Become a fan of Slashdot on Facebook

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Australia The Internet

Australia's National Broadband Network Officially Open For Business 161

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the and-you-thought-america-had-high-prices dept.
sydneyhype writes "The Australian National Broadband Network is open for business. The 14,000 residents on the first roll-out will be able to order an NBN service (current ISP contract permitting). Internode, Exetel, and iiNet have released their commercial pricing. iiNet has undercut Internode with prices starting at $49.95 per month for 12Mbps down and 1Mbps up with 20gb on-peak and 20gb off-peak."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Australia's National Broadband Network Officially Open For Business More

Australia's National Broadband Network Officially Open For Business

Comments Filter:
  • It's only like Japan where you can get fast connections cheaply. In rest of the Asia connections cost just as much, if even you even can get faster than 8/1 at all. Only Europe has it good, and it's just some countries too. I know, I live in both Europe and Asia.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      > It's only like Japan where you can get fast connections cheaply.

      They have it pretty good in South Korea too. The OECD had them pegged as spending about 1/3 less on the average broadband bill than the United States.

    • Hmm Australia moved to Asia... Interesting!

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by mjwx ( 966435 )

        Hmm Australia moved to Asia... Interesting!

        Haven't looked at a map recently have you.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Nursie ( 632944 )

          Err, Australia is about as much in Asia as the Eastern US is in Europe.

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by mjwx ( 966435 )

            Err, Australia is about as much in Asia as the Eastern US is in Europe.

            Err. you really haven't had a look at a map recently. The continent of Australia is geographically located where?

            • Err. you really haven't had a look at a map recently. The continent of Australia is geographically located where?

              Australia is technically not in Asia... Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] although not the best source agrees. Australasia is the region you're looking at that includes PNG, NZ and Australia.

              You can obviously see the confusion, though. I don't know how long the separation between Asia and Australasia has existed but it has been for at least as long as I can remember (but I'm young).

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by quenda ( 644621 )

                You can obviously see the confusion, though. I don't know how long the separation between Asia and Australasia has existed

                It helps if you understand that "Australasia" means "South of Asia". (Australia means Southern Land. (And Austria means Eastern land, just to confuse things.))

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Nursie ( 632944 )

              The continent of Australia is geographically located where?

              You said it yourself, the continent of Australia, which is about as far from Asia as the Eastern US is from Europe.

    • I am an American living in South Korea. My cable internet (60 Mbits down / 5 up), cable TV (75 channels), and broadband phone are included in a single package that costs 21,000 Won a month. This is roughly $19. I am not even in Seoul. Your statement is wrong.

  • Well, it would have been. I don't have this new NBN thingy yet...

  • I say, mates, this is bloody impressive.

  • iinet and internode (Score:3)

    by mjwx ( 966435 ) on Saturday October 01, 2011 @02:57AM (#37575270)

    iiNet has undercut Internode with prices starting at $49.95 per month for 12Mbps down and 1Mbps up with 20gb on-peak and 20gb off-peak."

    When comparing iinet to Internode, one has to remember that Internode doesn't do this on peak/off peak thingy. On peak is the download limit you have between 8 AM and 12 Midnight, off peak is the download limit between 12 Midnight and 8 AM. With Internode you get 40 GB whatever time of the day it is.

    However, having been a happy customer of both iinet's and Internode's ADSL offerings, both are great ISP's you wont be unhappy with. I'm waiting for Telstra and Optus to release their NBN pricing, that should be hillarious.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      iiNet has undercut Internode with prices starting at $49.95 per month for 12Mbps down and 1Mbps up with 20gb on-peak and 20gb off-peak."

      When comparing iinet to Internode,

      Of interest is that this story linked is out of date. Pricing for both has changed since the 19th.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tepples ( 727027 )

      With Internode you get 40 GB whatever time of the day it is.

      That's potentially not even one full-sized PlayStation 3 game. PS3 games come on Blu-ray Disc, and dual-layer discs can be up to 50 GB.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mjwx ( 966435 )

        With Internode you get 40 GB whatever time of the day it is.

        That's potentially not even one full-sized PlayStation 3 game. PS3 games come on Blu-ray Disc, and dual-layer discs can be up to 50 GB.

