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I was born and raised in Australia, I left for Japan just as the NBN was beginning to roll out. It's an absolute disgrace how much it has been butchered. I hav

I was born and raised in Australia, I left for Japan just as the NBN was beginning to roll out. It's an absolute disgrace how much it has been butchered. I have thoughts about returning occasionally, but going from 2 GB/s unlimited for Aus$ 40 ish a month, back to those speeds and prices is a major factor for me staying here. It is a massive quality of life difference to have amazing internet.

daemin 9y ago
I used to have decent ADSL2+ while living in Inner Suburb Sydney, I got close to 20mbit/s. Now I am living in Poland and have 250/20 unlimited for less than a third of the price. The whole NBN project just irritates me at how it has been mis-managed, by both of the political parties. Yes, Labor included since they could have sped things up by having Fibre to the basement for most apartment buildings in the cities, and then upgraded those lines once the other build out had been completed. Also for having the rollout happen along political lines (as has been alleged). Still most of the blame I assign to the Liberals, since it seems they want to make a shambles out of this for political reasons, and also so they can sell it to some other company in the near future.
- ytta 9y ago
  Just a bit of curiousity - how exactly did you wind up in Poland? Working on a start up?
  - daemin 9y ago
    Working as a Video Games Developer. Also Polish by birth and wanted an easier way to travel around Europe.
Smerity 9y ago
As an Australian now living in San Francisco paying $55 per month for 100/100 (WebPass, which would be the same price but 500/500 or 1000/1000 if I moved to a newer building), I have the exact same feeling. When I journey back home and stay with my parents, it is impossible to get work done. Latency is the first killer - it'll never properly be solved if you're working with remote systems in the US or Europe - but then upload speeds slowly rip at your soul. Download speeds and quotas are no picnic either of course. That Australia didn't end up with a future proof fibre to the home system given the amount of money spent is an absolute disgrace. I get angry every time I have to discuss it. I wanted to move back to Australia sooner than later - and the FTTH NBN promised interesting start-up and other opportunities - but given it has been relegated to a copper backwater those plans are on indefinite hold :( I usually point people to the Australian government debate regarding copper wire over iron wire from 1910 as an anachronistic comparison. https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2013/06/parliament-arguing-about-copper-wires-in-1910-makes-for-some-amazing-reading/ https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2013/06/parliament-arguing-about-...
- gaelian 9y ago
  > but then upload speeds slowly rip at your soul I know the feeling. I'm relatively lucky in that I live somewhere that has had VDSL for some time and my download speed is adequate, if not ideal. But my upload speed is atrocious, in fact actually slower now than it was in past years (before my ISP got bought out by a bigger ISP) and my ISP will not guarantee any particular upload speed for my connection. I make use of a cloud-based backup service to mitigate the possibility of local disk failure and it's just painful. You hardly hear anyone talking about upload speeds in Australia. It's as if cloud-based services aren't really a thing and we're back in the early 2000s. > That Australia didn't end up with a future proof fibre to the home system given the amount of money spent is an absolute disgrace. I get angry every time I have to discuss it. I know this feeling as well. :) It is a massive lost opportunity that the country will be paying for in more ways than one for decades to come.
MichaelGG 9y ago
How do you wire up or use 2Gb/sec at home? Do you get a GigE switch and connect separate devices? Multiple wireless APs? TenGigE?
- moronicalox 9y ago
  He has to be talking Gbps, not GB/s right? Right?! I might move to Japan.
  - marak830 9y ago
    Gb, damn autocorrect haha.
    - MichaelGG 9y ago
      Same question though. Consumer stuff rarely has over 1Gbit, WiFi doesn't go beyond that either.
      - marak830 9y ago
        Well my PC is hard wired, so I can pull 1gb on my system, that leaves room for my wife's of/our phones/ etc. I'm actually looking into a new system atm(due for a full upgrade) and am trying to see how I can fully utilise that on my PC. Edit: typos, fat thumbs again
tp3z4u 9y ago
I can't deal with the 400ms latency. That and the rest of it is why I left and never went back. It's a tech backwater :( So much for Turnbull's 'ideas boom.'
icelancer 9y ago
I work in Australia from time to time on a project. It is superior in every way to the United States for my use cases except for Internet, which keeps me on the West Coast of the US. It's that bad. I'd love nothing more than to move there, but not if the Internet is that terrible.

