My name is Phil Britt, and I'm the Managing Director of Aussie Broadband. I built Aussie from the ground up over 15 years ago, and over that time I've seen a lot that's changed in the telco space with the move from dial-up to ADSL and now to nbn (as well as some things that have stayed the same).

I’ll be online between 2-3pm AEDT today to answer your questions about the nbn, our network, or the the telco industry in general.

https://imgur.com/a/TKEfgFV

EDIT: Thanks everyone for all your questions / comments from today. I'll keep working through answers to the remaining questions over the next few days. I always enjoy interacting directly with our customers and you are welcome to join our forums on Whirlpool at any time - https://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum/152

Comments: 844 • Responses: 61  • Date: 

GMginger393 karma

I love the Dad Jokes in place of the hold music - but could more jokes be added so it doesn't loop as quickly please?

The last time I called a few months ago it took a few cycles through the jokes before the phone was answered.

Phil-AussieBB660 karma

Thanks for the feedback, I'll pass that on to our Dad Jokes team.

decryption286 karma

What do you reckon about Optus and its 5G fixed-wireless plans, and their impact on the NBN landscape?

Reckon the big 3 telcos (Telstra, Optus, VHA/TPG) will eat up the NBN's lower end users with aggressive pricing to lure them away from fixed line NBN? And if so, what impact would that have on NBN's profitability and long-term future when the roll-out is complete?

Phil-AussieBB267 karma

Yes it will have an impact, the question becomes how much. I think it will eat into the transient market where people are moving houses every 6-12 months or so, but for people who tend to be more fixed at a location, they will continue with fixed line services as the performance tends to be more consistent. 5G will impact nbn's profitability though, and l think we will see a write-down here when there is a change of government.

dailyfauxpas159 karma

Hello Phil,

When do you plan on offering plans such as 250/100Mbps (or higher) with unlimited data.

Unsure of the reason not to have this now, but if a user is willing to pay, shouldn't it be an option?

Thanks

Phil-AussieBB201 karma

At this stage, we don't have any plans to offer unlimited on anything over 100/40 services. The cvc pricing construct is the primary limiter here, we've only got 2.5 mbits of cvc allocated under the bundled model and someone on an unlimited plan on those higher tiers would have the potential to really cause some damage.

Hellsheep_iv151 karma

Are you able to show some pictures/videos of the upgraded equipment? Everyone loves a bit of cable goodness.

Phil-AussieBB189 karma

Here's some photos from one of the Perth sites. https://imgur.com/a/jdZrmjX. This a pretty old site so the rack's reflect that.

nowyouseemenowyoudo2105 karma

Hi Phil,

Your company supports the Scouting movement a lot in my area, really helps us to navigate our complex internet needs with a shoestring scout budget, and I just wanted to thank you for the commitment to non-profit entities and supporting the community

What is the most rewarding part of your job?

Phil-AussieBB74 karma

Still having the ability to play in all parts of the business, whether its building networks, negotiating with suppliers or helping to dispatch boxes in the warehouse.

cekmysnek95 karma

What do you think the future of NBN plan pricing is, especially in the 50 and 100mbps tiers?

These tiers will become more and more popular as bandwidth needs increase. Do you think 50 and 100mbps plans will see a general reduction in price over the next few years, or do you think NBN is going to generally keep wholesale prices the same?

There was a big influx in users moving to 50mbps plans when they were discounted recently, and I'm wondering whether the same could happen with 100mbps soon.

P.S - Thank you for allowing John to provide CVC support via whirlpool. We had severe congestion on the Caboolture POI a week or two ago, and within less than 2 hours John saw my post in the CVC thread and bumped it up. Very, very impressive, especially for a Friday night. Support like that is why we're with ABB.

Phil-AussieBB74 karma

I believe we will see the price of the 100 mbit tier reduce over time but it will require a government write-down of nbn for this to occur. They can't hold onto the $51 ARPU amounts they are trying to achieve because the mobile guys will wipe the floor with them.

