There has been much debate around NBN and with many Australian businesses currently being offered connections to the NBN,  many are wondering if it’s right for their organisation. With the influx of enquiries relating to NBN, we have put together a short list of common challenges we, and our customers, have experienced with NBN. We hope this will help you make informed decisions and remind you to think again when considering NBN.

IT’S MOSTLY FIBRE TO THE NODEThe Government’s original plan was to rollout Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) across the country however, due to cost saving considerations when the Liberal Government took over from Labour, this was changed to Fibre to the Node (FTTN). This means that instead of running fibre direct to every premises, it is hauled to ‘nodes’ constructed within your neighbourhood. One of the problems here is the use of existing copper telephone lines to connect y

our premise to the Node. The result of this? Slower speeds. Copper is simply unable to transfer data as quickly as fibre and unlike fibre, speeds when using copper are determined by the distance between the node and your premises. While speeds are likely to be above that of ADSL, they often do not match the speeds advertised by the Internet Service Provider (ISP).

CONGESTION AND INTERNET SPEEDS

Similarly to traffic jams, the Internet can also fall victim to slowness in the form of congestion. Fibre to the Node (FTTN) means that there are many points of congestion which can result in slower Internet speeds. The Node itself is the first point of congestion. Nodes are only supplied with a certain amount of bandwidth through the Fibre uplink (that is, the fibre link that connects the NBN to the Node); if everyone in your area then tries to use the Internet at the same time, the uplink gets congested and it slows Internet speeds for everyone attached to that Node. We have witnessed many NBN customers ordering a 100Mbps service for their business, only to be left with a service offering speeds of 40Mbps or less due to congestion.

IT’S A ‘BEST EFFORT’ SERVICE

Being a copper service, like ADSL, it is still only a best effort service when it comes to fault rectification. Even Fibre to the Premises connections experience poor support in this area as, unless you purchase a ‘Business Grade’ plan,  there is no specific SLA (Service Level Agreement) for NBN at this time.  Blackbird IT have heard of customers experiencing faults with NBN that have had to wait in excess of 5 days for a resolution. Could your business afford 5 days of Internet downtime?

NBN ‘BUSINESS PLANS’Some Internet Service Providers (ISP’s) may offer a ‘Business NBN Plan’ which may offer a SLA (Service Level Agreement). Be wary however as often when you look at the fine print, most ISP’s offer to credit back your monthly fee in the event of a major disruption which they cannot fix within their specified restoration timeframe. The issue here? It is often cheaper for the provider to refund your monthly fee than it is to attend to the issue within the SLA restoration time frame and as such the SLA is effectively meaningless on many occasions.

 

SUMMARYIn summary, our take on the NBN is that it provides much faster speeds than ADSL however it’s performance has shown to be inconsistent and/or unreliable. NBN can still be well suited to home and small business customers, provided they are not critically dependant on the Internet to run their business. For larger businesses, or those who are critically dependent on the Internet however, we suggest considering other enterprise-grade alternatives.

Blackbird IT are pleased to be able to offer competitive pricing on a number of  enterprise-grade NBN alternatives including Wireless, SHDSL/MBE, Fibre and Radio.

Want to know more?

Reach out to us by email or on 08 7324 7777 (ext 3) to see where we can help you save money and improve your Internet speeds and certainty.