        Because everyone is using the internet for piracy.

        You also seem to have failed to understand the concept of an "example" and have taken everything a little too literally. There are differing download cap volumes, around 40 GB is starting territory for iinet and Internode.

        • Even when not pirating things, the bandwidth can be eaten up quite quickly. My ISP limits me to 1500MB per day between 4pm and 9pm. This sounded like a lot, until I tried watching a film on iPlayer in the early evening. The HD streams are 3.6Mb/s, so I use up the total allowance in 55 minutes and then get throttled back to 2.5Mb/s and the stream dies. I bought a game on GoG.com this afternoon, which was a 1.1GB download - and that was a relatively old game. The biggest game I've bought from them was ab

        • That's potentially not even one full-sized PlayStation 3 game. PS3 games come on Blu-ray Disc, and dual-layer discs can be up to 50 GB.

          Because everyone is using the internet for piracy.

          How exactly is it piracy to buy a video game on PlayStation Store?

          But I agree that 40 GB should probably be enough for entry-level users who don't rent movies online (does Australia even have a counterpart to Netflix?) and don't subscribe to the "discs are going away in the next console generation" philosophy.

          • Australia has movies you can rent or buy via iTunes - can't recall if they have TV shows too.

  • Good value! With Internode, on copper ADSL2+ (24 down, 1.5 up), 150GB monthly quota, all for... $50!

    I'll let the early adopters adopt this one. (on the other hand, those poor sods that hadn't heard that you didn't need to use Telstra would probably consider this a good deal).

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Zouden ( 232738 )

      The basic plan isn't very compelling, but for $65/month you get 200GB (100/100) and 25mbit/5mbit. That's definitely better than ADSL, for only $15 more.

      • Re:Good value! (Score:5, Interesting)

        by citizenr ( 871508 ) on Saturday October 01, 2011 @07:02AM (#37575898) Homepage

        The basic plan isn't very compelling, but for $65/month you get 200GB (100/100) and 25mbit/5mbit. That's definitely better than ADSL, for only $15 more.

        Meanwhile in Europe im getting 25mbit/5mbit for $15, no caps.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Zouden ( 232738 )

          Where in Europe? Even in the Netherlands you can't get a connection for that price.

          • Re:Good value! (Score:4, Interesting)

            by timbo234 ( 833667 ) on Saturday October 01, 2011 @08:02AM (#37576036) Journal

            In Germany we're getting 100Mbit down 6mbit up and truly unlimited bandwidth on fibre for 20 Euro a month. That's a normal residential connection with Kabel Deutschland.

            The NBN is an improvement but Australia is still a rip-off for internet connections.

            • Considering Germany's population density for the entire country is almost 25% of an Australian capital city, it's hardly a rip-off.

              Australia has more kilometres of roads than Germany, yet 1/4 the population. Would it shock you that German autobahns are superior to Australian freeways? Is it a government rip-off?

              Providing network infrastructure, just as providing roads, is all about population density. Would it shock you that 5 people in my house get 1000Mbit for free, or would it just seem parochial?

              • 1000mb or not you might need to grow a thicker skin if you want to post on discussion boards. I am an Aussie, I was just pointing out that even with the NBN we still pay a lot for what we get.

                • You Aussies complain too much. The prices for fibre on New Zealand's FTTH network are ... actually not too bad. Holy shit. ($37.50/mo wholesale for 30Mb/s downstream, 10Mb/s upstream - but that includes zero data, which we'll probably get raped on).

          • Where in Europe? Even in the Netherlands you can't get a connection for that price.

            Poland. http://www.aster.pl/internet [aster.pl]
            I pay 100zl for TV + internet. TV is 50zl, internet another 50zl
            $1 = 3.3 zl
            internet = $15
            Granted its "only" 20/2 and not 25/5 like in the post above me, but still :)

        • Meanwhile in Australia we're getting much better value than the parent said too. I just don't think he's been shopping around. Not $15 though.

      • The basic plan isn't very compelling, but for $65/month you get 200GB (100/100) and 25mbit/5mbit. That's definitely better than ADSL, for only $15 more.