As to when it will occur, that's hard to predict. They have released a short term promotion around the 100/40 services currently but it has some conditions around it that requires a customer to stay with that service provider for x period of time, so its risky to implement.

We already see 26% of our customers sign on the 100/40 plans so there is demand there for those speeds, but the average consumer seems to find the 50/20 price points the sweet spot.

Glad to hear that John could help you out quickly. CVCBot 2.0 has been doing a great job but sometimes if there is a quite spike CVCBot can take a day or two to make its decision, we are lucky to have John there to keep an eye on things.

djalexm89 karma

Is Aussie looking at offering NBN plans with failover 4G backup like Telstra/Optus/Vodafone? Would it have to be a paid addon?

Phil-AussieBB72 karma

Yes we currently have plans in place for this, we have been working with Netcomm to develop a suitable CPE device. Hopefully, we will have this in market this year.

fuzzywuzzywozawoman88 karma

Any chance you could add 'chat' support? Calling on the phone is not convenient for people at work.

Phil-AussieBB107 karma

Yep, this is something that we'll be introducing soon

FREE_SOILED_MATTRESS62 karma

Hi Phil,

At what point would 500/200 and 1000/4000 plans become viable for ABB?

Not in a "It's viable if we just charge you the $15k per month to cover the CVC completely" way.. We know that you needed the 10G links and at least 1gbps of CVC at the POI to be in place to offer 250mbps.

Second question - what percentage of users are you seeing opt-out of CGNAT?

Also congrats on the major upgrade announcement, very happy 18m+ customer here on FTTP. Keep up the good attitude and don't go selling out to a UK satellite company any time soon, hey?

Phil-AussieBB55 karma

first answer - basically we could price a plan up but we wouldn't see too many of them. There are also the issues around having enough cvc available to be able to hit the 1000 Mbit speed as a lot of cvc's are currently only around this level.

second answer - We have seen around 7% opt out.

Thanks for your continued support, got no intentions of selling to a UK Satellite company anytime soon :)

benroachie49 karma

G'day Phil - thanks for taking the time to do an AMA. I wholeheartedly recommend AussieBB to everyone I come across - your team do what it says on the tin well, which is rare in the ISP landscape (great service, great price, great product). I have a few questions i'd love to hear your thoughts on:

  • What's the easiest way to un-fuck the NBN from the perspective of an ISP?
  • Do you think it's still possible to follow in the foot-steps of folks like NZ and have FTTP in most urban areas?
  • What's standing in the way of having plans higher than 100mbps right now for HFC/FTTP customers? I get this vibe that it's almost entirely political at this point for NBN to not offer a higher speed for FTTP customers, particularly when you look at the rest of the world.
  • What's the most frustrating part of being an ISP? From my experiences, it seems like NBN's communication portals and processes are still woefully under-powered.
  • What are your thoughts on Rudd's recent remarks about Murdoch and his impact on the NBN?
  • Simon Hackett best described what I think should've happened with the NBN (https://simonhackett.com/2013/07/17/nbn-fibre-on-a-copper-budget/) - what are your thoughts on an ideal FTTP NBN?

Phil-AussieBB72 karma

Q: What's the easiest way to un-fuck the NBN from the perspective of an ISP? A: Remove the cvc construct and have a price per port style model. Provide the ability to affordably upgrade to FTTC.

Q: Do you think it's still possible to follow in the foot-steps of folks like NZ and have FTTP in most urban areas? A: I think the ship has sailed on that one, l think the best we can hope for is more FTTC in the network. This is a good solution that strikes the balance between performance and cost.

Q: HFC A: In terms of HFC l believe the main issue holding back faster speeds is they don't have full access to the spectrum on the cable currently, its still being shared with Telstra's HFC internet product. The hardware is capable of it. They also need to get more fibre deeper into the HFC network and breakdown the segments more.

