Soon I will be able to report first hand on the much talked about (maligned?) National Broadband Network.

My suburb in Townsville was one of the guinea pigs, and my place was the first to be connected. Underground connection. They put the box on the side of the house last week, and yesterday I had a personal visit from someone who handed me a leaflet: "Your Property Is Now NBN Ready".

I have to say I have been really impressed with the crews that have been putting it all in. There again, I guess that's what our $40 billion is for.

Trouble is, the retail plans are a bit exy at the moment. But I guess they will come down in time.

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Tewantin.com.au | Gundagai.com.au| Bowral.com.au | SunshineCoast.com.au

Soon you will be able to bypass Drop and Netfleet on the Drops!
Lucky Ned!

The NBN is such a waste of money; I'm all for upgrading the bush in order to bring them up to speed but it's not needed for most cities.

If you're living in Melbourne, you can already get 100mbit cable for $109.95 a month unbundled. I don't know what the uptake is but the fact many people still go with other providers using different technology such as wireless or ADSL2 speaks volumes about why this project is a waste of tax payers money.

I'm on 100mbit at the moment and aside from the obvious reasons for wanting such speed and the slightly better pings it brings for gaming, it's nothing special. I really didn't need to switch from ADSL2 to Telstra Bigpond Cable and more importantly, people like my parents don't need a 100mbit connection to use Facebook or rent movies through Box Office.

The goverment should be using the money to upgrade the bush and fix blackspots in the cities. Sure, connect up hospitals, public schools and universities etc to each other (most already are) but it's just not necessary to spend billions upon billions of dollars to bring fibre to the home. Sure, the idea is cool and I'd love nothing more than a fibre connection to my house but I think I'm old enough now to realise just because the idea is cool doesn't mean you should do it

Futurists will say we need it for the.. future but I disagree.

I can see the need for an upgrade in some areas but as you have said Johnathan, there is not that big of a need and the need that exists is nowhere near $40 billion

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SSTechBlog.com

Part of the NBN Plan is to do exactly that.
NBN == Best internet Network possible.
I live in a town of 300 people, Cable 100mbit would never be available.
However NBN Fibre is slated to be available within 12 months.

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Managing Million Dollar Sites since 2004

Yes, that's the only part of the plan that I like but I am not sure they need to lay fibre in order to bring the bush up to speed.

If your house is connected to the NBN but you use a wireless connection for your laptop what speed do you get with the NBN connected?

The future of the internet is wireless. a good backbone wil help but the wireless devices ( mobiles, tablets , laptops) need to be able to get the NBN speeds also. Can they?

Wireless will always be a step behind cabled internet. This does not meant that the NBN won't improve wireless speeds. It will as long as you have an N router that can handle the speeds and if you don't you may still find that you will get faster speeds. In terms of 3G etc (phone wireless) I wonder if the NBN takes into consideration this huge market that is ever increasing in its use and reliance on

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SSTechBlog.com

Unless you purchase additional equipment, you won't be getting 100mbit speeds over wireless in your own home at this point in time. I'm not on NBN but Bigpond Cable; my house is a mess with blue ethernet cables running out of every room :P

If your using wireless to connect to your home network which is on NBN, then the max speed would be that of the wireless connection - the weakest link. That is my understanding anyways.