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I'm Australian, am I to understand that our internet quality and distribution is only just approaching what the American's had in 2007? WTF!? I wish poor inter

I'm Australian, am I to understand that our internet quality and distribution is only just approaching what the American's had in 2007? WTF!? I wish poor internet connection was something I could really get upset about, but I guess the rest of my life is a lot better than most around the world.

grecy 13y ago
As an Australian that lived in America for a long time, trust me when I say life in Australia with crappy internet is significantly better than life in America with fast internet. You don't want to live there, trust me.
- MichaelApproved 13y ago
  You've got to be more specific when you say "there" or at least mention what you found wrong. The US is a large country with vast differences between the cities. Your experience in one area could be dramatically different from another area in the US.
  - michaelochurch 13y ago
    He might have experienced our healthcare. Even if he had insurance, our system is a clusterfuck that makes everyone worse upon contact. Or, he might be older than 30 and therefore not willing to deal with the puny two-week vacation allotment that is still socially acceptable from US employers. Or, he might have children who will have to be educated someday, and see that a system that combines astronomical tuition plus fickle nonacademic factors in admissions ("extracurricular" criteria designed to give the privileged a huge advantage) is not good for their future. Or, he might have lived in the Red States and be gay. Or, pardon the "he", she might be a woman. Or transgender.
    - ryanSrich 13y ago
      > He might have experienced our healthcare. Even if he had insurance, our system is a clusterfuck that makes everyone worse upon contact. I'm not disagreeing with you I just need help understanding. I get a job. My job offers health insurance coverage, which most do now. I pay a small fee (<$200) per month to get the coverage. If I get hurt I go to a doctor and the insurance covers the costs in full, so long as they accept that insurance. How is this not ideal? What would be better for the tax payer? > Or, he might be older than 30 and therefore not willing to deal with the puny two-week vacation allotment that is still socially acceptable from US employers. Outside of tech. I've found within the industry most employers have a flexible vacation policy. > Or, he might have children who will have to be educated someday, and see that a system that combines astronomical tuition plus fickle nonacademic factors in admissions ("extracurricular" criteria designed to give the privileged a huge advantage) is not good for their future. Can't argue with this one. I wholeheartedly agree. > Or, he might have lived in the Red States and be gay. Or, pardon the "he", she might be a woman. Or transgender. Eh. I'd say this is more based on location within a state. Go to Austin Texas and you'll have a better time than many other states that are "blue".
      - vacri 13y ago
        How is this not ideal? For people who don't think $200 every month is "a small fee". Folks on minimum wage might not agree with you on 'small', particularly if they're part-time. For people who don't have a job. For when your healthcare provider hasn't done a deal with your insurance. For having to do the paperwork in the first place. David Sedaris talks about getting medical care while living in France. He tried to pay for it, and got "Oh, fix us up next time". On insisting, he got "oh, I suppose you could pay, if you really want to". What would be better for the tax payer? It's been pretty conclusively demonstrated that the US system is ridiculously expensive for the taxpayer with poor outcomes for society as a whole, compared to other systems. Edit: I've never figured out how to do dot points on HN...
