Technology & Social Media ArgghhH!!! NBN Woes....

It's a competition. Get a 500MB limit for safety reserve and the kids will see that as all usable allowance in one day. Best to unplug the modem and take it with you when you go to bed.

 

@Scott No Mates Haha.... "homework"...

We don't have kids so no issues there. Usage from the slow Spintel wireless account we've had for the last few months has varied from lowest month 150Gb to highest 183Gb, that was a 250Gb cap but stupendously sow speeds so only SD movie rentals and minimal YouTube type stuff.

There are only two of us and I'm at work all day every day anyway. Emma used to work from home 3 days a week but they made her redundant totally out of the blue last week anyway, one of her two Directors looking after his backside by cutting her wages to meet his budget next year. Can't want to see the ramifications when they realize what it was she actually did for them, fools, shle spretty upsate, 11 years of loyality and damn hard work in the face of an old boys club with a glass ceiling and repaid with a marching order with no warning.

Anyway, back on topic, I got the 200Gb cap just to see what speeds we'd get. It's only another $20 per month to increase to 500Gb so I'll probably do that then we can rent HD movies! We were uncapped on NBN for the last couple of years at the old house with really good speed and never went close to 500GB, not sure we ever breached 300Gb to bin honest.

 

Round and round and round we go.... so last night I got a call from "NBN" to say the remediation work has been completed and we can book in the connection appointment, I asked what exactly had been done as we still have no pit & DPU. He told me that the "works required in the street was complete and we can go ahead and make the connection appointment".

I kept my mouth shut this time, lets see what the tech says when he turns up, so this Thursday between 1 & 5pm.

I'm at a loss as to what they have fixed. There are no new pits on our property, no new ones on the street and the only one close to the boundary of the pretty is not a Telstra/NBN pit so not convinced they've put on in there, (which is 160 meters away from the phone connection anyway)! Very intrigued as to how they have fixed it (if they have).

I have zero confidence they've actually done what's needed to be done, but will be very happy to be proved wrong on Thursday (assuming the tech shows up).

 

The farce continues....

NBN have told ISP the work has been completed.

I know it hasn't

ISP booked in the connection tech for between 1-5pm this afternoon.

Emma phone me at 10am this morning to say NBN guys are here and want to know where the pit is....

I asked her to tell them under no circumstances are they to leave until l get home (I'm only 10 minutes up the road).

I get home, two British lads sat there waiting for me.

Turns out they are the NBN remediation contractors that have come to put the pit in he driveway that NBN have told ISP has already been done. They have been told by their boss it HAS to be finished before weekend, to which I said Cool, what about the chap that's coming to connect us this afternoon?

They were actually a great couple of blokes, I asked what happens next and one said "don't know, we just dig holes".

Anyway, after an hour of walking the property with them and their scanners we worked out where everything was (miles away from what their schematics show), and what needed to be done (exactly what the bloke from NBN said needed doing on Feb 6th), and they've marked it all out and unloaded the bob cat to start trenching.

They're putting a pit up my driveway and trenching and installing conduit form that new pit back to the street, then tunneling under the road to run conduit from the street to the pit with the nearest DPU on the other side of the road.

Then, tomorrow, someone else from their company (thankfully this doesn't go to yet another contractor), will come along and run the fibre from the street pit to our new pit and pop a DPU in.

THEN the ISP can arrange for the existing Telstra line which will be passing by the new pit on our drive to be contented into the new DPU and we should be away, (then I might cancel the whole thing and stick with the new wireless which is consistently now giving me 40mb down and 20Mb up and costs less that the NBN package per month). I just want to make sure all the infrastructure gets put in and is actually working first before making that decision.

So now I have the luxury of phoning the ISP to explain this and cancel this afternoons connection appointment.

 

No doubt @geoffw

I literally just picked up the phone to call the ISP and reschedule and it went off with an unknown to me mobile number, I answered it, it was the connection tech, turned up early and was stood on my drive asking me why there was a crew there putting a new pit in??

He was a good bloke, I apologized that I hadn't got his appointment cancelled in tme to save him a wasted trip. He was good bloke, we had a laugh and he'll run it back up through the system to the ISP.

Unbelievable.

 

No doubt.

The civils guys that came this morning, he was telling me that the whole thing is way worse than the media let on. They had a job last week where they had to go install conduit, pit and fibres to ONE house in a whole street but not to any of the other houses He said all day long residents were coming out and asking him when NBN was coming, and why was he only doing one house. All he could say was he didn't know, his company was contracted to supply and install NBN connection infrastructure to this one house only.

