The Optus contractors dug a channel diagonally across the front lawn, laid cable, attached a box to a wall in the dining room and plugged in a plastic contraption known as a hub.
Welcome to a new world under NBN, wired directly to the premises. Your life will never be the same.
Unfortunately for me, and many rural and regional customers around Australia, the reality hasn’t matched the promises.
From the outset the service has been patchy. It drops in, it drops out. During school holidays it often slows to a snail pace. It speeds up. It slows down. It connects. It disconnects.
I, and others who share the house, find ourselves resorting to data-draining hotspots on Telstra mobiles, as the service is generally far more reliable.
Telcos don’t seem to understand that consumers just want to plug in and get moving. That’s it. That’s all we want. Plug in and get moving. You promise us fast speeds and we take you at your word.
We are not tech gurus. We don’t want to spend our evenings plugging and unplugging, trying that socket or that connection, setting and resetting, wading through online tips and how-to guides, pointing the box in different directions, making appointments to speak to consultants, checking our upload and download speeds.
So, will the arrangement between Optus and TPG (including Vodafone, iiNet, Felix, Lebara, Kogan) – cleared by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) last September and live from today – offer a glimmer of hope to those outside metro areas?
At the time of the ACCC approval, acting Optus CEO Michael Venter (who has since returned to his role as Chief Financial Officer) said the $1.6 billion deal between Optus and TPG was “a great outcome for regional Australia, with the rollout of 5G infrastructure to be completed by around two years earlier than previously planned”.
Venter said the arrangement would “allow Optus to press the fast forward button on 5G infrastructure roll-out to more regional communities. It will also provide Optus with access to more spectrum so regional customers can experience 5G’s fast speeds, low latency, and increased capacity”.
“This is so important for customers given how essential mobile services are to our daily lives, whether it’s browsing the internet, connecting with friends and family on social media or streaming our favourite movies and TV shows.”
The non-exclusive multi-operator core network (MOCN) agreement has an initial term of 11 years and includes an option for TPG Telecom to extend the agreement for a further five years.
The deal will give TPG Telecom access to 2,500 mobile towers on Optus’s regional mobile network, increasing its coverage to 98.4 per cent of the Australian population. Overnight, its coverage has grown from 400,000 square kilometres to one million square kilometres.
Under the network sharing arrangement, TPG Telecom and Optus share the 4G and 5G radio access network in regional areas, but both carriers continue to operate their own core networks.
“This allows each carrier to have full control over its own network, enabling differentiation of service for customers, and independent control of security and resiliency,” TPG said.
“The shared regional network also uses both Optus and TPG Telecom spectrum – the airwaves that make mobile services possible – delivering improved capacity, service quality and speeds for all customers.”
The deal means TPG can avoid a $6 billion infrastructure investment, which is great for TPG. And it means more competition in the marketplace, which may result in a wider variety of plans at better prices, but the question consumers in rural and regional Australia want answered is whether it will lead to more dependable internet services.
Australians outside the cities are mulling over their choices – stick solid with broadband, or take a punt with Starlink’s Low Earth Orbiting (LEO) satellites. If the telcos can’t get their acts together, consumers will continue to walk away.