      - michaelochurch 13y ago
        I'm not disagreeing with you I just need help understanding. I get a job. My job offers health insurance coverage, which most do now. I pay a small fee (<$200) per month to get the coverage. If I get hurt I go to a doctor and the insurance covers the costs in full, so long as they accept that insurance. How is this not ideal? What would be better for the tax payer? Red pill alert. Your doctor accepting insurance is not guaranteed, or even likely, these days. As insurance companies become more aggressive against doctors, an increasing number are either deciding not to put up with that bullshit at all (in New York, half the doctors don't take insurance at all because there are enough richies) or to only accept a couple of plans (which you won't get, unless your company is union and the union does a hell of a job). Companies often buy cheapskate insurance where the network is thin, and you may need a specialist but be unable to get one (in network) for several months, or have to drive 100 miles. In an emergency, you pay a lot out of pocket. Possibly $20,000+. That's with insurance. Most plans also have high deductibles ($2000+) these days, which means that the first $2000 of expenses you will pay. There's typically an exemption for an annual physical and for routine stuff, but getting seriously sick is beyond what most Americans can afford. Oh, and if you have to buy individual insurance (your employer isn't big enough to get a group plan) then you will be paying a hell of a lot more than $200 per month for it. If you've ever had a serious illness, make it $2,500 per month. Cancer survivors are uninsurable if seeking individual plans (chemotherapy is carcinogenic, believe it or not). Diabetics are fucked. Finally, if you deal with anxiety or depression or panic attacks (hey, it happens) you will get a lot of pushback from health insurance, even on unrelated claims, because statistically people with MH issues (especially depression) are more likely to just give up and eat losses, or fuck up on paperwork and eat losses, on claims that the insurer should technically pay. American health insurance is, with no exaggeration, a 9/11 every 24 days. 45,000 per year. Many of those have insurance.
    - Cub3 13y ago
      Australian here working for a major tech company with 5 weeks paid vacation, didn't even know 2 was standard in the US :/
      - Goladus 13y ago
        I've worked in the US since 2001 and have never had less than 15 days paid vacation.
    - mikeash 13y ago
      Are you seriously saying that life in the US is terrible if you're a woman? Do I understand that correctly? Has HN really reached that level of boneheadedness?
      - jodrellblank 13y ago
        No, he's apologising for using 'he' all over his comment.
        mikeash 13y ago
        No, that last paragraph is clearly a list of circumstances which would cause life in the US to be bad. Depending on how you apply "red states", he may only mean that being a woman in a "red state" is bad. Either way, it's idiotic.
  - robzyb 13y ago
    I understand that a significant majority of the United States' healthcare system is lacklustre. I understand that a significant majority of the United States' only offer limited annual leave (compared to Australia's 4 weeks). I understand that a significant majority of the United States' suffers from an extremely high murder rate for a 1st world country. This is a sample of why I don't want to live in the US, even though they have fast internet.
    - clarkmoody 13y ago
      Citation needed Seriously.
      - catmanjan 13y ago
        http://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/statistics/crime/Homicide_statistics2012.xls http://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/statistics/... For murder rates, North America beaten by Africa only I believe.
    - mikeash 13y ago
      The health care system is fine if you can afford it. The main problem with American health care is financial, and if you have good insurance (which should come with any good job) it's fine. Not great, but on par with the rest of the first world. Limited annual leave depends on the job. If you're in software engineering or similar, you're unlikely to have a problem. If you get offered a job that doesn't offer the annual leave you want, either negotiate for more, or just don't take that job. I doubt your statement that a majority of the US has an extremely high murder rate. Some parts of the country certainly do, but much of the country is perfectly safe. The overall average rate is higher than other first-world countries, but that does not imply that most of the country has a higher rate. Crime is not spread out evenly. You may want to look into why you understand things that aren't really correct, and figure out how that happened.
      - Goladus 13y ago
        Murder rate thing is probably because an Australian national named Christopher Lane, in the US playing Baseball at college, was randomly murdered in Oklahoma this year. He was out jogging when a couple of teenagers ran up and shot him in the back for no obvious reason. Australian politicians immediately started telling people not to visit the US because it's so full of guns.
- antidaily 13y ago
  Oh yeah?! Well your architecture sucks!
  - catmanjan 13y ago
    Haha, it's all designed to be poor vantage points for mass shootings :P
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
  - michaelochurch 13y ago
    There are some neat cities with character. For quality-of-life (relatively speaking) you have Austin and Portland. If you think you can make it rich, there's San Francisco and New York. For historic charm, you have Boston, Philadelphia and Baltimore. The upper midwest has a relatively high quality of life, too. Life in the politically sane parts ("blue states") of the US, if you have a job in tech, isn't so bad. You get paid enough to get by, and you'll have 3+ weeks of vacation at a proper tech company. Just make sure never to get sick; even if you have insurance, they make it hell. Our medical system is the one thing that makes the US a legitimately bad country to live in; if we had universal healthcare, it'd be average-plus (all taken together) in the developed world.
