12 April 2007

Broadband Unavailable in Majura Rise?

| Growling Ferret
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Has anyone had any success getting ADSL or ADSL2 in the Majura Rise development?

I have spoken to a couple of ISP’s and they inform me that the development is on pair gain, and thus ADSL is unavailable. I am wondering if anyone has had any other recent experience or success in getting high speed internet connectivity – possibly wirelessly?

As the area is not Transact cabled, has anyone else come up with another solution for broadband connectivity in this area (and other areas such as Harrison, which also suffer the same problem)

Will Telstra ever get their act together and update the exchanges to meet the needs of rapidly expanding residential areas?

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broadbanduser4:05 pm 17 Apr 07

I have recently moved to Runcorn, Brisbane. As an IT person, I would get a broadband connection. Before I applied for TPG service, I checked the Telstra web site to see whether ADSL was available in the area. I got confirmation from the Telstra Website that ADSL was available for the phone line I have in my new house.

Later, I got a reply from TPG. I was told that because of the pair gain phone line ADSL2 was actually not available. So I asked TPG to contact Telstra to remove pair gain phone line to get ADSL (not too bad), but following that further tests revealed that ADSL was not available in my local exchange. Telstra then replied that they did not have any plans to upgrade the local exchange in near feature. Consequentially I had to cancel the application.

So, no ADSL, no cable and no wireless in Runcorn. People suggested ISDN and Satellite but they are not broadband and are extremely expensive. As Runcorn is a massive residential area, I can hardly imagine after so many years (say around 6 years) Telstra still haven’t done their job for a suburban area in close proximity to the city. What is the concept of 6 years in the Internet world? It is total different age, comparable to the time gap between black and white TV and colour TV.

The building of the Internet infrastructure have been so far behind other developed countries, it is so amazing. This reminds me of one thing. Why the Liberal government have been so keen to sell Telstra?

Until now I have not cared about the political rows around the sale of Telstra. Recently, I have noticed that the federal government has been reluctant in pushing broadband. This can be associated with Liberal’s enthusiasm for selling Telstra.

The Howard government just wants to sell Telstra at higher price, to prove how correct it is and how beneficial it is to sell Telstra.

Without being pushed by the government and the markets (because of Telstra’s monopoly position), they can expand the present infrastructure slowly hence making their profit figures look more attractive and then the Howard government can sell at a higher price.

But these are at the cost of poor coverage of broadband in Australia.

Clearly not, I clearly got it confused with the xxx rise estate at the back Jerra. But the argument is the same, it is an add-on to an existing suburb and will be utilising the infrastucture of Watson, which is even older than Jerra. Its interesting in new estates who should pay for the old infrastructure to be upgraded? Telstra or the developers?

Majura Rise (in Watson) is an add-on to Jerrabomberra?

There are two problems with ADSL. With places like Majura rise as it is an add on to an existing suburb (Jerra in this case) it is probably utilising the cables put in the street when Jerra was first built. A pair gain is a device that lets two people share the one pair of copper cables which is why ADSL doesn’t work.

In suburbs like Harrision and Dunlop where I used to live the suburbs are built using RIM’s. Basicaly a RIM is a small telephone exchange in a street cabinet, they then run a few pairs of fibre optic back to the exchange. It is better for Telstra because it is much easier to expand, but for ADSL its a problem. The reason being ADSL really has nothing to do with the actual telephone exchange. In an older suburb where it goes to the traditional exchange they split the line in two (just like what is done in the house with the filter). One cable goes to the ADSL equipment and the other to the telephone exchange. The problem with RIM’s is the exchange is in the street so you have to also move the ADSL equipment to the street. That is what Telstra have been doing, but they cannot do it over night.

The second problem is normal ADSL is provided by Telstra. So even if your ISP is Ozemail your circuit uses the Telstra ADSL equipment. ADSL2 is genrally provided by the ISP. With traditional exchanges it means the ISP must install their own equipment, and if they want to service a RIM customer they must install their equipment in the street too. It’s not cheap which is why it isn’t done.

Have you tried Internode ??? I know a few people out Palmerston way who are connected thru them.. Not quite as far out but worth a shot!

Vic Bitterman10:03 pm 12 Apr 07

I wonder if Netspeed’s wireless “Longreach” broadband service may be your answers?

Not too sure which tower, if any, will cover the Majura Rise area??

But it’s having teething problems at the moment…. should be quite a nice product once working.

Read all about in this thread in Whirlpool : http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=673002

TroyWilliams7:00 pm 12 Apr 07

Hi guys

If you like I’m happy to look into the issue and take the matter up on your behalf.

Simply send me an e-mail to vote1@troy-williams.com with the details and I’ll keep you posted on our progress.

All the best

Troy

Also, don’t know about Majura Rise, but given the blocks there were $100,000 more for 100 sq metres less than Wells Station just up the road, you’d think the developer could have squezzed cable to the kerb into their profit margin wouldn’t you???

In Harrison.
Entire new suburb built by the ACT Govt’s LDA but not cabled by either the ACT Govt’s TransACT or the then Federal Govt’s Telstra. What a crock!
Do have ADSL though and I have a 1.5Mb unlimited account. No way going near Next G at those prices!
However I think the reason Telstra is so into ADSL now is that it forces you to maintain a normal landline account too, instead of if I had cable, I’d ditch the landline, save myself $30/month and use VoIP for telephone services.
Sux.

try requesting BigPond ADSL – every few months. You’ll have more luck than trying with a non-Telstra ISP. You can churn over to another ISP once you’ve gotten Telstra to hook you up.

True, I got slugged $30 for going 100MB over my super large 400MB download allocation.

I use Iburst.

Cheaper than NextG and reliable and fast.

not a patch on ADSL2 though.

Growling Ferret10:39 am 12 Apr 07

Ralph – I use Next G wireless PCMCIA and USB cards for business, but at 1gb download per month at $100, they really are for business and not personal use… It would get expensive for youtubing!

Spectra – I have 3 accounts to separate 3 residences I refer to above – I don’t like my chances of transposing each of them!

Anyone successfully and happily used Iburst or any of the other similar products?

Telstra wireless broadband is available.

In this instance, it’s not a matter of upgrading the exchange – my guess is you’re hooked into Crace, which (along with pretty much every other exchange in Canberra) has had ADSL for quite some time. The issue is the type of line you have – my guess is you (and probably everyone else out there) is connected to the exchange via a RIM. The short story on this is that there isn’t copper all the way to the exchange (where the ADSL hardware lives), which is required for ADSL. RIMs are used by Telstra as a cost-saving mechanism (meaning they don’t have to pay for all that copper for everyone, just short lengths of copper and an optic fibre link back to the exchange). You may want to talk to your ISP and see if you can get your line “transposed” (moved off the RIM, on to clean copper) – that’s what I managed to get done when I lived in Amaroo and faced the same problem. Took me 6 months, though, and there’s no guarantee of success. Good luck dude.

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