daemin 9y ago

I used to have decent ADSL2+ while living in Inner Suburb Sydney, I got close to 20mbit/s. Now I am living in Poland and have 250/20 unlimited for less than a third of the price. The whole NBN project just irritates me at how it has been mis-managed, by both of the political parties. Yes, Labor included since they could have sped things up by having Fibre to the basement for most apartment buildings in the cities, and then upgraded those lines once the other build out had been completed. Also for having the rollout happen along political lines (as has been alleged). Still most of the blame I assign to the Liberals, since it seems they want to make a shambles out of this for political reasons, and also so they can sell it to some other company in the near future.

ytta 9y ago
Just a bit of curiousity - how exactly did you wind up in Poland? Working on a start up?
- daemin 9y ago
  Working as a Video Games Developer. Also Polish by birth and wanted an easier way to travel around Europe.

Smerity 9y ago

As an Australian now living in San Francisco paying $55 per month for 100/100 (WebPass, which would be the same price but 500/500 or 1000/1000 if I moved to a newer building), I have the exact same feeling. When I journey back home and stay with my parents, it is impossible to get work done. Latency is the first killer - it'll never properly be solved if you're working with remote systems in the US or Europe - but then upload speeds slowly rip at your soul. Download speeds and quotas are no picnic either of course. That Australia didn't end up with a future proof fibre to the home system given the amount of money spent is an absolute disgrace. I get angry every time I have to discuss it. I wanted to move back to Australia sooner than later - and the FTTH NBN promised interesting start-up and other opportunities - but given it has been relegated to a copper backwater those plans are on indefinite hold :( I usually point people to the Australian government debate regarding copper wire over iron wire from 1910 as an anachronistic comparison. https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2013/06/parliament-arguing-about-copper-wires-in-1910-makes-for-some-amazing-reading/ https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2013/06/parliament-arguing-about-...

gaelian 9y ago
> but then upload speeds slowly rip at your soul I know the feeling. I'm relatively lucky in that I live somewhere that has had VDSL for some time and my download speed is adequate, if not ideal. But my upload speed is atrocious, in fact actually slower now than it was in past years (before my ISP got bought out by a bigger ISP) and my ISP will not guarantee any particular upload speed for my connection. I make use of a cloud-based backup service to mitigate the possibility of local disk failure and it's just painful. You hardly hear anyone talking about upload speeds in Australia. It's as if cloud-based services aren't really a thing and we're back in the early 2000s. > That Australia didn't end up with a future proof fibre to the home system given the amount of money spent is an absolute disgrace. I get angry every time I have to discuss it. I know this feeling as well. :) It is a massive lost opportunity that the country will be paying for in more ways than one for decades to come.

MichaelGG 9y ago

How do you wire up or use 2Gb/sec at home? Do you get a GigE switch and connect separate devices? Multiple wireless APs? TenGigE?

moronicalox 9y ago
He has to be talking Gbps, not GB/s right? Right?! I might move to Japan.
- marak830 9y ago
  Gb, damn autocorrect haha.
  - MichaelGG 9y ago
    Same question though. Consumer stuff rarely has over 1Gbit, WiFi doesn't go beyond that either.
    - marak830 9y ago
      Well my PC is hard wired, so I can pull 1gb on my system, that leaves room for my wife's of/our phones/ etc. I'm actually looking into a new system atm(due for a full upgrade) and am trying to see how I can fully utilise that on my PC. Edit: typos, fat thumbs again

tp3z4u 9y ago

I can't deal with the 400ms latency. That and the rest of it is why I left and never went back. It's a tech backwater :( So much for Turnbull's 'ideas boom.'

icelancer 9y ago

I work in Australia from time to time on a project. It is superior in every way to the United States for my use cases except for Internet, which keeps me on the West Coast of the US. It's that bad. I'd love nothing more than to move there, but not if the Internet is that terrible.