the filter its well and truely dead now. even CONroy dumped it before the election.

though the NBN was the only real nation building item of vision int he whole election

@Onafets, do you really not want 100mbps internet. and a carbon price


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## <<Onafets>> (Sep 7, 2010)

Mussels said:


> why? fiber for you!



Yeah...and my kids are paying the debt...
Oh yeah...and F*** telstra...


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## Mussels (Sep 7, 2010)

<<Onafets>> said:


> Yeah...and my kids are paying the debt...
> Oh yeah...and F*** telstra...



its ok, your kids have kidneys to sell off.


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## Solaris17 (Sep 7, 2010)

Mussels said:


> its ok, your kids have kidneys to sell off.



you only need 1


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## <<Onafets>> (Sep 7, 2010)

Mussels said:


> its ok, your kids have kidneys to sell off.



Your constant stimulation of my Lolling abilities makes it all the better...


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## DriedFrogPills (Sep 7, 2010)

so you would prefer your kids had no jobs because the GFC bail out didn't happen and you kids are doomed to living in a technological backwater? just because you don't want a debt?  Australia came out in a FAR better position in the world economy after the GFC, why? because we spent to support businesses and jobs which better places the future governments to pay off the debt.  And do you really think Tony Abbott could have paid of the debt with the Liberals inability to do maths


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## Luke (Sep 7, 2010)

Just so you know why us Aussies hate Telstra this is my phone line 
It has been like this for years and we have given up ringing Telstra

Now I can only hope that I get FTTH where I live


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## <<Onafets>> (Sep 7, 2010)

I don't really care TBH...I just want lag-less net...

Not you Luke, I'm not that mean when I'm pissed 

Oh and on the topic of faster net, what use is it when my pr0nz won't load faster?


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## Solaris17 (Sep 7, 2010)

Luke said:


> Just so you know why us Aussies hate Telstra this is my phone line
> It has been like this for years and we have given up ringing Telstra
> 
> Now I can only hope that I get FTTH where I live
> ...



are you serious?


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## Luke (Sep 7, 2010)

Solaris17 said:


> are you serious?



Very
Has been like that for years and Telstra have been telling us for years that they will fix it but they never come
Even that taped up bit is there professional repair


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## Solaris17 (Sep 7, 2010)

Luke said:


> Very
> Has been like that for years and Telstra have been telling us for years that they will fix it but they never come
> Even that taped up bit is there professional repair



i dont even know what to say to that.


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## Triprift (Sep 7, 2010)

Luke said:


> Just so you know why us Aussies hate Telstra this is my phone line
> It has been like this for years and we have given up ringing Telstra
> 
> Now I can only hope that I get FTTH where I live
> ...



Lol gotta love Telstra hopeless. wtf:

But great news about the NBN network being a goer this ADSL2+ is too slow.


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## Mussels (Sep 7, 2010)

apart from dodgy crap like lukes experiencing, the main problem is that most of the network backbones are still copper, so they cant provide enough bandwidth atm to provide speeds to everyone in peak hours. thats the biggest benefit to the FTTH - even in areas that DONT get it, moving them off the copper network will make the remaining bandwidth spread out more evenly and make it a happier place for everyone... well, except 3G/nextG users.

competition will also force telstra to lower prices in non FTTH areas.


TL;DR: even if you arent in an FTTH area, your net will still end up faster and cheaper.


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## AsRock (Sep 7, 2010)

Cool about bloody time too,  a friend (old D2 player )who lives over there has been waiting for improvements i just hope that the prices are good to boot.

Maybe he could get this by D3 release  .


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## scaminatrix (Sep 7, 2010)

Luke said:


> Just so you know why us Aussies hate Telstra this is my phone line
> It has been like this for years and we have given up ringing Telstra
> 
> Now I can only hope that I get FTTH where I live
> ...



wwwhat? Is that an upside-down warning sign?
That's seriously disheartening.


