Next iteration of NBN madness Fibre to the Curb

[johnh]

NBN FFTC  (Fibre To The Curb)

Reportedly copper length can go up 300 metres. 

http://www.netcommwireless.com/sites/default/files/NDD-4100-01_Spec-Sheet.pdf

Whilst in the dark ages pre NBN.  All new estates were connected by FTTP. Telstra supplied a modem and had PPPOE  The bonus with modem they were using they also supplied the the free to air TV,  unlike the current NBN modems.

There were several generations of modems. The first generation was externally mounted in weather proof box. Voice service was via H248 gateway back to a V5.2 mux connect to local exchange  via E1's.


Edit

Unit is in a pit in the street/verge/nature strip
Power is feed from the customers premise.  When power is applied relay is activated and then VDSL signal is feed to the modem
 

[Zero999]

I have fibre going all the way up to my house, which is only 18 months old.

Wow, look at the power consumption. 500mA at 55V. Who has to pay for that?

[Tony_G]

Where do they mount these? Is it one per house or one per 4 houses in a curb pillar?

[Tomorokoshi]

I have fibre going all the way up to my house, which is only 18 months old.

Wow, look at the power consumption. 500mA at 55V. Who has to pay for that?

27 Watts? No fan? No vent holes?

The case seems to be around 5" by 6" by 2". Is it aluminum? Look painted, not anodized. If it uses the full 27 W I'm guessing around 50 C rise in open air of the outside surface. No wonder there's a hot surface warning label on it.

[glarsson]

As someone not upp to date on Australian fibre politics I have to ask:
Why does the fibre stop at the curb? This extra box has to be installed and powered, so it can't be to reduce cost.

I have never heard of anything like this in Sweden. I have fibre straight into my house (one active and one black) currently providing 100M/100M but can be upgraded to 1G/1G.

[station240]

As someone not upp to date on Australian fibre politics I have to ask:
Why does the fibre stop at the curb? This extra box has to be installed and powered, so it can't be to reduce cost.

Because fibre would be stable/fast enough to support alternative PayTV options, eg netflix, Amazon et all.
For what the current Foxtel PayTV monopoly charge for their dumb PayTV options, you could subscribe to  ALL the online video services at the same time.
Shitty Australian Government are totally corrupt and live in the pocket of big corporations.
Screw up $50B Fibre network by deploying junk technology, to protect a $2B a year PayTV empire.

[RGB255_0_0]

Murdoch pulls the strings this part of the globe too 

[glarsson]

Because fibre would be stable/fast enough to support alternative PayTV options, eg netflix, Amazon et all.
For what the current Foxtel PayTV monopoly charge for their dumb PayTV options, you could subscribe to  ALL the online video services at the same time.
Shitty Australian Government are totally corrupt and live in the pocket of big corporations.
Screw up $50B Fibre network by deploying junk technology, to protect a $2B a year PayTV empire.

So wide coverage but barely adequate performance with the goal of locking out competition (poor bandwidth to protect payTV and wide coverage to make it harder for private fibre companies). 

[madires]

Because fibre would be stable/fast enough to support alternative PayTV options, eg netflix, Amazon et all.
For what the current Foxtel PayTV monopoly charge for their dumb PayTV options, you could subscribe to  ALL the online video services at the same time.

Is satellite based TV an option?

[station240]

Because fibre would be stable/fast enough to support alternative PayTV options, eg netflix, Amazon et all.
For what the current Foxtel PayTV monopoly charge for their dumb PayTV options, you could subscribe to  ALL the online video services at the same time.

Is satellite based TV an option?

No, Foxtel control that also.
Last time I looked it was $10 a month more than the same PayTV channels over Cable, plus you don't get the local free to air channels.
In some areas they can't be bothered maintaining the Cables so customers put onto sat dishes.
Oh and to top it all, Foxtel is PayTV with advertising as well, just for extra profit.

[Someone]

As someone not upp to date on Australian fibre politics I have to ask:
Why does the fibre stop at the curb? This extra box has to be installed and powered, so it can't be to reduce cost.

Because fibre would be stable/fast enough to support alternative PayTV options, eg netflix, Amazon et all.
For what the current Foxtel PayTV monopoly charge for their dumb PayTV options, you could subscribe to  ALL the online video services at the same time.
Shitty Australian Government are totally corrupt and live in the pocket of big corporations.
Screw up $50B Fibre network by deploying junk technology, to protect a $2B a year PayTV empire.

Even though Telstra own a 50% stake in Foxtel they still push streaming alternatives:
https://www.telstra.com.au/tv-movies-music/telstra-tv#subscription
Works fine in ADSL coverage areas, and Telstra love the NBN as they got to offload all that unprofitable copper/infrastructure.

[BradC]

Wow, look at the power consumption. 500mA at 55V. Who has to pay for that?

The subscriber. The unit gets power down the phone line and each subscriber has a power interface injector. It'll be interesting to see how it all balances. Can I turn mine off and still rely on my neighbours to power the box? As I'm the only one on the block with a UPS, during a power failure am I the only one powering the box? Will that quadruple the load on my end?

