I had a look at what sort of internet coverage they had in Lightning Ridge. Simon has a land line going into his place but it's not connected, so I'd imagine it'd be some huge drama to even get the thing reconnected let alone set up the internet through it. Would take weeks and be costly. So I decided to go wireless when I'm there. I'm going up for about a couple of weeks next month sometime and wireless was the easiest way to do it.
It will of course be a connection nothing like here. Here it's ADSL2+, the test on the line they did after connection was about 55Mbps. ADSL2 isn't available up there even through a land line. Neither is the new 4G network. According to the map it's in a blue coverage area, which means the 3G network. There are only two providers available up there as well; Telstra and Optus. I decided to go with Telstra, simply because I know it's going to work. I've heard some pretty bad stories about Optus wireless internet from various people.
I looked online to see what was on offer from Telstra, and as the 4G wireless isn't available I had to get a modem that worked with 3G. It has an information speed of up to 8Mbps, which is a bit slow but I'm sure I can live with it. Often it depends on the website servers anyway as opposed to the actual capacity of the connection. I also got a little aerial for it as well to boost the signal if needed. It actually looks quite interesting, sort of funky or something.
The biggest drawback though is the extreme cost of the information. The modem comes with 3gigs once I activate it, which expires if I don't use it after a month. Fuck, at home I'd go through 3 gigs in a few days just general surfing. So then when that runs out you have to buy more data packages before you can connect again. For another 1gig (yes, that number again, 1gig) it cost $40 (yes, that number again, $40). Fuck I nearly fainted. Although you do get $10 bonus credit with that, however that works. I don't think I'm going to be watching much YouTube out there. Here in Sydney on a plan via the landline, I get 100gigs a month for $35.
I dunno why it's so incredibly expensive out there. Possibly as what I'm actually doing is plugging my PC into the mobile phone system, and the information is based on mobile phone usage. Surely this must change in the future to reflect the new technology?
Update:
Since this post is getting a lot of views I thought it better to update this than making another post. Have been spending some time looking up about the National Broadband Network, as I noticed today online that in Kansas Google has decided to trial an NBN like set up with speeds of 1Gbps. (See here).
Which is like the NBN here that they're already building with fibre optics.
93 per cent of Australian premises will have access to the NBN through optic fibre to the premises, capable of providing broadband speeds of up to one gigabit per second. The remaining 7 per cent of premises will have access to next-generation fixed wireless and satellite technologies, providing peak speeds of 12 megabits per second.
Link
If You're in Australia you can put in your postcode to find out when it's being rolled out in your area by going here.
And they now are on YouTube as well:
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