If something is worth doing … it is worth overdoing 🙂

Last night I noticed that my suburb had been upgraded by NBNCo and that Aussie Broadband could now offer me a 1000 megabit per second Internet via NBN HFC at home (The previous NBNCo HFC ‘limit’ at my house was 250 Megabits per second).

Deeper, I was delighted to discover that the Aussie Broadband app allows you to implement a plan/speed change ‘in app’ and has the option to do it ‘right now’.

So I did it ‘right now’ – and – a minute or two later – this:

Well strap my face to a pig and roll me in the mud…

…that is a really, really pleasant Internet speed to have at home 🙂

I’ve had gigabit fibre Internet at the office for years, but having it right in your house is pretty darn cool. Finally feel like we’re starting to catch up with some other countries.

It turns out that more than seven years ago (!!) when I was on the NBN board, I wrote about the potential for NBN HFC to support gigabit Internet speeds.

I don’t think I expected it to take quite that long to get to my house, frankly – but – its here now.

That SpeedTest result is on a wired network port… on an 802.11ac wireless connection to an iMac in another room, I’m maxing out at a lazy 300 megabits or so right now. Finally my WiFi is the speed constraint, and nothing else is getting in the way. WiFi speeds fall off very sharply with distance, which is why I tend to put ethernet ports into any buildings I’m doing any sort of work on. You just can’t beat the speed of a wired connection.

The outcome (even via WiFi) is materially snappier compared to even the 250 Megabit per second service. Its like my office has been for years – click on something and (if it is well connected), then ‘blink’ and it has updated the page completely an instant.

The one bummer is that ‘mere’ 50 megabit per second upload speed – for which I still can’t quite countenance why NBNCo insist on that level of artificial throttling. Speed limiting just to make your ‘business’ products more valuable is the sort of evil tactic we used to complain about Telstra engaging in.

That said, 50 megabits per second upload is still ‘substantial’ and it is the increased upload seed that is actually the major factor in the above-mentioned improved ‘snappiness’ of updates. The extent to which upload speed is a real-world constraint to download performance is still a widely un-appreciated thing.

If this inspires you to move to Aussie Broadband as well, just remember you can type in the magic referral code 4549606 when you sign up, to save yourself (and me!) $50 in the process 🙂