Not that I really care. I'm not scheduled to get NBN ever at this point. I mean, theoretically I am but I'm in that basket of suburbs that gets "by the end of 2019". Nobody dares suggest it'll drag out into 2020 as there is an election due at the end of 2019.
In the mean time I can rely on my trusty 3.8M down 1M up ADSL (unless it rains when it drops to about 2.2M down 800K up). Still, my parents are on FTTP with a 25/5 plan and they are lucky to get 4-6 down due to TPGs grossly oversubscribed and poorly managed network. In peak periods it gets so bad they can't even watch std-def youtube. At least I can get what my line can support 24/7.

[Halcyon]

Not that I really care. I'm not scheduled to get NBN ever at this point. I mean, theoretically I am but I'm in that basket of suburbs that gets "by the end of 2019". Nobody dares suggest it'll drag out into 2020 as there is an election due at the end of 2019.
In the mean time I can rely on my trusty 3.8M down 1M up ADSL (unless it rains when it drops to about 2.2M down 800K up). Still, my parents are on FTTP with a 25/5 plan and they are lucky to get 4-6 down due to TPGs grossly oversubscribed and poorly managed network. In peak periods it gets so bad they can't even watch std-def youtube. At least I can get what my line can support 24/7.

Consider yourself lucky! By the time you get the NBN, let's hope that it's actually decent technology, rather than this FTTN rubbish. Yours might be slow, but at least it's reliable. There is no point in having a fast connection if you can't use it without interruption when you want to.

Additional conversation going on in this thread.

What I find more disgusting is that Bill Morrow (CEO of NBN Co.) has the hide to be interviewed by the media and go on record telling everyone that "they aren't aware" of these issues. All he has to do is speak to his own staff, read their own Facebook page, turn on the television or even just have a read of forums such as Whirlpool to realise that most customers connected to the NBN aren't happy and have been jerked around.

I bet you Bill Morrow is more than satisfied with his 1Gbps FTTP connection he'd have at home (since NBN Co. do actually offer a 1Gbps wholesale tier, it's just hardly anyone wants to pay for it or even if they do, aren't capable of utilising it).

[wasyoungonce]

...Shitty Australian Government are totally corrupt and live in the pocket of big corporations. Screw up $50B Fibre network by deploying junk technology, to protect a $2B a year PayTV empire.

Bingo ..."Exactly the truth"!

We had to campaign Telstra (back in 2004) to upgrade our RIM (Pair Gain system) with a minimux (luckily our RIM could be upgraded, many could not) that could give 96 ADSL 1 ports for 450 houses!   even then it took a concerted campaign and they begrudgingly did it.

Fast fwd to 2017....I dream of NBN type speeds...only have this dashed because of Murdoch and a government of nepotism.  The only hope now is FTTC which is what we will get (spoke to the tech's laying the cable 2 weeks back).  Grrr damn internet black hole.

Meanwhile, a friend who co-lives between Bali/Brisbane...has FTTP to their house in Amed Bali (a third world backwater) i..enjoying speeds we can only dream of.  Maybe Indonesia isn't the backwater we think it is..and/or maybe we just got reamed by our government!

edit:
Spoke to the linesmen laying the NBN cables....cost is ~$5k+ to lay fibre to your premises (from the curb) and of course you bear these costs. 

[Halcyon]

Spoke to the linesmen laying the NBN cables....cost is ~$5k+ to lay fibre to your premises (from the curb) and of course you bear these costs.

Absolutely ludicrous! So much for Malcolm Turnbulls "promise" of $2500 , he back-pedalled on that one pretty quickly.

[sibeen]

Wow, look at the power consumption. 500mA at 55V. Who has to pay for that?

 I suspect you should've perhaps read the whole post you were replying to. Ya canna send power down a fibre, at least not 27 watts worth. Also, a standard telephone exchange probably services around5k houses, so if it had to send out this power the exchange would be exporting 135 kW just to power your phones - nah.

[EEVblog]

Just found out I can pre-order NBN for home, and it will be HFC over my existing Telstra cable.
Current Telstra cable plan is $110/month for 100M/2.4M, so probably worth upgrading.

[Halcyon]

Just found out I can pre-order NBN for home, and it will be HFC over my existing Telstra cable.
Current Telstra cable plan is $110/month for 100M/2.4M, so probably worth upgrading.

MyRepublic are offering unlimited 100Mbps NBN from $59.99 per month. Both Gnif and I use it. No complaints. Pretty much get "as fast as you can sync" speeds throughout the day (even during peak periods). Static IPv4 address is +$10/mth for their "gamer upgrade" package.

[BradC]

Wow, look at the power consumption. 500mA at 55V. Who has to pay for that?

 I suspect you should've perhaps read the whole post you were replying to. Ya canna send power down a fibre, at least not 27 watts worth. Also, a standard telephone exchange probably services around5k houses, so if it had to send out this power the exchange would be exporting 135 kW just to power your phones - nah.