Q:What's the most frustrating part of being an ISP? From my experiences, it seems like NBN's communication portals and processes are still woefully under-powered. A:NBN are actually not bad to work with, and the people we deal with are genuinely trying to help. The most frustrating part for us is customers who have unrealistic expectations, and they don't take what we tell them as being the best we can possibly do.

The rest of the questions I'm not across sorry.

StantonInfeld44 karma

Noting the challenges of running (what is now) a major ISP from a regional centre instead of a capital city, what strategies are you looking at to increase your staffing levels while maintaining suitable ‘tech talent’ and customer service?

(And are you accepting applications for remote workers? :-))

Phil-AussieBB49 karma

Finding more staff for our Morwell location is a daily challenge and something we are continuing to work on. We have been very lucky that we've been able to find the 170 and growing staff we have currently, and we do a lot of on the job training so we recruit for personality and train in the skills.

We are looking later this year to potentially open another location outside of regional Victoria. We do already have some working from home staff who spend the majority of their time not in the office but its currently limited to more senior staff.

Hellsheep_iv31 karma

Do you have any plans for Darwin moving forward now you have spare equipment from the upgrades?

Phil-AussieBB42 karma

I'd like to see us have local session termination in Darwin and that would give us the ability to peer locally with other players. We will have the equipment shortly and there are some discussions going on in the industry about a peering exchange for Darwin which would make this worthwhile.

w8watm830 karma

How come Australia has such a (sorry for the word) shitty internet and it’s so good damn expensive?! I pay like 110$ a months for 50mbts download.

While in Europe and Asia you can get 1gb download speed for the equivalent of 15 Australian dollars.

And if I don’t get the speed I pay for and complain, my internet provider tells me they can’t do anything about it, try not to use internet in the peek hours. For the money I pay for my shitty internet they should be able to keep up with other continents’ standards. Or at least with the standards they promised me.

Phil-AussieBB35 karma

We agree! Blame the government (or switch RSP's). :)

einkelflugle26 karma

What is your long-term vision for Aussie Broadband? What role do you see Aussie playing in Australia's telco landscape over the next decade and beyond, and how are you going to get there?

Phil-AussieBB63 karma

We're building Aussie to be a large player. Our latest network build will see us being able to scale to 500,000 customers and l have a strong belief that we will grow from 100,000 to 200,000 customers in the next 12 months.

In terms of the telco landscape in the next decade, I'm not sure anyone can really answer that question but our focus will be on trying to get at least 10% of the Australian market.

This is an incredibly low margin industry and trying to maintain really high levels of support and network quality is difficult whilst making a buck. Thankfully we seem to have struck a balance with our customers seeing the value of the offering.

In terms of getting there, we will continue to innovate and invest in our systems and people. I'm a big fan of the Richard Branson quote of "Look after your people and they will look after you".

dailyfauxpas21 karma

How long until MyAussie 2.0 is released along with its much anticipated features such as ServiceDesk ticket visibility?

Phil-AussieBB16 karma

We will have some news on this in early March. There's a lot of development work going on around this that is getting close to completion.

Skip720 karma

Will the new My.Aussie that's been worked on atm have a public API for third party developers to use?

Phil-AussieBB22 karma

Yes it will have.

GoldSilverPlatinum20 karma

Do you think we will ever get gigabit internet through the nbn or will cellular technology leapfrog it in the near future?

Phil-AussieBB40 karma

I think it will be a while before we see affordable gigabit here. Given only a small part of nbn has been built as fttp, and they are limiting hfc and fttc currently to 100 Mbits its going to require a change of mindset at nbn to achieve this. Mobile will be able to get higher speeds in the shorter term but sustaining these speeds in peak times will be the issue.

Dhalphir19 karma

What are your thoughts on the current underperformance of FTTN and what do you see as the likely end point of the current difficulties?

Phil-AussieBB20 karma

I think we will progressively see more of the FTTN network converted over to FTTC, it will be a case of how quickly.

bestpractice119 karma

Did you use the olden day iiNet customer service as a benchmark?