        Really? TPG does a $49/month and you get 500GB (250/250) and 25mbit/5mbit. Or better still you dump Telstra for your landline and bundle the phone with them and you get $59/month unlimited 25mbit/5mbit and no extra cost monthly line rental to a third party.

        I don't see anything even remotely compelling about the pricing which has been announced by any party so far.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by fryjs ( 1456943 )
      I was initially thinking the the plans were not going to be very good value, but I would happily pay $99 a month for 100 down, 40 up and 1TB of bandwidth, which is the iinet top tier plan. I'll be signing up when it is available in Sydney.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by daBass ( 56811 )

      Plus $30 line rental? For the $80 you'd get the 25/5, double the quota and node phone. Not to mention a more reliable connection with lower latency.

      That is good value if you ask me!

      Not to mention you are in the .1% of the population that actually gets those speeds on ADSL...

    • Hell yes. You pay $59.95 with Internode now for only 30 GB plus home phone service, all on a rusty old copper phone line that (for me) syncs at 6 Mbps on a good day. For the same price on the NBN I could have 4 times the speed, much better reliability and a higher download quota.

      Sure if you are one of the 0.1% of the population who live close enough to the exchange to get 24 Mbit out of ADSL2+, it's not so compelling. But the majority of people are on long and unreliable lines. Or even worse, RIMs or pair g

  • but the cap is 40gigs [20gb on-peak and 20gb off-peak]? at those speeds you could use up your whole allotment in like 2 days, and I hate to see what the overages costs.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Overage costs are rare in Australia. Typically your connection speed will be shaped to anywhere from 64k-512k depending on your ISP and plan.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by mjwx ( 966435 )

      but the cap is 40gigs [20gb on-peak and 20gb off-peak]? at those speeds you could use up your whole allotment in like 2 days, and I hate to see what the overages costs.

      That's the starting cap, iinet and internode have plans that go up to 1 TB limits.

      Also, no overage charges, they shape your speed down to 128 or 256 Kb/s if you go over.

      BTW, 2 days is a bit rich, there's a big difference between theoretical speeds and real world speeds. Besides this, there are larger caps available so you if you dont download 400 GB a month, you dont have to pay for that much.

      • but the cap is 40gigs [20gb on-peak and 20gb off-peak]? at those speeds you could use up your whole allotment in like 2 days, and I hate to see what the overages costs.

        That's the starting cap, iinet and internode have plans that go up to 1 TB limits.

        Also, no overage charges, they shape your speed down to 128 or 256 Kb/s if you go over./quote>

        1 why cap at all?
        2 shaping to 256kbit? you realize we got FREE HSPA+/LTE 256kbit internet in Europe (Poland)?

  • This is newsworthy how? Does an ISP rollout in California, which has ******************DOUBLE******************* the population, get a /. post?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by macraig ( 621737 )

      What is the realistic probability that a new ISP will roll out any type of broadband in California now, that isn't simply reselling the medium of one of the incumbents? That's right: zero.

      Guess what? Even if we got the full Free Press et al version of so-called network neutrality, it STILL wouldn't change that state of affairs, because a few giant corps own all the wires. IIRC one of the differences with this new Aussie broadband plan is that it includes public buyback of the physical medium... so in Aus

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mjwx ( 966435 )

      This is newsworthy how? Does an ISP rollout in California, which has ******************DOUBLE******************* the population, get a /. post?

      First off, NBNco is not an ISP, it's a wholesale provider.

      Secondly when the state of California rolls out a fibre network that creates a competitive environment for multiple ISP's to provide high speed internet state wide

      Thirdly, when the state of California becomes as geographically large as the continental US and only then, do you get a /. post.

      But seeing as the state of California is in worse debt then the rest of the US and US telco's would rather fight like feudal lords over local monopolies a

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      It's the start of the $36 billion national network of fibre to the home with speeds of 100Mb/s on rollout and gigabit coming shortly.
      The summary may have neglected that.