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## DriedFrogPills (Sep 7, 2010)

@Asrock Prolly not by then I think the completion date is 2017 remember Australia is ambiguity country


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## slyfox2151 (Sep 7, 2010)

AsRock said:


> Cool about bloody time too,  a friend (old D2 player )who lives over there has been waiting for improvements i just hope that the prices are good to boot.
> 
> Maybe he could get this by D3 release  .



unfortuently, even if he lived where i am (one of the very first area's in australia to get FTTH) he would still be waiting 2 years from now to get it.

and as has been said above its going to take 8 years to fully compleat.


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## scaminatrix (Sep 7, 2010)

slyfox2151 said:


> unfortuently, even if he lived where i am (one of the very first area's in australia to get FTTH) he would still be waiting 2 years from now to get it.
> 
> and as has been said above its going to take 8 years to fully compleat.



I don't know, I think there'll be a lot of pressure and money offers to make things happen quicker from businesses that are going to benefit from the move, maybe even businesses themselves paying for private contractors to do work.
I think it's likely to happen quicker than expected.


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## Mussels (Sep 8, 2010)

they dont have to dig up roads and all that to upgrade to FTTH, they're just sliding the cables through the existing tubes/piping where the copper wire already is. since its one fiber line per splitter, they have to run one cable from the exchange to the splitter (which deals with 32 houses) - so in reality, its gunna be a lot faster than hooking up 32 phone lines would have been.


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## hellrazor (Sep 8, 2010)

Mussels said:


> no one else could get away with running phone lines zip tied to an electric fence



Dude, 90% of my brother's dirtbike is zip-tied together, don't go saying anything bad about them.

Telstra, on the other hand, is fair game.


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## Solaris17 (Sep 8, 2010)

hellrazor said:


> Dude, 90% of my brother's dirtbike is zip-tied together, don't go saying anything bad about them.
> 
> Telstra, on the other hand, is fair game.



my distributor cap is zip tied on one side because i didnt feel like pulling the motor to tap the broken screw out. works mint no play at all.


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## Easy Rhino (Sep 8, 2010)

too bad you wont get those speeds off the island!


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## wolf (Sep 8, 2010)

this is frikken awesome news to hear its fully confirmed and going ahead, telstra should have been taken out back and shot a long time ago.


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## slyfox2151 (Sep 8, 2010)

Easy Rhino said:


> too bad you wont get those speeds off the island!



lies, theres a lot of american services that max out 4MByte lines ^^


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## Solaris17 (Sep 8, 2010)

slyfox2151 said:


> lies, theres a lot of american services that max out 4MByte lines ^^



ya if americans move to australia


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## Mussels (Sep 8, 2010)

Easy Rhino said:


> too bad you wont get those speeds off the island!



thats the idea behind the 1Gb lines for business - we can fnally get some decent servers here for locally hosted content.


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## Easy Rhino (Sep 8, 2010)

Mussels said:


> thats the idea behind the 1Gb lines for business - we can fnally get some decent servers here for locally hosted content.



true. i am not saying this won't change anything. plus, it will be nice for when you Aussie's wanna play against us American's online. when you lose you won't be able to blame the lag


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## Mussels (Sep 8, 2010)

Easy Rhino said:


> true. i am not saying this won't change anything. plus, it will be nice for when you Aussie's wanna play against us American's online. when you lose you won't be able to blame the lag



yeah, when they host game servers HERE instead of in bloody china >.<


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## grunt_408 (Sep 8, 2010)

Haha nice one Rhino, This is great news. I was a bit worried for a while durin the elections with the whole hung vote thing. But the right government got in and us Australians will benifit from FTH woo hoo.


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## Triprift (Sep 8, 2010)

Easy Rhino said:


> true. i am not saying this won't change anything. plus, it will be nice for when you Aussie's wanna play against us American's online. when you lose you won't be able to blame the lag



Nah i just get you guys to join Ozzie servers lol.


