a_recording
Member of the Trade: Lachlanlikesathing
- Joined
- Mar 20, 2009
- Posts
- 4,705
- Likes
- 793
UGHHHHHHH. Just looking at that speedtest result makes me get all clawy.
These are my results. I'm on what is probably the country's fastest internet connections available to domestic / non business purposes, a copper coaxial cable network. I'm not complaining about the DL speed, but note that the upload speed on this connection (and all other internet providers in Australia) put a cap on maximum upload speeds.
It is honestly absurd that I have a connection that has a 70x ratio of download to upload.
For those who don't know, there's currently a political football being kicked in the form a National Broadband Network. This might provoke a bit of a political debate, but let me start by saying I have very mixed feelings about this entire issue.
The former Labor (centre-left) government proposed a national network of optical fibre to every household, the largest infrastructure investment in Australian history. The projected cost was something like $37 billion administered through a public company that would wholesale network access to private resellers. The targeted speed was something like 1000/1000 megabits.
Unfortunately the rollout of this network progressed rather dismally and the takeup right for free installation to households has been pretty dismal as well, 10-20%. As the NBN rolled down a street, residents were offered free installation to their premise, so it's honestly surprising how many people refused to be connected especially considering that a later installation would cost money and it would only add value to the house even if they chose not to use the connection.
The new incoming Liberal (centre-right) government, touting fiscal responsibility, has decided to limit the scope of the project to a fibre-to-the-node build out, where the final stretch from the street node to the premises will make use of the existing copper wire. This has a projected cost of $30 billion dollars for the taxpayer, but the result is that the projected speed will be 100 / ???? (~probably about 5/6 megabits upload) on a good day, and ongoing maintanence costs for the morbidund copper network that is slowly rotting away. Households that want a full fibre to the premise connection can pay a few thousand dollars (?) to get one.
Now the funny thing about this whole debate is how this is one of those public policy issues that is a microcosm for whole entire philosophies.
Proponents for a full fibre to the home NBN insist that there are multiplicative effects on the economy as a result of this capital investment that we can't really see or anticipate. To me this sounds like a good argument in theory, until I look at my own speedtest result and realise that we have had fast DL speeds available for years to households via the HFC network. We just do not have fast upload speeds. The entire proposed benefit of broadband internet is that productivity will increase because people can share content and transform their business practices, and yet clearly right now the demand for such upload bandwidth is so low that the private sector has put out feelers and decided that most households are happy with 100/1 internet connections. And if they are a business and they aren't happy, they can pay about $400-$1000 a month to get symmetric DSL business connections.
I'm somewhat sympathetic to the idea that most people aren't really going to benefit from superfast download speeds. I don't see how it's a worthwhile investment to the national economy to enable people to download whole seasons of US TV shows faster (which is exactly what most of the 'faster internet is better' argument boils down to in the internet comments that pass for critical comment about this issue).
The more important part of the question is upload speeds. No one has actually ever been able to tell me why on earth the private sector in Australia doesn't provide faster upload speeds to consumers, and as far as I can tell it's just because no one wants them. I want faster upload very much for my Youtube uploads, but don't see how I will get return on investment on a $400 symmetric DSL connection. If I was making videos daily and I was pulling in ad revenue to a certain extent, then it would be sensible for me to get the business grade broadband and it would be a no-brainer. But I'm not and so it isn't. And the frustrating thing is there is no middle option. It's either 100/1 connections for $60-$100 a month or 10/10 connections for $400-$1000 a month. SOMEONE TELL ME WHY????
There is the argument that people do not know what they want until you give it to them, a very Steve Jobs / who will buy a phone with only one button?!?! argument. In this case the argument is that if you invest the nation's money in a high speed broadband network suddenly everyone's grandma will start uploading Youtube videos and 3D printing schematics and we will transform our economy, or something else will happen and collect underpants > ??? > profit. While some part of my geeky nature agrees with this argument (I couldn't even envision how the internet would change things before it happened) at the same time another part of me finds it a little crazy to suggest that the majority of residential households would be prolific content producers if only they were given the opportunity in the form of massive government capital investment. I talk with many people. They do not use their home internet for anything productive. The majority of uploading they do every day is photos onto Facebook, and for that they (thankfully) have very high speed LTE uplink bandwith. Yes my phone gets more upload bandwidth than my home internet connection. Go figure.
Of course, to me it clearly makes more sense if you are going to spend the money, spend the extra $7 billion and get the best, since you are already spending $30 billion to get something pretty mediocre in comparison. This is the same thinking that I'm sure you are all familiar with whenever you consider buying the flagship headphone over the so-so mid-range option.
So on this issue, like so many others, I'm really not sure what to think.
** Actually, writing this post suddenly gave me an idea. I can use an unlimited prepaid data plans to upload videos over LTE. I shall work out this clever scheme posthaste.