    - catmanjan 13y ago
      I understand what you're saying, but I don't know how you can say that with a straight face. I don't think living a life that "isn't so bad" is good enough for the caliber of people that visit HN. And the fact that your country has "sane" and presumably "insane" political areas is creepy :(
      - michaelochurch 13y ago
        I'm an American. There are some ways in which I like living here. Would I come here if I were a Swede? Hell no, except for a $300k+ job in banking or the Valley, and only then knowing that I could get on a plane and leave if I got sick. (You can get 100-200k in the EU; at the 300k level, the jobs start getting rarer in the EU relative to the US, which is why Wall Street gets a surprising amount of French, German, and Italian talent-- if probably not as much as The City.) If you look at the country in totality and taking into account its full history and what it has overcome, and how rapidly it can change itself when needed, the US is a great country. I don't mean to imply that I think it's better than others (I wouldn't begin to be competent in that comparison) and its history is all kinds of fucked up (genocide of native people, slavery, internment of Japanese-Americans) but there's a lot to be proud of, too. Would I live here if I were born European? Barring an unusually good job offer that couldn't be found elsewhere, no. And any patriotic pride I might be inclined to have as an American (and I don't have much, because this country is full of assholes, too) I would just as much have if I were born elsewhere. Patriotic pride is a weird thing. I'm from rural PA and it makes me smile every time I meet a successful person with a '717' area code, and I definitely take pride in my rivers and mountains (hills by West Coast standards) but I know there's no rational reason for it; people from central PA aren't superior to people from anywhere else in any way.
- el_benhameen 13y ago
  Out of curiosity, can you elaborate on this a bit?
- caprad 13y ago
  As an Australia who also has lived in the USA, wtf are you talking about? Yes, the USA is not perfect, but it is an amazing place, with so much support and infrastructure to get anything going. Everything is cheaper, available at all hours, and much better services (I am not just talking about the bars, I am talking about getting stuff done!). On top of that you have a supportive government towards startups, something Australia lacks.
  - catmanjan 13y ago
    Why do you think Australia has poor startup support? I believe politicians call it "small business", if you're arguing subsidization, then I'm not sure if you want to use the American government as a favorable example.
- marincounty 13y ago
  I understand what you mean. America was not always like this. People used to be friendlier, and you had more job choices. I love this country, but times have changed. I'm not being unpatriotic, but we lost our bragging rights.
- jfb 13y ago
  Fewer killer jellyfish. For now.
caprad 13y ago
Australia only has a few submarine connections to the rest of the world, it will always suffer because of this. On top of that it is incredibly low density, even in the big cities. The same reason we don't have an subway/underground or good public transport is the same reason the internet suffers. On top of that Australia has only produced a small amount of content compared to the rest of the world.
vacri 13y ago
I'm just in the process of upgrading our office in the heart of Melbourne from ADSL2 to a 10/10Mb synchronous DSL. That costs us just shy of $600 per month. There is enough fat in that pricing that the vendor dropped around 10% off the list price with us just asking, no real haggling. Our office in the heart of SF has 100/100Mb (admittedly, 'selected buildings only') for $50/month. And this is just after us receiving an new government which scuttled the NBN that might have given us comparable service in 1-2 decades time. We're going to have expensive, slow internet for a long time.
- tacticus 13y ago
  You can look at other suppliers with fibre. it will probably be quite shit but tpg offer that sort of service for 300$ per month (though they have a 5k installation charge )
  - vacri 13y ago
    I did look at exetel and one other one I can't remember, and they had similar pricing (all with ethernet-over-copper). We're going with Internode because their support is a known good. My experience with TPG-by-friend is that they're wonderful until you need support. My personal experienc with Optus is that they obscure their help services, they have no tools for techies in small-medium businesses, they obscure their billing, they outsource support to terrible staff (last guy I had refused to even say anything), they have intentionally misleading marketing... and ugly corporate colours :) I'm also not sure that fibre comes to the building (we're in an old building in the CBD) and assumed a high connection charge if it didn't... and we're only a dozen or so in the office. It's just that we have a couple of video editors, and when they upload, everyone moans...