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## Fourstaff (Sep 8, 2010)

Its rather pointless for FTTH when the undersea cable to US caps out at 1Mbps. Lets hope they have more brains than that.


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## Mussels (Sep 8, 2010)

Fourstaff said:


> Its rather pointless for FTTH when the undersea cable to US caps out at 1Mbps. Lets hope they have more brains than that.



and you made this number up, when?

there are about a dozen undersea links from Au overseas, and they're all fiber.


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## Frizz (Sep 8, 2010)

Is this for real? I'm tired on relying on false promises


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## Kreij (Sep 8, 2010)

Luke said:


> Just so you know why us Aussies hate Telstra this is my phone line
> It has been like this for years and we have given up ringing Telstra
> 
> Now I can only hope that I get FTTH where I live
> ...



Maybe I've lived out in the sticks too long. I don't see a problem other than it's slower than fiber.


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## Mussels (Sep 8, 2010)

randomflip said:


> Is this for real? I'm tired on relying on false promises



its for real. the ranga promised.


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## Frizz (Sep 8, 2010)

Mussels said:


> its for real. the ranga promised.



Having a ranga PM may not be so bad after all


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## Triprift (Sep 8, 2010)

better than that FTTN one that they were originally looking at.


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## Sasqui (Sep 8, 2010)

Where I am in the US, we're stuck with two choices, Comcast broadband cable, or DSL.  

The latter isn't even an option, a complete POS unreliable service.  The former is expensive as shit and you don't get your money's worth but it's the only game in town.  Comcast = Evil

What happened to anti trust laws and anti-monolpolies?  We were supposed to get FIOS (fiber), but apparently the shit company "Fairpoint" that bought the local phone land system also owns the FIOS backbone here, and they're in bankrupcy court.  They wouldn't have a clue how to roll it out anyway.  What a f*cking mess.


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## Mussels (Sep 8, 2010)

Sasqui said:


> Where I am in the US, we're stuck with two choices, Comcast broadband cable, or DSL.
> 
> The latter isn't even an option, a complete POS unreliable service.  The former is expensive as shit and you don't get your money's worth but it's the only game in town.  Comcast = Evil
> 
> What happened to anti trust laws and anti-monolpolies?  We were supposed to get FIOS (fiber), but apparently the shit company "Fairpoint" that bought the local phone land system also owns the FIOS backbone here, and they're in bankrupcy court.  They wouldn't have a clue how to roll it out anyway.  What a f*cking mess.




thats what the idea is here with the fiber, govmt lays it down and any ISP is welcome to use it, all paying the same rates. no middlemen, true competition.


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## Sasqui (Sep 8, 2010)

Mussels said:


> thats what the idea is here with the fiber, govmt lays it down and any ISP is welcome to use it, all paying the same rates. no middlemen, true competition.



Nice!  If only...

Sounds like the government will also recoup their investment over time by doing that, so everyone wins.  Not in the US - Coorporations pay good money to keep competition away.


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## Mussels (Sep 8, 2010)

Sasqui said:


> Nice!  If only...
> 
> Sounds like the government will also recoup their investment over time by doing that, so everyone wins.  Not in the US - Coorporations pay good money to keep competition away.



the longer its in the better, fiber is fiber. its immune to water, no radio interference, and best of all - when you upgrade, you dont replace the cable, just the devices on either end.


so in 20 years time when we want 100Gb internet, bam, takes em an hour to upgrade it (per 32 houses, on each splitter)


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## Triprift (Sep 8, 2010)

Sasqui said:


> Nice!  If only...
> 
> Sounds like the government will also recoup their investment over time by doing that, so everyone wins.  Not in the US - Coorporations pay good money to keep competition away.



They will do wich is why i thought it was hilarious the Libs going on during the election about the cost like there option would of been better.