These are my results. I'm on what is probably the country's fastest internet connections available to domestic / non business purposes, a copper coaxial cable network. I'm not complaining about the DL speed, but note that the upload speed on this connection (and all other internet providers in Australia) put a cap on maximum upload speeds.
It is honestly absurd that I have a connection that has a 70x ratio of download to upload.
For those who don't know, there's currently a political football being kicked in the form a National Broadband Network. This might provoke a bit of a political debate, but let me start by saying I have very mixed feelings about this entire issue.
The former Labor (centre-left) government proposed a national network of optical fibre to every household, the largest infrastructure investment in Australian history. The projected cost was something like $37 billion administered through a public company that would wholesale network access to private resellers. The targeted speed was something like 1000/1000 megabits.
Unfortunately the rollout of this network progressed rather dismally and the takeup right for free installation to households has been pretty dismal as well, 10-20%. As the NBN rolled down a street, residents were offered free installation to their premise, so it's honestly surprising how many people refused to be connected especially considering that a later installation would cost money and it would only add value to the house even if they chose not to use the connection.
The new incoming Liberal (centre-right) government, touting fiscal responsibility, has decided to limit the scope of the project to a fibre-to-the-node build out, where the final stretch from the street node to the premises will make use of the existing copper wire. This has a projected cost of $30 billion dollars for the taxpayer, but the result is that the projected speed will be 100 / ???? (~probably about 5/6 megabits upload) on a good day, and ongoing maintanence costs for the morbidund copper network that is slowly rotting away. Households that want a full fibre to the premise connection can pay a few thousand dollars (?) to get one.
Now the funny thing about this whole debate is how this is one of those public policy issues that is a microcosm for whole entire philosophies.
Proponents for a full fibre to the home NBN insist that there are multiplicative effects on the economy as a result of this capital investment that we can't really see or anticipate. To me this sounds like a good argument in theory, until I look at my own speedtest result and realise that we have had fast DL speeds available for years to households via the HFC network. We just do not have fast upload speeds. The entire proposed benefit of broadband internet is that productivity will increase because people can share content and transform their business practices, and yet clearly right now the demand for such upload bandwidth is so low that the private sector has put out feelers and decided that most households are happy with 100/1 internet connections. And if they are a business and they aren't happy, they can pay about $400-$1000 a month to get symmetric DSL business connections.
I'm somewhat sympathetic to the idea that most people aren't really going to benefit from superfast download speeds. I don't see how it's a worthwhile investment to the national economy to enable people to download whole seasons of US TV shows faster (which is exactly what most of the 'faster internet is better' argument boils down to in the internet comments that pass for critical comment about this issue).
The more important part of the question is upload speeds. No one has actually ever been able to tell me why on earth the private sector in Australia doesn't provide faster upload speeds to consumers, and as far as I can tell it's just because no one wants them. I want faster upload very much for my Youtube uploads, but don't see how I will get return on investment on a $400 symmetric DSL connection. If I was making videos daily and I was pulling in ad revenue to a certain extent, then it would be sensible for me to get the business grade broadband and it would be a no-brainer. But I'm not and so it isn't. And the frustrating thing is there is no middle option. It's either 100/1 connections for $60-$100 a month or 10/10 connections for $400-$1000 a month. SOMEONE TELL ME WHY????
There is the argument that people do not know what they want until you give it to them, a very Steve Jobs / who will buy a phone with only one button?!?! argument. In this case the argument is that if you invest the nation's money in a high speed broadband network suddenly everyone's grandma will start uploading Youtube videos and 3D printing schematics and we will transform our economy, or something else will happen and collect underpants > ??? > profit. While some part of my geeky nature agrees with this argument (I couldn't even envision how the internet would change things before it happened) at the same time another part of me finds it a little crazy to suggest that the majority of residential households would be prolific content producers if only they were given the opportunity in the form of massive government capital investment. I talk with many people. They do not use their home internet for anything productive. The majority of uploading they do every day is photos onto Facebook, and for that they (thankfully) have very high speed LTE uplink bandwith. Yes my phone gets more upload bandwidth than my home internet connection. Go figure.
Of course, to me it clearly makes more sense if you are going to spend the money, spend the extra $7 billion and get the best, since you are already spending $30 billion to get something pretty mediocre in comparison. This is the same thinking that I'm sure you are all familiar with whenever you consider buying the flagship headphone over the so-so mid-range option.
So on this issue, like so many others, I'm really not sure what to think.
** Actually, writing this post suddenly gave me an idea. I can use an unlimited prepaid data plans to upload videos over LTE. I shall work out this clever scheme posthaste.
![3142290526.png"](http://www.speedtest.net/result/3142290526.png")
This is the best we can get here, without paying $2k /mo for 100Mb. It makes me sad. 