I assume you were talking to me and didn't actually read what I wrote. When these things go in, the telephone line terminates at or via this thing, therefore *I* as the subscriber power the box with the mandatory injector (in the PDF linked in the OP) along with my neighbours. Nowhere did I intimate the power came from the exchange, nor down the glass.

Of course I could have your post completely wrong.

[Halcyon]

Once again, NBN Co. are in the news essentially "blaming" end users and their poor quality phone cabling for speed and reliability issues with the NBN.

The government-backed company tasked with rolling out the National Broadband Network is set to trial a new diagnostic tool which is designed to remotely find out whether a premises has copper wiring faults which are causing poor download speeds and drop outs. The copper cabling running to and from telephone sockets inside homes will be tested as this part of the connection can have a “very real impact” on broadband service quality, NBN said.

“With good in-home wiring, there should be little to no impact on your NBN VDSL service. But in cases where wiring is old, poorly put together or where unused telephone outlets are still wired to the main system, this can lead to speed degradation and cause dropouts.”

Old... poorly put together... sounds EXACTLY like the problems plaguing the decaying copper network which people have been complaining about for years. Rather than focussing on the real issue with Fibre-to-the-Node, being the hundreds and hundreds of metres of old, corroded copper between the network boundary and the node, NBN Co. in their wisdom are looking into the last 10 or so metres of cabling inside user's homes.

I'm now convinced that they are absolute morons (or think the majority of Australia's internet users are too). Sure, there are probably a lot of homes out there where the cabling is sub-par or even faulty, but how about looking at the rest of the network too?

How many times does a Government organisation and CEO (who should know better) need to be told: YOUR NETWORK IS CRAP?

Shit like this makes me angry and I'm the poor idiot of a tax-payer helping pay for this thing.

 

The sad thing is, if anyone has been following my other thread, I'm planning to build a wireless network link 55 kilometres long between myself and a mate of mine. For less than AUD$600 worth of equipment and trees obstructing the first Fresnel zone, it still looks like I'll still be able to achieve a connection faster than my FTTN NBN connection.

[Rerouter]

Well even pre NBN, the ISP's already had baked in to just about every modem i have ever owned an ISP side way to pull the full SNR and attenuation per channel info from the modems, It really would have only taken an intern a week to start pulling that data, correlate it to when it rains and flag cable pits that are likely not sealed well. Same for houses that drop massively when it rains, or houses in general that are well below the norm,

But this was in the days of "Up to" speeds, where as long as you could connect more than half the days in the month they stopped caring (you ask for a refund on the non serviced days and they send out a tech pretty fast)

To clarify, they already have the info gathering sources in place to flag the worst cases,

[Halcyon]

Well even pre NBN, the ISP's already had baked in to just about every modem i have ever owned an ISP side way to pull the full SNR and attenuation per channel info from the modems, It really would have only taken an intern a week to start pulling that data, correlate it to when it rains and flag cable pits that are likely not sealed well. Same for houses that drop massively when it rains, or houses in general that are well below the norm,

But this was in the days of "Up to" speeds, where as long as you could connect more than half the days in the month they stopped caring (you ask for a refund on the non serviced days and they send out a tech pretty fast)

To clarify, they already have the info gathering sources in place to flag the worst cases,

You're very right. Although we haven't come very far. These days, if you can achieve a downstream line sync for a 24 hour period of 12 Mbps, that's considered satisfactory to NBN Co.

I'd expect this kind of service in the most remote areas of Australia in 2017 (almost 2018) but not within 25 kilometres of a major city centre.

[gnif]

Just found out I can pre-order NBN for home, and it will be HFC over my existing Telstra cable.
Current Telstra cable plan is $110/month for 100M/2.4M, so probably worth upgrading.

MyRepublic are offering unlimited 100Mbps NBN from $59.99 per month. Both Gnif and I use it. No complaints. Pretty much get "as fast as you can sync" speeds throughout the day (even during peak periods). Static IPv4 address is +$10/mth for their "gamer upgrade" package.

Awesome! I assume the switch to MyRepublic fixed your speed issues?

Btw, MyRepublic were also kind enough to give me my SIP (VoIP) authentication details for my phone system so that I can use it with Asterisk and do fancy stuff . I just told them I wasn't using their modem (which I am not) and that I need the details for my setup.

[Halcyon]

Don't talk to me about speed! My daily drop outs have started again, so they've enabled a 'stability profile' on my connection. My downstream sync has gone from 30 Mbps to 20 Mbps and uploads are around 6 Mbps.

That's their "fix" rather than replacing the faulty copper.

 

[thermistor-guy]

...We had to campaign Telstra (back in 2004) to upgrade our RIM (Pair Gain system) with a minimux (luckily our RIM could be upgraded, many could not) that could give 96 ADSL 1 ports for 450 houses!   even then it took a concerted campaign and they begrudgingly did it...

I was on the RIM design team (1990s). We (the h/w designers) wanted to provide ADSL and similar services early on. We thought the Internet was going to be huge, so why not get ready for it? Telstra (our customer) was not interested.