Phil-AussieBB53 karma

We've been an ISP for over 15 years, our customer service has grown and developed over that time. We've set our own benchmark which is based around "treat others as you would want to be treated yourself" which aligns to our value Be Good to People.

dailyfauxpas17 karma

Will ABB ever support aggregated FTTP connections to allow users to bond two plans (eg 2 x 100/40 Unlimited @ $198)?

Phil-AussieBB18 karma

We don't support it because of the impact it has on the network. We still have some cvc's with smaller bandwidth allocations and a bonded service really messes with this.

LeBronovanMitchell17 karma

I notice a large amount of offers to bring new customers on board, but is there any deals in the pipeline for existing customers?

Phil-AussieBB31 karma

We have some ideas for a new loyalty offer for existing customers that will be released soon.

The_Seeker16 karma

There's been a lot of hubbub on Whirlpool lately about Superloop. Do they in fact have an advantage by owning their own infrastructure?

Phil-AussieBB27 karma

I think it would be worthwhile reading some of their ASX announcements. They have dark fibre to only 59 POIs, some of that they own and some of it is via IRU's with Vocus. The remaining 62 POIs are done via managed services they buy off others like Telstra and Vocus - the same as we do. So yes they own their own infrastructure to 59 POIs which does mean they can enable larger bandwidths quickly, but they don't control the entire network. This is a fact which is often overlooked in posts elsewhere.

Just like us they are building to all POIs so hats off to them for doing that, its no easy task. In terms of the advantage, l would say we are about equal on that front. The two networks would be comparable in terms of performance domestically and once we get our international sites running we will be able to perform well there too.

akimboslices16 karma

Hi Phil. Thanks for doing this AMA.

I’ve recently joined Aussie after increasingly poor customer service and quality from another ISP.

Since joining Aussie, I have had two service issues and otherwise great service, with consistent speeds very close to the mark. Both issues were not only resolved promptly, but the cause of the issue and it’s resolution were explained to me by your CS team. As someone with a bit of IT knowledge and curiosity, I really appreciated these responses and they made for a very good CS experience. Although i can imagine the average customer wouldn’t care much for the explanation, I’m sure they’d appreciate the deviation from a boilerplate response.

Has this approach always been taken at Aussie (and if so, what is your take on the rationale behind it), or did I just get lucky with some interested CSOs/technicians?

Thanks for your hard work. I was referred myself and have since referred two of my friends.

Phil-AussieBB20 karma

This is the approach we always try to take. One of our values is "Don't be ordinary, be awesome" (it's actually up on the wall by the CS call centre) and this is exactly what we encourage our staff to do. We're lucky to have such an amazing team that supports our customers like this.

Hellsheep_iv15 karma

Is there likelihood of staff positions opening up elsewhere across the country in future? E.g. remote workers, Darwin office (Wideband) etc.

Phil-AussieBB15 karma

Yes there's a lot of discussion around that. We have an office in Darwin at the moment so would be open to employing people there.

Skip714 karma

Do you plan of having AussieBB merchandise like a plushie, lanyards etc?

Phil-AussieBB30 karma

There's been a lot of discussion around a JohnBot plushie but nothing that's come into production yet. We have staff lanyards at the moment, we might look into customer ones.

djalexm14 karma

With gamers opting out of CGNAT, will Aussie need to purchase more IPv4 addresses at any stage?

Phil-AussieBB20 karma

At this stage around 7% of customers have opted out of CGNAT, on that basis we will have enough IP's to support just under a million customers. Once that happens we will need to buy more IPs. We're very pleased with how our CG-NAT implementation has gone and the vast majority of customers don't even notice. I'm on it myself at home.

wombat-twist13 karma

Do you think we'll see Australia-wide FTTP in the next 5-10 years?

