ISPs often change how IP addresses are assigned. Back when I was on cable, the IP would last for months because the 'lease' was 24 hours or longer, so if you rebooted the modem straight away you'd get the same IP back. If your connection was lost for more than a day then there's a good chance you would have got a new IP. On dial-up, satellite, DSL and fixed wireless offerings such as Big Air and Unwired if your connection was cut (by you or the ISP) you'd get a new IP straight away. The protocol for fibre is VDSL (as far as I know) and I am assuming IP allocation will work as per ADSL.

The only exception is if you are offered a static IP. That has advantages and disadvantages. On the downside you could inherit a spammer's IP and be blocked from sending e-mail and other things. On the upside you can serve your own website or remotely access any computer on your network from any other Internet connection.

I have wireless NBN installed with Telstra for my phone and internet. I find that if I wish to listen to one of my restored AM radios that I need to switch off my Wi Fi modem otherwise I have so much static that I cannot hear my local ABC station.

The most pressing concern raised in and out of the Senate inquiry is that of "Redundancy". I am in a rural area with Wireless previously it was 3G, 4G does not work and the 3G USB Modem had to have an antenna. It was not a Telstra one as their prices were obscene when you consider that there is less than $20 retail worth of bits in it and a OEM was less than a quarter of theirs in price.

2G was impossible as they put in an Optic fibre cable ages ago that cannot handle it, or the Landline RAX can't. The original Satellite was hopeless.

They have had 20years or more to fix the Mobile signal strength here, but it seems to be beyond their capability. Probably the same lot that installed an NBN tower close too and inside a radius of a hill. That means that several potential customers miss out as it should have been away from the hill or on top of the hillock blocking the signal.

Now that RAX has a no break, but if the batteries are going to die due to a scheduled outage, or time out in a supply outage, nothing is done in the way of powering it externally. The only severe maintenance done on it was after mice got into it & there was a spate of failures over several weeks. During this period a neighbour was found dead. Hopefully the Coroner will deal with that.

Like the lack of understanding of the propagation of radio waves by many in Telstra & NBN (also put to the Senator's) there seems to be a lot of "Fake News" in respect of UPS & No breaks. This is where "Redundancy" comes in.

Redundancy for this exercise is where on failure of a system, something is able to take over from it. A "UPS" or "No Break" will supply a device / devices for time X: But not indefinitely. Most of the NBN Wireless towers have not got this, nor do they have a RAPS (Remote area power supply) to cut in when the power fails.

So the folly is that whilst I can keep my system going as long as I have battery's & Petrol: It is an exercise in futility, for other than keeping the fridges running, to have a system for the communications equipment here, when it has nothing to communicate with.

Therein lies the deadly problem for many rural people.

Robbert,

If you do not want a fixed phone a lot of ADSL/NBNCo modems offer VOIP services and we have both landline & VOIP as it is currently working over the copper network right back to the exchange.
Once you go to NBNCo service the phone service is then VOIP anyway either over the glass all the way or the hybrid system of glass & copper. Two VOIP/phone ports are provided.
At present cannot discern any difference twixt the current VOIP or the old landline as far as quality goes but I CAN tell the difference with the service tones being an ex Telstra techy.

As to longevity for exchange sites during power outages most sites that are NOT supplied with a back up gene are structured to last approx 12 hours with no normal AC power which applies to the smaller roadside cabinets that Telstra used/uses and the NBNCo new cabinets as well. Once 12 hours are up and sites start popping up with Low Volt alarms steps are taken to shut them down to protect the batteries as AGM cells taken way too low are almost impossible to recharge effectively after a really deep discharge.

Re Marc's comment on antenna location: My eldest son used to do contract work for NBNCo wireless installations but gave it away due to the very tight margins placed upon the contractor as well as an ever increasing documentation workload.
The "standard" site for their antenna instals was on roof height & to actually be able to vary that to use a ground based location was nigh on impossible without wasting valuable time attempting to get approval from higher authorities within the organisation. So with a contractor working on a standard time to do ANY instal you can see why the guys just go for the roof antenna and if it don't work then ultimately someone else will fix it....Maybe?? The contractor has done the job to the standard specified so his bum is covered...crazy but that's how it is setup.

