Can anyone give me hints or warnings re nbn

Yes, we are with Telstra, and if forced onto the nbn will stick with them, at least till everything is sorted out.
Strangely enough, apart from some irritations we have always received pretty good service.
And I’m very good at hitting them up for credits for any outages or delays.
Marg

 

I can share my experince.

My ADSL was average. Telstra. I endured monthly of 1.5Mbps speed for three months of endless fault searching etc and spat it and migrated to NBN. (Telstra no longer want to maintain copper be warned) I deliberately chose a low cost provider because the same NBN supply occurs no matter who you use. Its like electricity. Its all maintained by Telstra under a NBN contract if a fault occurs. Dumping Telstra saved me $35 per month for the same cost plan but far faster and with calls....Mine includes calls. Unlimited calls. Unlimited uncapped data.

What I got that Telstra didnt match (not even close at time). Telstra also tell you their cost includes line rental and support. Thats BS. There is no line rental anymore. They want to keep collecting money they dont deserve.
- Free Modem with 3 month min contract
- Unmetered data
- Three tiers (Telstra offered two) - Top tiers extra $10pm each.
I received modem in post and its a simple uplug job ONCE they confirm connection on the day.

Mine didnt work at first. I called and had support who suggested I change plug connections at back to the one that says NEVER insert here. Worked fine. Has ever since. Instructions aare pretty clear. If you read them !!

My speed test is 25-45 MBps depending on time of day. A few times (3 in 12mths) I had a dropout with uberslow speed or noise on line etc. Reset modem using power off/wait/power on. Fixed.

Now here are the tips I can share
1. Never use the default slowest speed. If you do, expect the speed to be like a water tap on a 40degree day.. Almost 99% of NBN complaints concern this issue. Its cheap arse people who think $29 a months means 200Mbps. You get what you pay for. The slowest speed is only if you NEVER EVER use data.
2. Start one tier higher and see how it goes. I did that and after three months made change to 50 plan and it was really worth it. Some areas it can be a waste of money
3. If you have more than one handset connected at home at present you MUST get a sparkie to disconnect the pairing. It will NOT work with NBN. You wont get data either. Its a very simple "snip" and cost me nothing. The Telstra techie who diagnosed no issues with my ADSL suggested the NBN and made our house ready with a wire cutter.
4. BUY a new cordless handset set. Two - five handsets. Reason - You must have the main base directly connected to the NBN modem. No other option. If you want other handsets they need to be unwired. My 5 handset unit by Panasonic cost $160 at JB. One address book and loads of other features.
5. Avoid Telstra and Optus. They charge for calls. I get free mobile, local, interstate calls. I could buy an international pack for $8pm which includes loads of untimed calls but we almost never call O/seas.
6. Avoid third party bundle deals like Foxtel. Read ALL the details carefully. They will compromise data caps, speed or price at some point. ie Foxtel reduce speed after XMB...They say its unlimited but its two tier speeds. Become dialup after you blow the modest data. I have foxtel through Telstra and now its uncapped data and faster than ever. HD movies d/load in 5 mins. Never have to think about data and this allowed me to drop Bigpond which was unmetered when I used Tesltra. Its reason to flick them now if you get a unlimited data plan.
7. After connecting you must call your old ISP (even if its same provider as phone) and cancel the data even if its tier to the line. ie Bigpond. They will still bill you even after you port the number away. RIP OFF TELSTRA. The ACCC had to step in after I kept being billed. Telstra blamed it on individual billing systems. Copped a fine for their trouble but it still occurs. And they tried to charge a break fee when I had no contract.

Shop around - WhistleOut is a fantastic search tool. BUT It does try to sell Optus and Telstra so take time and look at smaller players. They are just as good.

I used MyNetFone. More than happy.

 

Lesson 2 - How I converted my home to a high speed unwired network.

Prior to NBN whole family seemed to want to connect and would whinge about the 1.5MB Testra ADSL .It arrived at the house slow then dropped with all the use) Throw in Foxtel, 5 handsets, 4 tablets and a few PCs and a PS4 and it was a dog.

One NBN was operating then I had to find a way for all to share easily. Answer was simple.
1. Upgraded to 50MBps
2. Created a local network

Bought a D-Link set of powerline adapters. (set 2) and it came with a free redemption for another two adapters. 4 in total. Powerline adapters basically treat our electricity cabling asa network without any changes. A plug in box like a double adapter. I plugged data from NBN modem by LAN cable straight into the powerline adapter. Then installed three others around the house. (they receive the data) - 2 more upstairs and one downstairs. This pushed the network data around the house at up to 100MBps. Basically same speed as it arrived. Tested many times and almost negligible loss of speed. Note all required mix 100MBps speed as that is greater than NBN

Then at each of the three other powerline adapters I installed a wifi router. Reconfigured so all had specific names eg Data1, Data2 and Data3 and all have same passwords.

Now anyone can choose best connection (some devices roam) and NOBODY ever complains. Cost for powerline adapters $100 in total and wifri routers cost me $89 each.

Why didnt I try extenders ? They are slow and dubious. The adapters use the house electricity cabling enabling fast transfer.

Now every point in our 2 level home gets great speed 25-45MBps on a 50MBps plan. No blackout areas, Roaming fixes any drop outs as people move about.

One router is stuck to the back of main TV and also doubles as a LAN wired point to foxtel and also a wifi router. The room that had endless dropouts (surrounded by brick walls) is now also fast as.

One minor issue - Foxtel didnt like the arrangemen and it refused to accept the LAN bcable connection through a "rebroadcast" arrangement. I had a Foxtel techie who had to give domain permissions to the foxtel box to use this arrangement. Now its all fine.

 

depends what one means by dropouts I guess - the most common problem is losing sync.