grecy 13y ago

As an Australian that lived in America for a long time, trust me when I say life in Australia with crappy internet is significantly better than life in America with fast internet. You don't want to live there, trust me.

MichaelApproved 13y ago
You've got to be more specific when you say "there" or at least mention what you found wrong. The US is a large country with vast differences between the cities. Your experience in one area could be dramatically different from another area in the US.
- michaelochurch 13y ago
  He might have experienced our healthcare. Even if he had insurance, our system is a clusterfuck that makes everyone worse upon contact. Or, he might be older than 30 and therefore not willing to deal with the puny two-week vacation allotment that is still socially acceptable from US employers. Or, he might have children who will have to be educated someday, and see that a system that combines astronomical tuition plus fickle nonacademic factors in admissions ("extracurricular" criteria designed to give the privileged a huge advantage) is not good for their future. Or, he might have lived in the Red States and be gay. Or, pardon the "he", she might be a woman. Or transgender.
  - ryanSrich 13y ago
    > He might have experienced our healthcare. Even if he had insurance, our system is a clusterfuck that makes everyone worse upon contact. I'm not disagreeing with you I just need help understanding. I get a job. My job offers health insurance coverage, which most do now. I pay a small fee (<$200) per month to get the coverage. If I get hurt I go to a doctor and the insurance covers the costs in full, so long as they accept that insurance. How is this not ideal? What would be better for the tax payer? > Or, he might be older than 30 and therefore not willing to deal with the puny two-week vacation allotment that is still socially acceptable from US employers. Outside of tech. I've found within the industry most employers have a flexible vacation policy. > Or, he might have children who will have to be educated someday, and see that a system that combines astronomical tuition plus fickle nonacademic factors in admissions ("extracurricular" criteria designed to give the privileged a huge advantage) is not good for their future. Can't argue with this one. I wholeheartedly agree. > Or, he might have lived in the Red States and be gay. Or, pardon the "he", she might be a woman. Or transgender. Eh. I'd say this is more based on location within a state. Go to Austin Texas and you'll have a better time than many other states that are "blue".
    - vacri 13y ago
      How is this not ideal? For people who don't think $200 every month is "a small fee". Folks on minimum wage might not agree with you on 'small', particularly if they're part-time. For people who don't have a job. For when your healthcare provider hasn't done a deal with your insurance. For having to do the paperwork in the first place. David Sedaris talks about getting medical care while living in France. He tried to pay for it, and got "Oh, fix us up next time". On insisting, he got "oh, I suppose you could pay, if you really want to". What would be better for the tax payer? It's been pretty conclusively demonstrated that the US system is ridiculously expensive for the taxpayer with poor outcomes for society as a whole, compared to other systems. Edit: I've never figured out how to do dot points on HN...
    - michaelochurch 13y ago
      I'm not disagreeing with you I just need help understanding. I get a job. My job offers health insurance coverage, which most do now. I pay a small fee (<$200) per month to get the coverage. If I get hurt I go to a doctor and the insurance covers the costs in full, so long as they accept that insurance. How is this not ideal? What would be better for the tax payer? Red pill alert. Your doctor accepting insurance is not guaranteed, or even likely, these days. As insurance companies become more aggressive against doctors, an increasing number are either deciding not to put up with that bullshit at all (in New York, half the doctors don't take insurance at all because there are enough richies) or to only accept a couple of plans (which you won't get, unless your company is union and the union does a hell of a job). Companies often buy cheapskate insurance where the network is thin, and you may need a specialist but be unable to get one (in network) for several months, or have to drive 100 miles. In an emergency, you pay a lot out of pocket. Possibly $20,000+. That's with insurance. Most plans also have high deductibles ($2000+) these days, which means that the first $2000 of expenses you will pay. There's typically an exemption for an annual physical and for routine stuff, but getting seriously sick is beyond what most Americans can afford. Oh, and if you have to buy individual insurance (your employer isn't big enough to get a group plan) then you will be paying a hell of a lot more than $200 per month for it. If you've ever had a serious illness, make it $2,500 per month. Cancer survivors are uninsurable if seeking individual plans (chemotherapy is carcinogenic, believe it or not). Diabetics are fucked. Finally, if you deal with anxiety or depression or panic attacks (hey, it happens) you will get a lot of pushback from health insurance, even on unrelated claims, because statistically people with MH issues (especially depression) are more likely to just give up and eat losses, or fuck up on paperwork and eat losses, on claims that the insurer should technically pay. American health insurance is, with no exaggeration, a 9/11 every 24 days. 45,000 per year. Many of those have insurance.