Phil-AussieBB31 karma

Nope, the best we will see is a technology choice style system where people that want FTTP will need to pay for the technology change. We believe that FTTC is the best compromise on this and that should be expanded further and might offer a cheaper installation solution for customers should it be added to the technology choice program.

dailyfauxpas12 karma

At the current growth trajectory of your company, how many clients do you expect to service by July 2019 and how long do you think this growth can be sustained?

What is your 'game plan' on converting clients of other RSPs to subscribe to ABB services?

Phil-AussieBB9 karma

We expect to be at around 150,000 customers by July 2019. Around 50% of our signup's today are customers churning from other providers so we already have that fairly covered.

zaphod650212 karma

Hi Phil, as ABB is one of the few ISP's that offer speeds above 100/40 I am interested to know if you have had many customers upgrading to 150/100 or 250/100 plans? My thought is if more customers show interest in these plans it might encourage NBN Co to re-think their pricing structure for CVC and make it more affordable to encourage high speeds.

Phil-AussieBB25 karma

We have 80 customers on 150/100 and 205 customers on the 250/100 plans so its very small numbers. I think the price point would need to considerably drop for greater uptake.

Clunton11 karma

Hey Phil, I know you're not really planning to go public anytime soon, but are you interested in any private investors owning a share of the business?

Phil-AussieBB17 karma

At this stage we've got 11 shareholders and we're not looking for any more. Appreciate your thoughts though!

Manic-Subsidal11 karma

Hi Phil,

Firstly just wanted to say how refreshing it is to be an Aussie customer. I found you guys 3-4 years ago and dealing with your team is an absolute pleasure. I've always recieved a prompt and honest response on any issue I've had. Massive thumbs up.

Can I ask if you have any specific info as to what is going on with the Smythesdale VIC (Watson's hill) NBN fixed wireless tower? My tower is one of the 9 that Morrow actually admitted in senate estimates was congested and that remediation and upgrade work was being undertaken. We had an update 6 months later that work was delayed due to a leasing/contract issue with Optus who colocate their mobile LTE service on the same tower, since then, nothing.

From what I can tell NBN 3500mhz is still not active on the tower even though it's been proposed since 2017. I've also seen no evidence of anyone having new style antennas installed or repositioned to new sectors. We have had an absolute truck load of NBN outage notifications. But nothing ever seems to get better after any outage

Your awesome technical support team lodged a ticket for me and the best update we could get was "sometime possibly NBN hope 1st quarter 2019". Do you have any firmer inside info than that? Congestion is getting awful and starting much earlier in the day.... My rock solid 50 mbps starts to decay to single digits by the time school ends and will be 1mbit by 8pm...... All weekend is horrible.

Thanks in advance

Phil-AussieBB10 karma

Unfortunately we don't have any info other than what the team has already provided but we are always advocating for improvements to the FW network to reduce these issues. I'm on FW myself so I know your pain.

cameronbp10 karma

Hi Phil,

Given how under-utilised end-user upstream appears to be based on graphs available from ABB and info you've shared at your talks, do you think we'll ever see synchronous services become the norm on NBN provided services that could reliably support it? 100/100 on FTTP for the current price of 100/40 for example.

Phil-AussieBB13 karma

The issue is more around how nbn construct the products currently. Initially, when it was going to be an all fibre network based on GPON there was a technical reason for 100/40 as GPON is structured to be higher in the downstream rather than upstream.

I agree the capacity is there, but the underlying nbn product constructs would need to change.

TehBanga10 karma

Hey Phil, I am hugely interested in working for AussieBB I have known about the company for a very long time and happily live not too far from your head office. What advice would you give to someone who would love to be employed there?

Phil-AussieBB7 karma

There are jobs going every week on our website so feel free to apply. We also consider CVs at any time, even if we don't have a role open on that area.

pigz6 karma

I'd be interested in a response to this question, but maybe at a different level.

20 years working in Operations and Engineering here in Sydney, and we're looking at moving to the Gippsland area in Victoria in the near future. My wife has family there, and quite frankly I'm sick of Sydney, its pace and the traffic.

