SILICON
CHIP
www.siliconchip.com.au
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Nicholas Vinen
Technical Editor
John Clarke, B.E.(Elec.)
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Leo Simpson, B.Bus., FAICD
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Editorial Viewpoint
National Broadband Not-work?
Late last year, a person rang me at home to say that the
NBN would be available in my area “soon” (I’d heard that
one before…). Anyway, they said if I was happy to stay
with my current internet provider, they’d send me the NBN
equipment as soon as my house was connected. As promised, it arrived in early March.
This was around the time that the government was advising us to work from home to prevent the spread of COVID-19, so I didn’t want to be without internet. They told me to disconnect all my
ADSL equipment one evening and plug in the NBN gear, and I should be up and
running the next day.
I did what they asked, but the next morning, I had no internet. I rang their support line and the helpful staff member spent a while troubleshooting it with me before concluding there was something wrong with our connection. They would have
to send a technician out. That would take about ten days. Ugh!
So I had to work from home using a very slow and expensive 4G connection via
my phone. When the NBN technician turned up, he seemed to know what he was
doing and told me (I don’t remember his exact words): “the ports were mislabelled
and so you were connected to the wrong port but I’ve fixed that.”
It did not fill me with confidence that the NBN cable installers didn’t label the ports
correctly. But at least he’d fixed that problem. However, I still had no connection.
After more investigations, he came back in with a bit of a sheepish look and told
me: “The fibre’s no good. I’m going to have to get someone to come back and fix it.”
And the first available appointment was more than a week away. Ugh again!
So, it appears that the people who ran the NBN optic fibre didn’t actually test it
to see whether it worked before reporting that they’d done their job. That’s really
unacceptable.
Anyway, they did come back and fix it as promised. By then, I’d been without
internet for around three weeks. But finally, the NBN was working! It worked for a
whole eight days. Then suddenly it just dropped out.
So I rang the support line again. They did a bit of checking and told me “the NBN
system says that your connection has been cancelled.” Excuse me, what? Why? And
by whom? “It doesn’t say why. We’ll have to reconnect you from scratch.” How long
would this take? “A few days.”
It took more than three weeks.
The request had to go from my ISP to NBN Co and then onto the contractor,
who rejected it because I “had no phone line”. It then had to go back to NBN Co
and back to my ISP, who had to ask for my phone line to be reinstalled, then when
that was fixed, they started the whole process again.
Apparently, the contractor for my area is based in the Philippines so this was a
slow process. Why is part of Australia’s National Broadband Network run out of the
Philippines? That makes no sense to me.
Finally, in early May, my NBN connection was working again. So for March and
April, while I was quarantined at home most days, my NBN connection worked for
a whole eight days.
I never received any explanation as to why my phone line was cancelled (I
certainly didn’t request it!). Will that happen again? Who knows? Apparently, there
are no processes in place to stop accidental cancellation.
What sort of crazy system is this that we’re being forced onto? I’ve had ADSL for
nearly 20 years and never had any problems like this. It isn’t just me, either. Another SILICON CHIP staff member had the NBN crew run cable to most of the houses in
his street, including both of his neighbours . . . but not his. He had to contact them
and they eventually came back and hooked him up.
You have to wonder who thought it was a good idea to give national responsibility for fixed line internet to such a disorganised group of people.
Nicholas Vinen
24-26 Lilian Fowler Pl, Marrickville 2204
2
Silicon Chip
Australia’s electronics magazine
siliconchip.com.au
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