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## Mussels (Sep 8, 2010)

Triprift said:


> They will do wich is why i thought it was hilarious the Libs going on during the election about the cost like there option would of been better.



they wanted to focus more on 3G, 'boosting speeds' by enabling us to connect multiple times at once (like wireless N) - yeah, lets oversaturate it even MORE >.<


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## btarunr (Sep 8, 2010)

Often there's a catch when ISPs offer Z,OMG Mbps at mainstream subscription-rates. That only amounts to bandwidth within your country. To servers outside, the bandwidth drops drastically, sometimes even to 1/10 your advertised bandwidth, and as some already pointed out, the international data cables' bandwidth is limited. 

For someone (along with everyone who's subscribed to the same plan) to truly experience  advertised bandwidths, the country's international data links should keep up. Usually, when a country even adds a single undersea cable, it makes news at least in the IT sector, because a new undersea cable is just that big a deal, it's like building a new skyscraper or naval vessel. 

New Zealand is perfect example of where the ISPs are making a loot selling ZOMG-Mbps plans, while the country's international data links are not able to keep up (so when accessing sites that have servers in Europe or the US, in peak hours, Kiwis never get close to advertised speeds. That's partly also because perhaps the country doesn't find it viable to lay new cables, its very far from US west coast.


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## Mussels (Sep 8, 2010)

btarunr said:


> Often there's a catch when ISPs offer Z,OMG Mbps at mainstream subscription-rates. That only amounts to bandwidth within your country. To servers outside, the bandwidth drops drastically, sometimes even to 1/10 your advertised bandwidth, and as some already pointed out, the international data cables' bandwidth is limited.
> 
> For someone (along with everyone who's subscribed to the same plan) to truly experience  advertised bandwidths, the country's international data links should keep up. Usually, when a country even adds a single undersea cable, it makes news at least in the IT sector.
> 
> ...



very true. thats why i'm hoping now that telstras insane prices are dropping, more people will host things locally (mirrors, servers, etc etc)


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## Easo (Sep 8, 2010)

Well, Latvia is still in second place in world (lol, but yea...) Our dormitory have 100mbit , ~3$ a month...

Anyway, gratz! About time...


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## Kreij (Sep 8, 2010)

Sasqui said:


> Where I am in the US, we're stuck with two choices, Comcast broadband cable, or DSL.



Our options are dial-up or satellite. No cable, no dsl. We can do smoke signals if we want.



Mussels said:


> thats what the idea is here with the fiber, govmt lays it down and any ISP is welcome to use it, all paying the same rates. no middlemen, []btrue competition[/b].



Until the bribes start rolling in.


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## Sasqui (Sep 8, 2010)

btarunr said:


> Often there's a catch when ISPs offer Z,OMG Mbps at mainstream subscription-rates. That only amounts to bandwidth within your country. To servers outside, the bandwidth drops drastically, sometimes even to 1/10 your advertised bandwidth, and as some already pointed out, the international data cables' bandwidth is limited.
> 
> For someone (along with everyone who's subscribed to the same plan) to truly experience  advertised bandwidths, the country's international data links should keep up. Usually, when a country even adds a single undersea cable, it makes news at least in the IT sector, because a new undersea cable is just that big a deal, it's like building a new skyscraper or naval vessel.



Hey - they missed all the bandwidth used by the Nigerian lottery schemes!


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## btarunr (Sep 8, 2010)

Sasqui said:


> Hey - they missed all the bandwidth used by the Nigerian lottery schemes!



Nigerians make people millionaires over 56 kbps.


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## Bo$$ (Sep 8, 2010)

btarunr said:


> Nigerians make people millionaires over 56 kbps.



not in 2004


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## Steevo (Sep 8, 2010)

Sasqui said:


> Where I am in the US, we're stuck with two choices, Comcast broadband cable, or DSL.
> 
> The latter isn't even an option, a complete POS unreliable service.  The former is expensive as shit and you don't get your money's worth but it's the only game in town.  Comcast = Evil
> 
> What happened to anti trust laws and anti-monolpolies?  We were supposed to get FIOS (fiber), but apparently the shit company "Fairpoint" that bought the local phone land system also owns the FIOS backbone here, and they're in bankrupcy court.  They wouldn't have a clue how to roll it out anyway.  What a f*cking mess.