These boys were happy as, they'll be in work for life. Their current contract is to 2022 for the initial installs then they have been told the retrofit "upgrades" to the stuff they've already put in will roll out until beyond 2030.

It's crazy. The work they are doing today is the bare minimum they have to do to comply and not allowed to do anything over. They measured out the distance from the house and put the new pit at the furthest point away thy could whilst still meeting spec (just), just to save a few meters of fibre They have the tools and equipment to run the fibre all the way to the house, whack a box on the wall and the property is then FTTP. Instead, at some point in the future someone will have to come back, dig another trench from the new pit and finish the job off with fibre as an addendum job instead of just doing it properly now, whilst they are here. Not their fault, NBN directives.

Just seems crazy they are putting in all this nice new fibre and digging pits on my property etc just to pack up an ancient twisted copper par for the last 120 meters to the house which goodness knows what kind of shape is in.

 

Well, this could be the plot of a sit com, albeit not a very funny one.

I get home about 7pm last expecting to see a nice new pit on my drive and everything reedy for the fibre tech to fit off tomorrow.

I round the corner up our road and can see up the road that there's still the truck and bob cat at the end of our drive, all lit up and the two boys still working away.

I pull up, cant get up the drive as there's a dirty great trench across it, and next doors, and next-next doors! Mounds of dirt everywhere (and it's pouring down).

I park on the road, next to my neighbors car who also obviously couldn't get in .

The two NBN blokes come sheepishly over, they'd been having a great day. Everything went super smooth, best job in ages he said. Got the trenches done, picked up the old Telstra Lines, got the new conduit ready then broke for lunch. All they had to do on return was drill into the side of the existing pit to run the new conduit in and back fill the trench.

They got back fro lunch and it was pouring down, the existing pit was full of water, so to drain the pit to see where he was drilling he got the Bobcat and dug a sump next to it, only...... he hit the water mains!

40 foot high fountain, pressure was so high they kept blowing the fittings needed to fix it.

I really felt for them , they were soaked through freezing cold and still had hours of work just to patch the place up enough so that we could get cars in and out.

My neighbor is a pretty harsh, arrogant type of bloke. I said to them I'd be getting a knock from him in the morning as the cross overs are trashed (they'd only just been built two days ago as part of the final works from the new road sealing!). They said yeah, he's already torn them a new one. I think they were waiting from more of the same from me but I said don;t worry about it, these things happen. Pretty sure they didn't intend to plough through a water main then spent all night wet and cold and covered in mud.

They wrapped up just before 10pm last night so I could get my car up the drive. Poor buggers. They're coming back this morning to finish up.

 

No ten hour break, double time all day. It's a tough life in this wide brown land.

 

Exactly.

 

But what about that hot cuppa when you got home?

 

We we're OK, we were upstream of the burst, can say the same for the rest of the street down stream of it.

 

Yeah! Success!!!

After only 3 months, one of our client's buildinsg hasfinally been integrated with the NBN. The infrastructure was installed months ago, FTTN but never appeared on their records

The address wasn't appearing anywhere

The maps showed the building wasn't designated (not even planning phase).

It's now showing as active. My work is done.

 

Not sure if your situation is in any way similar - but when I was using a dongle plugged into a central position, used to chew up the data within hours even if nothing was connected. The only way to prevent this was to physically disconnect the dongle

Perhaps you need to turn off the modem/dongle at the source

 

The point to remember is that you can't blame the ISP or tech - they can only go on the information that NBN provides them - and there is no one at NBN the ISP or tech can call. They literally do not have a phone number ... all they can do send the docket back and wait

 

So, the chaps that dug the trench and bust the water main told me last week their boss said they HAVE to be finished by the weekend (totally finished, pit in, fiber in, DPU in).

I messaged one of them on Monday as took his mobile number before and asked him if the fiber had been done... "no, sorry mate, not yet".

Just had the following update from the ISP:-

"This is just a quick update to let you know that NBN Co is still investigating the issue preventing your NBN™ installation. The estimated time of resolution is 16/07/2019."

At least we've got the pit now, just need them to come and put the stuff in it so we can get the connection tech booked in again.

Bugger, I just re-read that before I hit post and realized that resolve date is JULY!! I'd read at as 16th of this month initially.

Bloody ridiculous.