Lindsay

I've said all along that the Commonwealth Government should have never got themselves involved in building networks of any sort. This has always been done successfully by the ISPs in the past when dialup, cable and then DSL rolled out. It was done by private companies with private money and whilst there's certainly be times when they'd make a pills of an installation, more often than not they'd get it right because they are private companies and need to do a good job in order to turn a profit and keep the customer.

With NBNCo, it is a government owned company so there is no obligation or incentive to turn a profit, do a good job or keep customers. They will just keep their Section 457 staff on the job for as long as possible, jerry-build everything and then tell the end users, "it is what it is", an expression I do not like to hear at the best of times.

They don't have to dig a trench on your property for new cable as there is a clever boring machine that can sneak it underground to a target location. Wonder if that's what they did at Robbert's?

Now that's City thinking. There is a limit as to how far you can "Horizontal Bore" That's fine in the city for short distances, but when you consider that the phone cabling along one boundary here is 500m and over 800m the other way & the landline phone cable road to house is 495m. Also one power cable is 500m as is the pipeline to the same point................

That means a "Ditch Witch" is much more practical.

Wonder if that's what they did at Robbert's?

They might have. The yard wasn't bulldozed or a trench cut, they somehow got it under the fence and most of the yard underground. However once it got out to the council strip, they dug a shallow (about 15cm) trench there back to the pit.

They used a machine that sounded like a very loud chainsaw, but I can't say what it actually looked like.

They did that for my new gas pipe and meter. I'm on difficult rising terrain. Should have watched them to see how it's done.

You'd want to hope that they used Dial Before You Dig (or bore in this case) and that the information is correct.

On Monday, I will attempt to cut through the humongous NBN bureaucracy to find someone who can fill me in on what's going to happen next.

Well, what a farce that was!

I was connected to a guy who has been in the job less than a month and who knew nothing about the process and kept putting me on hold as he asked other people. In the long run told me nothing more than I can see on their website. He could not even look up the registration database containing my details and those of the property. After I insisted that my call be escalated to someone more senior/experienced he took my contact details (all of which are on the database that he cannot access) and created a "case" and put me on hold again. After waiting for 15 minutes I hung up.

I now await a call back regarding my "case". Pigs will probably fly beforehand.

We have a very go ahead member in Kathy McGowan. She actually has a person dedicated to the crap communications in her electorate. So one helps her with factual info. Around 50 people in her electorate (Indi) took the time to write submissions to the Senate inquiry &some of us turned up personally as well.

This is the sort of crap that we all pointed out to the Senators. Hopefully heads will roll when it's findings are let loose.

All that has been said is in "Hansard".

Marc

She actually has a person dedicated to the crap communications in her electorate.

She does ask a lot of questions regarding the NBN.

I am a keen viewer of Question Time and am looking forward to next week's antics, as Budget Week is usually a time of much out of order conduct in the Bear Pit. And, to be fair to Ms McGowan, she does try to keep her questions politically neutral, like a good independent should.

Brad: If you look on the Parliament WEB site you should be able to find out & read the submissions.

Clearly Kathy's questions & the answers too, avoided, or skirted around, will also be in Hansard. I don't really think being politically neutral is a good idea with this one. It is the current Government that started to do this on the cheap and their Minister for Communications, & Turnbull who was previously that minister, should be the ones to cop all of the flack they deserve: Credit where credit is due, they alone made this mess.

Marc

The Government is not doing well with it, I agree there, though the NBN was a disaster from the start. Governments of any persuasion should not micromanage things. I compare the NBN to what is happening with roads and public transport in Sydney at the moment. Whether it is motorways or railways or tramways or the new Darling Harbour precinct or whatever, all the NSW Government is saying is, here's the money - build this for us and take as long as you need. Sure, it's disruptive and a few people who've been forcibly relocated are a bit miffed but that happens with progress. At the end of the day when all those projects, $91bn worth, are finished the state won't exactly be worse off for it. The Commonwealth Government (whether it be Labor or Liberal) just got too involved, dictating all manner of specifications and timelines and we are paying for it, that is for sure.

I have some relatives that live in the bush and they have flatly rejected wireless NBN. The more they read about complaints (similar to yours) the more they feel they have made the right choice to stick with 4G mobile. It makes me wonder why the capacity of the mobile networks in regional areas wasn't simply beefed up instead of rolling out fixed wireless. The advantages of a mobile network are fairly clear and the technology is proven.