I've seen sales/support/marketing roles advertised, but never any operations/engineering style roles. Are they non-existent, i.e are Phil, John and Peter all they need, or are they maybe advertised somewhere other than Linked-in and Seek?

Phil-AussieBB8 karma

Those roles tend to be promoted internally and a way for our support team to progress through the ranks. It's worth putting in an application as our HR department does keep these on file to compare with internal positions etc.

Braedz9 karma

Hi Phil, long time loyal customer. Signed up just before you did your poi upgrades a couple years back. Love your service and support.

Few questions:

  • Have you considered getting into building your own fixed wireless network?
  • Will business services still be going under the Wideband brand? Or will it eventually be AussieBB?
  • What else will you be doing to attract business customers? Are you looking at offering IAAS or other cloud services?
  • Will there be any other loyalty programs?
  • What sort of relationship does AussieBB have with NBN, and is it different to other providers?

Thanks for your time!

Phil-AussieBB9 karma

We're just in the process of shutting down the last of own fixed wireless network. At this stage we don't have any plans to build a new one.

At this stage we plan to continue our corporate and government services under Wideband and have residential and small business under Aussie. We already have the nbn enterprise ethernet products from nbn being offered by Wideband and we are looking at their entry level bundles for Aussie's small business offering.

In terms of attracting small business customers we have a solid hosted PBX product but don't have any plans of other cloud solutions. That market is too price sensitive for us to add value.

In terms of another loyalty program, we are working something at the moment.

We have a great relationship with nbn. Each supplier has a different way of engaging with us, but nbn would have the highest level of engagement compared to our other suppliers.

Externalz9 karma

Hey Phil, how come it's only aussiebb that sell fttp plans above 100/40 ?

Phil-AussieBB32 karma

Not sure really, perhaps the others don't like being fast?

AdaQmmm8 karma

Any plans to allow customers to trial higher speed plans to see whether it might be worth it?

Phil-AussieBB7 karma

Not at this stage, sorry.

goosmurf8 karma

In the last 12-18 months there's been a lot of large changes to the network: 10Gbps protected circuits to all POIs, CGNAT, and now the recently announced major network upgrade which has already begun in WA.

Do you foresee any other major network changes in the couple of years?

Other than day to day operations, what's the next major project? :)

Phil-AussieBB9 karma

We hope that the work we are doing at the moment will bed down the network for the next 3 years. Due to the size of the business and needing to manage cash flow we have needed to do our upgrades in smaller chunks.

This time we have done a much bigger upgrade. There will still be smaller things to do along the way like adding more links into the network etc, but they will be incremental changes rather than a forklift upgrade.

International will be our next biggest thing which has been already announced, l think we will see a fair bit of work in this space.

Greenie24508 karma

Hi Phil, I'm part of a Local NFP gaming Community called Coffs Gaming league, we had tried to Contact Aussie BB regarding some assistance with a link or potential sponsorship or marketing however never had a response. Do Aussie BB support Non-For Profit groups with special pricing or sponsorship? or are there any plans to if not ?

Phil-AussieBB6 karma

We do sponsorship and support a lot of groups etc. If you contact the marketing team they will be best placed to see if we can hook you up. Just go through the main phone numbers and ask for someone in marketing.

Hellsheep_iv8 karma

With the new equipment, do you have the ability to fail over subscriber sessions between states on top of between DC's in the same state in the event of a major issue in-state?

Phil-AussieBB14 karma

In theory, we would be able to failover subscribers to a different state but it would depend on the nature of the failure within the state.

The POIs come back to a piece of access equipment (typically Cisco ASR9906) and some POIs have data center diversity as well. Those access units then connect back into two different cores which hold the links between states so if enough of that equipment was online, then yes we could failover between states.

We are working now to add data centre diversity to all POIs known as customer managed protection rather then the current opitcal protection we have today. This will further improve our POI backhaul network.

nupence6 karma

Am I able to pause my internet when not at my holiday home?

Phil-AussieBB7 karma

We've got something planned for this - hopefully ready in a few months.

