National Broadband Network

The National Broadband Network (NBN) is a (supposedly) high speed broadband network rolled out by an Australian Government owned corporation.

This fast broadband initiative was announced in the run-up to the 2007 federal election by the Labor opposition with an estimated cost of A$15 billion including a government contribution of A$4.7 billion

The Labor Party Rudd government was elected on 24 November 2007 and initial NBN planning commenced.

It was originally to deliver its wholesale service through fibre to the node (FTTN) and reach approximately 98% of premises in Australia by June 2021. A new satellite network was to be built to reach the rest of the country.

Like so many good intended government plans, this one encountered many hurdles on the way, not the least being a change of government in 2013. 

Now in power, the conservative Liberal Coalition commenced a cost cutting ‘dumbing down’ of the project.

The result has been a mishmash of technologies with connection speeds much lower than first predicted and well below world average making ours the fourth slowest country for broadband in the OECD.

The current NBN broadband technologies include:

* Fibre to the premises or FTTP

* Fibre to the building or FTTB

* Fibre to the node or FTTN

* HybridFibre Coax (HFC) or more commonly known as Pay TV cable

* Fixed wireless

* Satellite

After the recent bushfires severely damaged the local underground cable network, our ADSL2 connection stopped working and, despite many visits from technicians over three months, could not be fixed. The only solution was to move over to the NBN.

Being rural, our only choice was Fixed Wireless.

Fixed Wireless is where NBN constructs radio base stations like the ones used for mobile phones and then installs an antenna and a fixed modem (NTD - Network Termination Device) in the premises. This NTD is for broadband and telephony services, but the consumer can decide if their telephone stays on the existing copper network. 

Our new connection to the world

We decided to keep our phone on the copper after the recent bushfire situation exposed the limitations of the more modern technology ie. no electricity = no internet or phone; damaged towers = no mobile (cell) service.

With this system installed we have increased our connection speed x10 compared to the old one so no complaints from us.