  - Cub3 13y ago
    Australian here working for a major tech company with 5 weeks paid vacation, didn't even know 2 was standard in the US :/
    - Goladus 13y ago
      I've worked in the US since 2001 and have never had less than 15 days paid vacation.
  - mikeash 13y ago
    Are you seriously saying that life in the US is terrible if you're a woman? Do I understand that correctly? Has HN really reached that level of boneheadedness?
    - jodrellblank 13y ago
      No, he's apologising for using 'he' all over his comment.
      - mikeash 13y ago
        No, that last paragraph is clearly a list of circumstances which would cause life in the US to be bad. Depending on how you apply "red states", he may only mean that being a woman in a "red state" is bad. Either way, it's idiotic.
- robzyb 13y ago
  I understand that a significant majority of the United States' healthcare system is lacklustre. I understand that a significant majority of the United States' only offer limited annual leave (compared to Australia's 4 weeks). I understand that a significant majority of the United States' suffers from an extremely high murder rate for a 1st world country. This is a sample of why I don't want to live in the US, even though they have fast internet.
  - clarkmoody 13y ago
    Citation needed Seriously.
    - catmanjan 13y ago
      http://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/statistics/crime/Homicide_statistics2012.xls http://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/statistics/... For murder rates, North America beaten by Africa only I believe.
  - mikeash 13y ago
    The health care system is fine if you can afford it. The main problem with American health care is financial, and if you have good insurance (which should come with any good job) it's fine. Not great, but on par with the rest of the first world. Limited annual leave depends on the job. If you're in software engineering or similar, you're unlikely to have a problem. If you get offered a job that doesn't offer the annual leave you want, either negotiate for more, or just don't take that job. I doubt your statement that a majority of the US has an extremely high murder rate. Some parts of the country certainly do, but much of the country is perfectly safe. The overall average rate is higher than other first-world countries, but that does not imply that most of the country has a higher rate. Crime is not spread out evenly. You may want to look into why you understand things that aren't really correct, and figure out how that happened.
    - Goladus 13y ago
      Murder rate thing is probably because an Australian national named Christopher Lane, in the US playing Baseball at college, was randomly murdered in Oklahoma this year. He was out jogging when a couple of teenagers ran up and shot him in the back for no obvious reason. Australian politicians immediately started telling people not to visit the US because it's so full of guns.
antidaily 13y ago
Oh yeah?! Well your architecture sucks!
- catmanjan 13y ago
  Haha, it's all designed to be poor vantage points for mass shootings :P
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
- michaelochurch 13y ago
  There are some neat cities with character. For quality-of-life (relatively speaking) you have Austin and Portland. If you think you can make it rich, there's San Francisco and New York. For historic charm, you have Boston, Philadelphia and Baltimore. The upper midwest has a relatively high quality of life, too. Life in the politically sane parts ("blue states") of the US, if you have a job in tech, isn't so bad. You get paid enough to get by, and you'll have 3+ weeks of vacation at a proper tech company. Just make sure never to get sick; even if you have insurance, they make it hell. Our medical system is the one thing that makes the US a legitimately bad country to live in; if we had universal healthcare, it'd be average-plus (all taken together) in the developed world.