Mudcaker6 karma

What does the future hold for HFC customers? I haven't really kept up on the roadmap but we got ours before the roll-out was stalled on HFC. I'm very happy with speeds and service at current limits but from what I remember it may be limited in future growth.

I'll just mention your support is great, I've called them many, many times due to intermittent dropout issues that were not ABB's fault (water in the pit, took 3 tech visits over many months to fix it!).

Phil-AussieBB8 karma

We're seeing improvements in the HFC experience ever since the HFC rollback and then re-release. We don't have any info on higher speed tiers but we are seeing much better stability in the HFC network.

Iwuvvwuu6 karma

Why cant you become a trillionaire and fix up this disaster we call "The Liberals NBN" and replace it with labors FTTH cause right now im on your service and the liberals NBN and its nothing but drop outs and its slowly getting me banned in online places :( ?

Phil-AussieBB13 karma

Q: Why cant you become a trillionaire and fix up this disaster we call "The Liberals NBN"

A: Customers don't pay us enough :)

blazin14146 karma

Thanks for doing this!

1) Do you think 5G could push NBN to lower their CVC prices if they see people start moving over to 5G for theoretical faster speeds than the 100/40 plans that are currently the only feasible speeds now due to speeds?

2) will we ever see faster than 100/40 any time soon at a reasonable price, I would be willing to pay $150 a month for 1000/400 what would need to happen for it to come in at that price point? anymore would be a bit too much for our household haha.

3) Are you guys still trying to fix twitch streams for people in WA because it is still really screwy and buffers even at lower bitrates.

4) Do you plan to support gamers on the network and help improve and optimize the network to the big gaming servers to help with ping/packet loss, because gaming is a pretty big thing haha and it helps a LOT.

Phil-AussieBB6 karma

1) Yes l think 5G will put downward pressure on nbn pricing, but we will need to see a write-down of nbn before it flows through to customers.

2) I don't believe we will see higher than 100/40 for a "reasonable" say under $100 price point anytime soon.

3) With our new links to the USA we will be direct peering with Twitch in the US. Currently, we peer with them in Sydney but they only put their most popular content on those caches. A smaller Australian stream will upload to Sydney but rebroadcast out of the USA which is part of the issue. So yes we expect Twitch to be better once the USA links are in place.

4) We plan to make the whole network run as the best it can, not specifically for gamers but for all customers.

Complex866 karma

Now that your international capacity has been significantly boosted, i am wondering what is next? Are there plans at all to increase download quotas again or make uploads unmetered? (apologies for asking quite possibly the most redundant question in ISP history).

Phil-AussieBB6 karma

The network upgrade and international links are still a work in progress and won't be complete until April, so we'll have our hands full until then. We've also got MyAussie underway which is a major project but we don't have anything else major planned at this stage.

nswfireman5 karma

Is it true that Telstra holds virtually unlimited bandwidth and smaller retailers have limited bandwidth which causes congestion?

If someone was to pay for faster than 100mbps connection would the hardware need to be updated in the exchange to handle greater bandwidth?

Phil-AussieBB11 karma

It would be true that Telstra has virtually unlimited capacity to each POI as their own a lot of fibre in the ground. Where things differ is that Telstra has to buy nbn cvc the same as any other retailer, and like every other retailer Telstra needs to keep its costs under control, so they only provision the cvc that's required.

Reality is in an nbn world, each provider buys at the same price as any other provider so Telstra doesn't have the advantage anymore.

prizewinning_toast5 karma

Can you foresee any changes; technological or political, that will bring down the cost of an NBN connection?

Phil-AussieBB12 karma

Other than a write-down (discussed above) not at the moment.

SaltyMeth5 karma

How common are kangaroos in Australia? Are they like everywhere or mostly in rural places?

