Ask RiotACT: Best internet service provider West Macgregor

JC said :

Also you won’t be getting fibre NBN in west Macgregor unless there is some miricle or NBN decide fibre to the curb is the way to go. What they are planning is VDSL2. And interestingly the architecture of VDSL2 is similar to what you have now. Main difference is VDSL2 instead of ADSL and the need for around double to tripple the number of sites in the street for cabinets as the copper distance has to be significantly less than what it is for RIM setup.

And fibre to the curb still uses VDSL but they stick a VDSL ‘modem’ for want of another word in the pit in the street and use you copper lead-in. In a place like west Macgregor that is new and running cable would be dead easy it would be criminal if they went to the curb rather than to the house. Older areas different story.

Thanks for clearing up the RIM thing, nobody has ever explained it to me like that and all the online diagnostic tools I’ve tried using show our distance to the exchange, not to the RIM/DSLAM. I’ve got an idea where it might be too.
As for NBN, I can only see what might be a pit in the ground at the end of our street, so fiber will probably turn into copper from there, if we ever get it at all. By the time it is installed, there will probably be a better, faster technology that won’t even need a physical connection to the house.
BTW, welcome to the neighborhood Mathew. I’m sure you will find it better than you expected as it is quite a nice, quiet suburb. Some days you walk outside and can’t hear a thing except birds tweeting. I don’t know where all the kids are as you never hear laughter, screaming or kid noises, except from our backyard.
The only downside in my opinion, is the occasional smell from the egg farm out at Parkwood, or perhaps the cooking oil recycling plant, when the wind comes from the right direction. Also be wary of the random motorcross riders churning up the dirt on the reserves. The cops will never catch them unless they get on two wheels themselves, plus they come from out Charnwood/Dunlop way using the powerline reserves.

Mathew said :

10-14Mbps with Telstra at Macgregor sounds like a very good deal. Only thing i am confused is whether going with the Foxtel bundle make any difference in the line speed.

No difference regardless of ISP. Two reasons Foxtel just rebrand the Telstra network and secondly you are RIM connected, refer to post above.

wildturkeycanoe said :

As one of the residents living in West Macgregor and missing out on NBN, I can tell you is will be easiest to go with Telstra. The distance from the exchange [Scullin] is the main problem with line speeds, but we are fortunate enough to get around 10-14Mbps. Recently we changed to an unlimited broadband bundle with Foxtel as our data usage kept going over the 100GB/month and Telstra’s pricing got too expensive for the next largest available plan. Perhaps because Foxtel is closely connected to Telstra, they have been able to maintain our line speed and now we have an unlimited data plan [cheaper than Telstra’s 100GB/month] too which has been very helpful, especially with three kids all wanting to use the net at the same time. Apparently our NBN which was supposed to be installed in 2013, is now promised to arrive in 2019, so you can safely commit to a 2 year contract for savings knowing full well that fiber won’t arrive before the plan expires.

Actually the distance to Scullin exchange has no effect on your line speed because you don’t have lines that go to Scullin. The part of west Macgregor without NBN, the Holt golf course estate and Dunlop all use what is called a RIM for telephony. It means the telephone exchange equipment is in the street and your copper lines end there. Adjacent to the RIM and sometimes on top is the DSLAM that provides ADSL. Not sure all the RIM locations in west Macgrgeor but drive around and look for 2 or 3 olive green cabinets, often in parks. One I do know of is the park on Bryan Hudson Street.

The problem main problem with this setup is it is prohibitetly expensive for other ISP’s to install their own cabinets adjacent to RIMs as opposed to installing in a central exchange so it means the choice of service is Telstra (who are forced to install gear and wholesale it to other ISP’s) or a 3rd party ISP that buys your service off Telstra wholesale. The other problem with this setup is over subscription on the backhaul to the exchange. That’s the main limitation in getting better speed and to kind of hide this a little Telstra will wind back link speeds to the house. The distance you would be to the RIM means you should get ADSL link speeds closer to 20mb/s.

Also you won’t be getting fibre NBN in west Macgregor unless there is some miricle or NBN decide fibre to the curb is the way to go. What they are planning is VDSL2. And interestingly the architecture of VDSL2 is similar to what you have now. Main difference is VDSL2 instead of ADSL and the need for around double to tripple the number of sites in the street for cabinets as the copper distance has to be significantly less than what it is for RIM setup.

And fibre to the curb still uses VDSL but they stick a VDSL ‘modem’ for want of another word in the pit in the street and use you copper lead-in. In a place like west Macgregor that is new and running cable would be dead easy it would be criminal if they went to the curb rather than to the house. Older areas different story.

10-14Mbps with Telstra at Macgregor sounds like a very good deal. Only thing i am confused is whether going with the Foxtel bundle make any difference in the line speed.

As one of the residents living in West Macgregor and missing out on NBN, I can tell you is will be easiest to go with Telstra. The distance from the exchange [Scullin] is the main problem with line speeds, but we are fortunate enough to get around 10-14Mbps. Recently we changed to an unlimited broadband bundle with Foxtel as our data usage kept going over the 100GB/month and Telstra’s pricing got too expensive for the next largest available plan. Perhaps because Foxtel is closely connected to Telstra, they have been able to maintain our line speed and now we have an unlimited data plan [cheaper than Telstra’s 100GB/month] too which has been very helpful, especially with three kids all wanting to use the net at the same time. Apparently our NBN which was supposed to be installed in 2013, is now promised to arrive in 2019, so you can safely commit to a 2 year contract for savings knowing full well that fiber won’t arrive before the plan expires.

I’d be far more than “happy” with 9MB/s! You’re going to be up for a tough change because it’s very unlikely that your maximum speed (ignoring congestion, etc) will be above West 0.5MB/s. It depends on exactly where you’re going to live, but you’ll probably have a limit of somewhere between 0.3-0.4MB/s.

I had a chat with TPG and they are saying they can only provide offnet ADSL2+ in that area . In order to do that i will have to arrange a telstra telephone line connected first and then rang TPG to get ADSL2+. So if i work out the costs ,it better to go with TELSTRA ADSL2+ directly.Other option is Internode which is only few dollars cheap.

Hi Mathew. If you are happy with TPG I’d suggest just using them. I fell into the trap of getting very annoyed with my provider, iinet / transact, and subsequently switched to Telstra based on a couple of recommendations. I had a few issues swapping across. I now find myself with a more expensive package, yet I feel the service / speeds are the same. If you have had a good experience, I’d base your decision on that.

The non nbn area is serviced by RIMs which means any service provider you use is providing you a Telstra wholesale service.

So the only issue with service provider that comes into play is how much bandwidth are they buying on the backhaul last link to the Telstra network.