A Wagga man claims he will have been without a phone or internet connection for 11 weeks by the time a National Broadband Network (NBN) problem is fixed, despite multiple complaints.
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Aydan Heron was excited to connect to the NBN in November, as he was looking forward to faster online gaming and video streaming. But within a month, he found the connection was worse than his old ADSL2 connection, slowing down and dropping out frequently.
On January 14 the service dropped out completely. The cause is believed to be a cost-saving measure in the old copper phone lines that connect many Australians to the NBN via its Fibre-to-the-Node (FTTN) technology.
A technician was booked to replace the copper on February 23 but no-one showed up, Mr Heron said. Finally, NBN Co advised the repairs would be carried out by March 31, but Mr Heron’s not holding his breath.
“The missed appointments are probably the most frustrating thing,” Mr Heron said.
“You take time off work to be home and you wait for them to come and then they’re a no-show.”
James Howell, an IT consultant and NBN reseller, said there had been a number of problems with the technology in Wagga, but it was a relatively small percentage of all customers.
“Anecdotally, the failure rate is about three per cent,” Mr Howell said.
“There have been different experiences for different parts of the community based on the service they’re signed up to.
“People who get Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) think it’s absolutely great when the speed is better and everything just works.”
The original NBN concept was to have FTTP rolled out across the country, but when Labor lost power, incoming Prime Minister Tony Abbott opted instead for a cheaper “technology mix”. However, this resulted in eight different types of NBN being rolled out simultaneously, which Mr Howell said increased the complexity of the network.
“If it had just been FTTP they would not have this problem,” he said.
“The build costs would be lower, the results would be predictable and there would be fewer things to fix.”
Kooringal resident Cynthia Lawler said a recent NBN outage had affected several people in her street and she thought the service had been rolled out too quickly.
“I think it was a massive installation that was done in a hurry,” she said.
“I feel like it’s political, Malcolm Turnbull wants to say it’s been done cheaper and people are satisfied, but in five years a lot of it will be out of date anyway.”
NBN Co was asked about the new complaints, but no response was received at the time of writing.