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I am with one of the world’s biggest telcos, Telstra, on a fully owned and operated fibre-to-the-premises network. I live in a decade old estate half an hour fr

by quink 6y ago

I am with one of the world’s biggest telcos, Telstra, on a fully owned and operated fibre-to-the-premises network. I live in a decade old estate half an hour from the centres of the third and sixth largest cities in the country. The maximum upload speed currently on sale on that network is 1 Mbps. And it’s a monopoly. Inequality in Internet access aside, that maximum is below the average fixed upload speed of 170 out of 170 countries listed by Speedtest.net. 1 Mbps. I did three months of complaining and got 5 Mbps. The local regulator doesn’t care because even though they’re not actively selling it, said monopoly network is “capable of 5 Mbps”. Contention aside, this and 5G will be important for those jailed by infrastructure monopolists. Here an extreme example, but the same is true across North America too, for instance. Rural users sure, but this can extend beyond that.

SyneRyder 6y ago
> I am with one of the world’s biggest telcos, Telstra... You have my condolences :( That's so bizarre to have that kind of low speed on fibre, though. I'm half an hour by car / bus from the 4th biggest city, and I'm reliably getting 10Mbps upload over the copper lines. (I was getting the full 20Mbps of my plan, until NBN recently botched the repair of a temporary line fault - their repair guy even said it was the legal required minimum speed and he wasn't going to try any harder than that.) Is iiNet not available where you are? Though since it's all NBN now, the reseller telco shouldn't make any difference. That 6th biggest city is awesome though - if I didn't live here, I'd move there. 3rd biggest is a nice place too.
- quink 6y ago
  It’s “Telstra Velocity”. It just got a special exemption to not make it operate like the NBN renewed because, and I paraphrase the federal government’s words: “because they couldn’t be arsed and if we didn’t renew it they’d turn off the Internet and blame it on us”. I too would like to have regulatory exemptions extended indefinitely with the excuse being that I can’t be arsed, but elected officials can just tell people to use mobile data instead like my local one did. Charging taxpayers more than $30,000 over a year. No other providers are available. Technically OCCOM and probably still Exetel, but they can’t offer faster speeds and have to charge more than even Telstra. My most recent communication with the federal communications department included this wonderful phrase: > “Please note that this legislation applies only to the capabilities of the network. The plans offered to individual consumers may be limited to slower speeds.”
apendleton 6y ago
Unfortunately it seems like Starlink in particular probably won't be useful for urban areas with poor competition. I'd be interested if it were, but from the sounds of it, they won't be able to handle lots of users in a small area.
- quink 6y ago
  Likely, but Australia might have a bit less of that because all the big cities are very distant from each other. A Starlink satellite with a view of Perth, for example, is going to have close to absolutely nothing else on its horizon. Above the US, for instance, that’s unlikely with many people living in between too.
sjy 6y ago
Wow, that's terrible. People like to complain about internet speeds in Australia, but I thought it was OK if you had FTTP. This is the first I've heard of these localised garbage fibre monopolies. https://www.itnews.com.au/news/telstra-gets-two-more-years-to-upgrade-or-sell-its-residential-fibre-networks-550012 https://www.itnews.com.au/news/telstra-gets-two-more-years-t...

by quink 6y ago

SyneRyder 6y ago

> I am with one of the world’s biggest telcos, Telstra... You have my condolences :( That's so bizarre to have that kind of low speed on fibre, though. I'm half an hour by car / bus from the 4th biggest city, and I'm reliably getting 10Mbps upload over the copper lines. (I was getting the full 20Mbps of my plan, until NBN recently botched the repair of a temporary line fault - their repair guy even said it was the legal required minimum speed and he wasn't going to try any harder than that.) Is iiNet not available where you are? Though since it's all NBN now, the reseller telco shouldn't make any difference. That 6th biggest city is awesome though - if I didn't live here, I'd move there. 3rd biggest is a nice place too.

quink 6y ago
It’s “Telstra Velocity”. It just got a special exemption to not make it operate like the NBN renewed because, and I paraphrase the federal government’s words: “because they couldn’t be arsed and if we didn’t renew it they’d turn off the Internet and blame it on us”. I too would like to have regulatory exemptions extended indefinitely with the excuse being that I can’t be arsed, but elected officials can just tell people to use mobile data instead like my local one did. Charging taxpayers more than $30,000 over a year. No other providers are available. Technically OCCOM and probably still Exetel, but they can’t offer faster speeds and have to charge more than even Telstra. My most recent communication with the federal communications department included this wonderful phrase: > “Please note that this legislation applies only to the capabilities of the network. The plans offered to individual consumers may be limited to slower speeds.”

apendleton 6y ago

Unfortunately it seems like Starlink in particular probably won't be useful for urban areas with poor competition. I'd be interested if it were, but from the sounds of it, they won't be able to handle lots of users in a small area.

quink 6y ago
Likely, but Australia might have a bit less of that because all the big cities are very distant from each other. A Starlink satellite with a view of Perth, for example, is going to have close to absolutely nothing else on its horizon. Above the US, for instance, that’s unlikely with many people living in between too.

sjy 6y ago

Wow, that's terrible. People like to complain about internet speeds in Australia, but I thought it was OK if you had FTTP. This is the first I've heard of these localised garbage fibre monopolies. https://www.itnews.com.au/news/telstra-gets-two-more-years-to-upgrade-or-sell-its-residential-fibre-networks-550012 https://www.itnews.com.au/news/telstra-gets-two-more-years-t...