The long wait for fibre to the home broadband has taken its first major step today, with NBNCo officially launching NBN services in Armidale in northern NSW.
The rollout of the NBN began back in August last year in Armidale, while some trial customers have been lucky enough to be experiencing the fast speeds for a few weeks now. According to NBN Co, roughly 4,882 premises – including the University of New England – are included in the first release site for Armidale, although only a fraction of them are currently online with the NBN.
Of the early customers, the super fast speeds seem to be pretty well received. Internode customer Stephen Stroud seemed pretty happy with the benefit for his business:
“Back in the old days, we needed three ISDN lines, with a combined capacity of 384 kilobits per second, to run a videoconference – which was fine as long as we didn’t have too many people and no one moved much. Now, with 100 meg down and 40 meg up, everyone can move and talk to each other in a great quality videoconference using a service like Skype. All you need is the right equipment at each end.
“That’s phenomenal for anyone trying to run a business, particularly in regional Australia. That quality of communication allows people to become much more productive.”
According to the ABC, today the Armidale trial consists of just seven people, although they will be expanding that on a weekly basis.
It’s still going to take a while before we all get to enjoy the kinds of speeds the lucky folk in Armidale are about to experience, but the end result will definitely be worth it…
MDolley
Wednesday, May 18, 2011 at 3:52 PMCurrently looking for a new place to rent, in an area full of Rims. I can’t wait for the day when every property has the same level of access.
Jack
Wednesday, May 18, 2011 at 4:24 PMCome to the Sunshine Coast, god damn it!
:|
I want my speed net, NAAAAOOOWW!!
glennc
Wednesday, May 18, 2011 at 4:28 PMbring it on!
Gazman
Wednesday, May 18, 2011 at 4:47 PM<– jealous
lucas
Wednesday, May 18, 2011 at 5:05 PMumm… what is the price of housing in Armidale??????????
Daniel
Wednesday, May 18, 2011 at 5:08 PMNick,
I think there is a great opportunity for article comparing copper, fibre and wireless communications technologies. There are many people out there in NBN discussion land that keep advocating wireless as the solution, rather than fibre. Important points to discuss would be bandwidth and frequency, in relation to speed and distance. I think there are some out there that think WiFi will solve all of our problems :s
Woodze
Thursday, May 19, 2011 at 8:55 AMNick, if you do some more thorough NBN reporting would it be possible for you to interview some NBN customers and see what they say?
Also i’d like to know what they do with it.. you know what devices in their homes they have.. things like that.. cause i’m tired of hearing things like ‘The Australian website loaded immediately.’ I’d like to see if we can find some people that are making use of the speed in better ways..
welbot
Wednesday, May 18, 2011 at 5:12 PMI’m curious to see what kind of plans they’re going to offer. I mean speed is great, but if all it does is help you to reach your cap 100x faster than you do now, what’s the point?
Ash
Thursday, May 19, 2011 at 10:21 AMWhats the point? The point is that you can download and access things faster….??? If you reach your cap faster because youre downloading more than you normally do because you have a faster speed, youre responsible for that and no one else.
James B
Wednesday, May 18, 2011 at 5:26 PMI want!!!
Dom T
Wednesday, May 18, 2011 at 5:35 PMam i jealous? Yes i am.
Ben
Wednesday, May 18, 2011 at 5:57 PMSpeedtest results?
Tone
Wednesday, May 18, 2011 at 11:15 PMWhen is it coming to Perth.
matt
Wednesday, May 18, 2011 at 11:51 PMhooray!! now they can communicate super quickly with the people of rural Tasmania!!!!
“… actually, can I *not* have it?”
Woodze
Thursday, May 19, 2011 at 8:36 AMThe downside is what I saw on the front page of the Australian this morning.. “NBN has more staff that customers”.. What happened to waiting and seeing what happens?
My award for ‘complete and utter waste of space in Journalism’ however goes to this one:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/commentary/net-addicts-may-not-notice-the-difference/story-e6frgd0x-1226058543587
I’m sure the Australian reporters get paid extra for every useless fact they fill space on paper with. It must be a struggle to find negative points about something that actually did what it promised (you know, increased the customers download speed). Nowhere does the article mention that he was probably paying the same if not more for the original internet connection, at 1/10 the speed. Then comparing the Optus 3G cards to it, which cost more than the basic NBN plans. Sure they are wireless but a wifi router in the house is as freely mobile as most people need. (Side note: Does the CEO of Optus live in Armidale for them to have such good 3G coverage? I used to have an optus 3G card and admittedly it was a year ago but I could barely get 3G signal on it in South West Sydney!)
It’s the last line that wins this article the prize tho.. “The Australian already has speeds of more than 90Mbps in the office.”… perhaps but I’ll bet they are paying A LOT more than small businesses can afford to have that speed (oh and wouldn’t that be a fibre connection to the premises?)..
mark
Thursday, May 19, 2011 at 12:55 PMThere is NO WAY his neighbour is getting speeds similar to Telstra 3G. I’m with Virgin (Optus network) here in Armidale and have sent my 3G dongle back to them because it cant even crack 1Mbps. At 3am on a Sunday morning you might get lucky (1.5Mbps) but there is no way he is getting good speed. You can hardly make a call here at peak times because the network is so congested. ‘network busy’, I wish the Optus CEO did live here because I bet he wouldnt accept it!
olearymo
Tuesday, May 24, 2011 at 1:56 PMI used to live in Armidale. We had dialup. boooobeeboobeeboopeeboopeeep! The modem also made a similar noise.