Phil-AussieBB5 karma

Pretty common, l live in a regional area and usually see one or two sitting on the road most nights when I'm driving between towns.

eHaydex5 karma

In the near future do you think satellite broadband will be a competitor to telco networks in Australia or around the world? Thanks in advance :)

Phil-AussieBB10 karma

No - the latency is too high for most users compared to Fixed line and wireless services.

donttalktome12344 karma

Would consumers be better off if the NBN did end to end sales?

Is the illusion of competition worth the extra costs lumped onto consumers to pay for it?

Phil-AussieBB6 karma

No, I don't believe so. Government entities don't have a history of providing amazing customer service - you need competitive pressure in the market to achieve that.

alfieeee4 karma

  1. With the change in the Fixed wireless in the next 12 months being marketed as single speed do you agree and foresee the FW network being under more congestion than it currently is?
  2. Will you continue to fight for the extra speed on FW, or is FW truely classed legacy and a failed project in NBN eyes?

Phil-AussieBB4 karma

We agree with nbn releasing more upstream to provide additional downstream capacity but we don't agree with not having a prescribed download speed that customers can expect.

We continue to fight for FW but unfortunately a lot of the focus has moved on.

Dhalphir4 karma

What challenges do you face with the intimacy and closeness of your presence on Whirlpool? In your opinion, why are you one of the only providers to do this?

Phil-AussieBB10 karma

I think I'm one of the only ones that does this because it takes a considerable amount of time to read and respond to the posts, as well as a considerable amount of patience not to react at times. That being said I do value the Whirlpool community - their support and feedback has helped us build Aussie to where it is today.

vaegrand3 karma

Do you believe that the current issues related to mixed technologies (the NT is a mess) can ever be fixed or are we essentially going to have to make the best of a bad situation?

Phil-AussieBB5 karma

Make the best of a bad situation is what we're doing

drizzo872 karma

What is your favorite thing about the internet?

Phil-AussieBB4 karma

I love being able to connect with some of my favourite people (usually my Venturer Scouts) wherever I am and wherever they are. Plus, I love building things, and networks are a pretty great thing to build!

Northieagical2 karma

Do you have plans to improve the self service functionality around billing etc?

Recently had to ask for a payment extension on my account and found there was no way to easily do this online. Required a support ticket to be raised.

Phil-AussieBB3 karma

The new my.aussie 2.0 will have functions to allow this.

gentlemansincebirth2 karma

Hi Phil,

Thanks for doing this AMA.

What's your view/outlook on TPG's entry into the Singaporean market which is already (according to some) too crowded?

Cheers

Phil-AussieBB3 karma

Sorry, I'm not really that familiar with the marketing in Singapore.

Captain_juicyfruit2 karma

Hey I'm due to sign up once my house settles tomorrow. What's the best way I can guarantee myself the best chance of the fastest speeds?

Phil-AussieBB3 karma

If you're in a FTTN area, replace the cabling from the first point of entry to your router. Have a licensed cabler do this.

msydes2 karma

Hey - I'm w/ you guys in Queensland (Telecube refugee), you've been great so far. I know CGNAT hasn't hit us yet, but I was wondering if I could pre-emtively opt-out?

Thanks,

M

Phil-AussieBB2 karma

If you email support they will be able to opt you out. CG-NAT will be going into Queensland within the next month.

Qwertious2 karma

Hi Phil,

I am a soon to be new customer of Aussie Broadband As a gamer on the west coast I would like to ask how indigo and the ASC routes would compare to Singapore via SMW3 and Sydney data centres via current terrestrial links?

Redundancy is obviously one thing but have there been any technological advancements or cable routing that would improve latency compared to the current links?

And as Perth becomes a major route into Asia will we see more internet services and content hosted locally in Perth? Such as game servers, websites, videos etc.

Phil-AussieBB3 karma

The latency on Indigo and ASC would be comparable to SMW3 (and hopefully a whole lot more reliable).

In terms of improving latency you can't improve the speed of light unfortunately. Re content, we're trying to get a Netflix cache for Perth and there is talk of it becoming a more major DC location but that will probably take years to come to pass.