    • Re:So? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Cimexus ( 1355033 ) on Saturday October 01, 2011 @03:36AM (#37575420)

      This is a $40 billion+ project to rip out the 100-year old existing copper POTS network and replace it with a new, independently operated layer 2 FTTH network (upon which dozens of competing ISPs will be able to offer layer 3 services to the end user). Nationwide - from the large cities to small towns in the middle of nowhere (every town with >1000 people will get fibre, smaller hamlets will get some form of 4G or WiMax fixed wireless). There will then be dozens of ISPs operating layer 3 services on this network to the end user.

      That is much more significant than a new ISP.

  • I want it NOW! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ignavus ( 213578 ) on Saturday October 01, 2011 @04:11AM (#37575514)

    I so want the NBN service now. At the next election, there is likely to be a change of government and the current opposition claim that they will cut back the scope of the NBN project (like only provide wifi and/or fibre to the neighbourhood instead of providing fibre to the home).

    I want the NBN to do my town before the next election (we are on the list, but it could take years for them to get to us).

    • Nothing is "likely" about Abbott and his Luddites winning the next election, a lot can change in the next 2 years. By then, the NBN and the Carbon Price will either be huge positives or huge negatives, in real terms, rather than the current fear of the unknown that we Aussies tend to wallow in in the political sphere. That's why the Climate Change deniers and Luddites have tried to delay them.

  • 20 gigs? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by zyzko ( 6739 ) <`kari.asikainen' `at' `gmail.com'> on Saturday October 01, 2011 @05:34AM (#37575722)

    20 gigs? For that price? You gotta be kidding me - I get 20 gigs easily in a week just from work (yeah, when you can mount a .iso from your computer to install in vmware and the speed is about equal to actually first upload the image to storage server you get lazy...) and those speeds - it is now 2011, not 2000 when 12/1 Mbps was hot.

    Here 100/10, 19,90 euros / month. No caps. Gasoline however costs a crapton and half a year it is freezing and dark but at least connectivity is good and cheap.

    • Got a spare room cause i just packed a bag. Cold weather sounds lovely to me.

    • It's ~AU$80 for the 100/10 plan. They just listed the slowest and most limited plan in the article for some reason. And paying about 3 times more for things is unfortunately common in Australia.

      $20 a kilo for bannanas anyone?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Skythe ( 921438 )
      Australia is one of the least densely populated countries in the world, so the rollout of a network like this is nothing trivial. Europe is a different story..

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by zyzko ( 6739 )

        In fact where I live - Finland - our density of population is quite similar to Australia - huge country with people concentrated on a few citites "en masse" and running the network to the non-dense areas is easy and not *that* expensive - if the local land owners don't object to fiber being laid down beside the road, but then you can see who to blame, been there, done that - NIMBY works there too, if everybody agrees fiber is quite easy and even cheap to install. Yeah, cities produce the best revenue per km

  • So my "move to Canada" fund needs to be adjusted to "move to Australia". Do they have trailer parks in Australia?

  • the pattern is usually a low starting price to lock you in and then the price floats up at the end of the contract period, either 6 months or a year later. NBN promises a roughly equal service to most people in Oz, some of us won't see much speed difference, others will. The downside is that rural customers will only get the service they have now, that is, poor ADSL, or 3G wireless, sat doesn't really count as it's usually subsidised and services so few few people. NBN isn't planning on going into towns sma

    • the pattern is usually a low starting price to lock you in and then the price floats up at the end of the contract period, either 6 months or a year later. NBN promises a roughly equal service to most people in Oz, some of us won't see much speed difference, others will. The downside is that rural customers will only get the service they have now, that is, poor ADSL, or 3G wireless, sat doesn't really count as it's usually subsidised and services so few few people. NBN isn't planning on going into towns smaller than 1000 people.

      You are the second person in this thread to try and claim that rural people won't see any benefit. The NBN is to provide AT LEAST 12/1 speeds to 100% of the country (at the same (wholesale) price for all). Those in towns of less than 1,000 may not get fibre, but they will get high speed fixed wireless or satellite. Those who are on the dodgy ADSL / 3G will definitely see a benefit, possibly by an order of magnitude.

      As the average Australian download speed is ~8.5Mb/sec down and 1.28Mb/sec up (according t

Slashdot Top Deals

For God's sake, stop researching for a while and begin to think!

Close