We have the same thing here, Qwest DSL, for only $79 a month after your introductory rate for 7 X 1, I called and they promised to take off $20 a month for being a loyal customer and all, still not as good as a new customer. Before this I fought with the cable company, $129 a month for 8X1 with HD Cable, DVR, phone. They just never buried the cable, so it was strung across the alley where it got cut three times from them grading the alley. A few channels only had audio on the left speaker, and despite multiple calls nothing was ever done, and the fact they fucked me for 6 months as after I upgraded to HD about 80% of my channels went away. Then they had the balls to tell me it was my fault.


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## Sasqui (Sep 8, 2010)

Steevo said:


> We have the same thing here, Qwest DSL, for only $79 a month after your introductory rate for 7 X 1, I called and they promised to take off $20 a month for being a loyal customer and all, still not as good as a new customer. Before this I fought with the cable company, $129 a month for 8X1 with HD Cable, DVR, phone. They just never buried the cable, so it was strung across the alley where it got cut three times from them grading the alley. A few channels only had audio on the left speaker, and despite multiple calls nothing was ever done, and the fact they fucked me for 6 months as after I upgraded to HD about 80% of my channels went away. Then they had the balls to tell me it was my fault.



Got some simliar Comcast Broadband and DSL horror stories.  Let's move to Australia.


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## Mussels (Sep 8, 2010)

i got a spare bedroom. first TPU'er to turn up here can rent it for $70/pw

(thats $70 Au, so like $3.50 USD )


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## Sasqui (Sep 8, 2010)

Mussels said:


> i got a spare bedroom. first TPU'er to turn up here can rent it for $70/pw
> 
> (thats $70 Au, so like $3.50 USD )



Checking airfare right now


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## Easy Rhino (Sep 8, 2010)

what gets me is that Aussie citizens have to wait for their government to decide whether or not they get what they want. it is a bit like that here in the U.S for things like nuclear power plants. yea know, things that are regulated because they impact the environment and are potentially deadly. and ultimately it is handled by the federal government, not the local authorities. with broadband, companies do not have to worry about too much regulation from preventing them competing for customers. (the FCC wants to change that with net neutrality but that is not my point.) the broadband companies are all regulated here at the local level. so you live in town X which only has one telecomm provider because the town government signed a 10 year exclusivity contract with that provider. most of these types of dealings are incredibly corrupt. you can only imagine the kind of money that secretly changes hands in this type of environment. keeping out all competition in your town is a huge win for a telecomm. if that were to happen at a federal government level there would be hell to pay. people want choices and they don't want others choosing for them.


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## DannibusX (Sep 8, 2010)

Luke said:


> Just so you know why us Aussies hate Telstra this is my phone line
> It has been like this for years and we have given up ringing Telstra
> 
> Now I can only hope that I get FTTH where I live
> ...



Dude.  I would go bat-shit crazy if Verizon or Comcast tried to do that here.

You should email them a link to the Cable Management Helpdesk.


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## wolf (Sep 8, 2010)

Easy Rhino said:


> people want choices and they don't want others choosing for them.



thats how it has been in Aus for so long... you had to be with telstra in one way or another really, wether or not you actually rented the line from them.

you rent the line from your ISP who rents it from telstra wholesale, as oppose to the customer facing telstra.

that what made it suck to work for an isp for 18 months, people would call up with an insane amount of rage directed at us, when in reality it was completely telstas fault, however in the customers eyes, since they are our wholesaler, its still our fault. and when theres a middleman company like that they [telstra] turn into utter fuckheads about quick problem resolution, when it's a wholesaled line and not one directly through their customer base.

the only good thing was every now and then someone would call up with an issue like that, and I could explain it, and they would understand it wasn't 'our' fault, it was telstras and we could have a nice little chuckle about how much balls they suck.


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