In late 2016 I was one of the first in line to register for the NBN in Bendigo. My suburb was due to be connected in the first couple of weeks in 2017. I was excited. Our ADSL speed had dropped from 14Mbps in our old house to 7Mbps at the new location and of an evening especially wasn’t cutting it.
The NBN rollout has always been categorised by “do the easiest thing first (especially if it’s in a major city or swinging electorate)” and at the end of January 2017 I still had no internet. My suburb was online, but I wasn’t. Gradually, I watched the rollout spread across Bendigo as all my family and friends were connected before me. At a family event we were discussing the rollout (okay, so I was complaining) and family members told me of their monthly downloads. My household was magnitudes higher as we’ve always been strong adopters of technology. “Oh, so that’s why you want the NBN so bad,” said my sister.
September 2018 and at the end of a family holiday to Cairns, I landed at Melbourne Airport to a new SMS saying that Fibre-to-the-Node was now available to me. Finally, 21 months after the scheduled rollout. Except, it wasn’t. Someone at NBN had stuffed up and told my ISP I was good to go.
I never ever found out why exactly there was such a delay. My local politicians couldn’t get answers and the best official answer I managed was, “There is a train track in the way.” As the crow flies the nearest piece of train track is 1.5kms away. There are many hundreds of people already connected between me and the daily Bendigo to Melbourne service.
In Australia, FTTN is a fibre connection to a node, which then connects to a pillar and from there to the house with the last two connections being old copper. There is a pillar 112m from me, another 241m away and a third 370m away. The one I eventually ended up being connected to is 1,130m away. Yep, we’re into kilometres.
That was April 2019, a mere 27 months since the first planned rollout. Many families are onto their second child once that time has passed. Since I was so far away, the speed was bad. Well short of the nominal 100/40 Mbps (download/upload) speed, we began at 32/7. That has gradually crept up to a solid 36/7. Because of the was the plans were laid out, I was paying for 50, just to guarantee the 36. I’d have been better off with less than 25Mbps as I understand that had to be rectified at NBN’s cost.
I know many are still in a worse position than this. It’s a poor situation that a supposedly advanced country like Australia should rectify without the silence and non-specific comments from the NBN.
Thankfully, we did have FTTN before Covid-19 reared its ugly head and we were all constrained to home.
Final FTTN speed before the upgrade to FTTP.
Word started to spread that everyone would finally—as originally planned in the mid-naughties—receive Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) and the target was mid-2024 → late-2024 → mid-2025. I was super happy about that, especially when I started getting drop-outs 5+ times a day in October 2024. That’s enough for an official fault which was somehow rectified and caused by “line irritation.” Yep, the term used for NBN doing some stuff somewhere nearby. It would be fixed in July 2025.
November/December 2025 and stuff is happening. Lots of pits in the street have been replaced with shiny new concrete covers. Not mine though. OMG, are we doing this again? But now they are laying cables down the street, through the court, past my place. Still not change to my pit cover. Nervous. Eventually there are some men working there. I take our dog out to say hello (she barks until she understands people in hi-vis are not aliens) and ask if it’s NBN works. Sure is. Now we wait.
Keep watching. Nothing. Keep watching. Nothing. Happen to drive past my pillar (still 1.13km to home) and someone is working there. Checked my online maps. No, it can’t be. Called my ISP. Yes it is. Finally, good to go.
Yesterday was a fortnight after that date and a lovely, and very professional NBN tech was in my home. He pulled the cable through, put the outside box where it needed to go, and ran cable through the roofspace to the kitchen on the opposite side of the house. The modem is right where my router and other network connections are.
A little (8x) faster this morning.
Competition for FTTP is tight so I’m on a 6-monthly special of 250/25 for the same price as 100/20, which is only a couple of dollars more than I was paying for FTTN 50/20. In January I’ll drop to the 100/20 yet due to changes that will by then be 500/50 for the same price. It’s a new world. I hope those few who haven’t yet made it can join me soon.
Graph showing the change in available internet speed since NBN was first promised.
I have told this story many times. I don’t fully understand why this was so important to me, yet it was. The highs and lows have been felt hard in either direction. This is the last telling as the journey is complete and the chapter closed.