  - catmanjan 13y ago
    I understand what you're saying, but I don't know how you can say that with a straight face. I don't think living a life that "isn't so bad" is good enough for the caliber of people that visit HN. And the fact that your country has "sane" and presumably "insane" political areas is creepy :(
    - michaelochurch 13y ago
      I'm an American. There are some ways in which I like living here. Would I come here if I were a Swede? Hell no, except for a $300k+ job in banking or the Valley, and only then knowing that I could get on a plane and leave if I got sick. (You can get 100-200k in the EU; at the 300k level, the jobs start getting rarer in the EU relative to the US, which is why Wall Street gets a surprising amount of French, German, and Italian talent-- if probably not as much as The City.) If you look at the country in totality and taking into account its full history and what it has overcome, and how rapidly it can change itself when needed, the US is a great country. I don't mean to imply that I think it's better than others (I wouldn't begin to be competent in that comparison) and its history is all kinds of fucked up (genocide of native people, slavery, internment of Japanese-Americans) but there's a lot to be proud of, too. Would I live here if I were born European? Barring an unusually good job offer that couldn't be found elsewhere, no. And any patriotic pride I might be inclined to have as an American (and I don't have much, because this country is full of assholes, too) I would just as much have if I were born elsewhere. Patriotic pride is a weird thing. I'm from rural PA and it makes me smile every time I meet a successful person with a '717' area code, and I definitely take pride in my rivers and mountains (hills by West Coast standards) but I know there's no rational reason for it; people from central PA aren't superior to people from anywhere else in any way.
el_benhameen 13y ago
Out of curiosity, can you elaborate on this a bit?
caprad 13y ago
As an Australia who also has lived in the USA, wtf are you talking about? Yes, the USA is not perfect, but it is an amazing place, with so much support and infrastructure to get anything going. Everything is cheaper, available at all hours, and much better services (I am not just talking about the bars, I am talking about getting stuff done!). On top of that you have a supportive government towards startups, something Australia lacks.
- catmanjan 13y ago
  Why do you think Australia has poor startup support? I believe politicians call it "small business", if you're arguing subsidization, then I'm not sure if you want to use the American government as a favorable example.
marincounty 13y ago
I understand what you mean. America was not always like this. People used to be friendlier, and you had more job choices. I love this country, but times have changed. I'm not being unpatriotic, but we lost our bragging rights.
jfb 13y ago
Fewer killer jellyfish. For now.

caprad 13y ago

Australia only has a few submarine connections to the rest of the world, it will always suffer because of this. On top of that it is incredibly low density, even in the big cities. The same reason we don't have an subway/underground or good public transport is the same reason the internet suffers. On top of that Australia has only produced a small amount of content compared to the rest of the world.

vacri 13y ago

I'm just in the process of upgrading our office in the heart of Melbourne from ADSL2 to a 10/10Mb synchronous DSL. That costs us just shy of $600 per month. There is enough fat in that pricing that the vendor dropped around 10% off the list price with us just asking, no real haggling. Our office in the heart of SF has 100/100Mb (admittedly, 'selected buildings only') for $50/month. And this is just after us receiving an new government which scuttled the NBN that might have given us comparable service in 1-2 decades time. We're going to have expensive, slow internet for a long time.

tacticus 13y ago
You can look at other suppliers with fibre. it will probably be quite shit but tpg offer that sort of service for 300$ per month (though they have a 5k installation charge )
- vacri 13y ago
  I did look at exetel and one other one I can't remember, and they had similar pricing (all with ethernet-over-copper). We're going with Internode because their support is a known good. My experience with TPG-by-friend is that they're wonderful until you need support. My personal experienc with Optus is that they obscure their help services, they have no tools for techies in small-medium businesses, they obscure their billing, they outsource support to terrible staff (last guy I had refused to even say anything), they have intentionally misleading marketing... and ugly corporate colours :) I'm also not sure that fibre comes to the building (we're in an old building in the CBD) and assumed a high connection charge if it didn't... and we're only a dozen or so in the office. It's just that we have a couple of video editors, and when they upload, everyone moans...