So I've got my little postcard in the mail from NBN Co telling me I can get NBN now. I've also got plenty of junk mail from the usual suspects about signing up for NBN with them. As an Exetel customer of more than 5 years, I have not seen anything yet from my ISP. Also when I go into My Exetel I cannot see any way to request NBN, but on the home page when I put in my address it confirms I can get NBN. What's going on with that?
Monitored Alarm:
I have a back-to-base monitored alarm and I called my provider about transitioning to NBN - they won't do it. Instead they install a mobile module (at a charge of about $250 including installation) and increase your monitoring fee (about $5/month) to cover the cost of a mobile plan. Oh well. Experience for others in the same position.
Transition outage:
My wife and I work from home regularly – at least one of us is at home every day which requires the use of land line and internet. I have read some horror stories of people wanting to transition their home number (which we want to do) and having no phone or internet service for two weeks while that transition happens. Given I have both PSTN land line and ADSL provided by Exetel I would hope that the left hand would talk to the right hand and there might be a day when all the ducks are lined up and there would be a service interruption while stuff was transitioned over? Everything Exetel to everything Exetel should be able to be handled efficiently? I would completely understand a couple of week period from request to completion as long as the outage was communicated and in the “Hours” timeframe rather than days or weeks.
Modem:
I currently have a Billion 7800N modem which is VDSL compatible via an RJ45 socket rather than the ADSL RJ11 socket making it Dual WAN. I've read that this model doesn't deal with the high speeds and maxes out its connection at about 50Mbps. I want to sign up for 100/40 so I had a look on the Exetel home page for modems. I found the note in the FAQ
but there is no information about these modems – Are they only recommended or can they be supplied? Which models are they? How much are they? Can I purchase two so I have a hot-swap in case of failure?we STRONGLY advise purchasing our recommended VDSL2 modem routers as these have been certified to work and are registered with NBN
VOIP:
If the modem chosen has VOIP capabilities (highly likely) I would like to route all my existing phones through this. Currently my ADSL modem is plugged into a socket that is isolated while the rest of the outlets are in-line centrally filtered (magic in the ceiling cavity). I would like to enable all my phone outlets in the house by plugging in a single cable to the new modem. Any suggestions or experience from existing VOIP users? Will the ADSL filter need to be removed? Is there a limit to the number of points, number of phones or length of cable connected to a single VOIP outlet on a modem?
FTTN process:
There is a definite lack of detailed information about FTTN connections on the Exetel site. There is detailed information including a “Preparing for the NBN” PDF brochure which deals exclusively with the FTTP process (which almost none of us will get from the current NBN), but I can’t see anything about the FTTN migration that most of us will have to go through.
I work as a systems engineer in IT and deal with a lot of different aspects of network comms as part of my job. I have spoken with a lot of different people about this stuff, including people who work for NBN. Nobody seems to have any idea how this transition happens. Can someone from Exetel fill us in and organise some more information to be included on the Exetel site to help out others?
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