We have the NBN with 300GB that we only use a fraction of. A few weeks ago we had a lightning strike a few houses away - we lost phone, NBN modem, personal video recorder and a Netgear powerline adaptor. Reported it to Optus who passed it on to NBN who came up from Brisbane the next day (ours was one of many).
All the burnt out bits were replaced free of charge by both NBN and Optus with no hassle and no bad vibes if you get what I mean.
We have neighbours who also lost phone, TV blew up, sattelite TV busted etc. The ones on copper had to wait a few days and our immediate neighbours are still without the phone although Telstra have diverted calls to their mobile.
We find speed is about the same as before but we have old computers and don't download stuff. I know when I upload pictures to Picasa they go very quick. With the Fetch Optus TV you can download movies for free and basically use the internet on the TV.
We pay $110 a month for all local, mobile and STD calls anywhere in Australia, plus 300GB and a free PVR (Fetch). Seeing as most people now have mobiles this saves us quite a bit.
Copper in our street apparently is a mess as houses are all about 100 years old and the copper is all patched up - maintenance on copper will get worse.
My opinion is that NBN is the way we must go....if you instal it now at the reduced pricing it will never be removed in the future. We find the service great and when you ring the NBN you talk to an Aussie.
It's also a question people ask when looking for a house to buy.
Good Luck.

Hi all. Waaaay out here in the scrub of NW Qld there is only satellite broadband. We had a new NBN setup installed a few months ago and find it just as fast as the 4G network in the big smoke. Technician was telling me there will be no more NBN connections for a while as the system has reached max capacity and it could take them a while to upgrade. A bit like the good old days when you either waited for a spare line in the local telephone exchange or settled for a party line. Real good those party lines when you could hear the clicking noises as all of the nosey bu***rs listened in on your conversation. We are also reliant on satellite Tv ( VAST ) which seems to give a better audio visual result than the normal setup. It does have a few advantages living in the bush if you disregard the fact that it is a 250 km trip to get supplies.

I use a dongle via Optus and enjoy the portability. I don't down or upload large files and am happy just to bowl along at moderate speed so I'm happy. If I ever get to use the NBN it'll only be when I cease to be a nomad.

Hi Milo

what speed are you getting there
my max speed is 940kb/s adsl rural
plenty to dl a movie in an half hr

Cheers John

At home we have satellite and wireless, unlimited satellite bandwidth which we use constantly and wireless laptop and tablets running on amaysim (optus). The wireless is very fast here, cheap and the sat average speed but as most have moved to NBN, very reliable and not expensive at all.

We were connected to the NBN a few months ago, our service provider is IInet, although they are based in Perth and we are on the east coast, they would have to be the best internet provider on the planet I reckon, as their attention to detail and proessional help has always been second to none, I guess thats why I have been with them for 10 years. WoW how about that for a non paid comercial.
We are getting 100meg download, and 50 Meg upload speeds, we have, 1 x computer, 3 x Ipads, 3 x iPhones and 2 x Apple TV boxes, all connected wirelesly with a 200gig limit, we retained our old phone number and now have our phone working on voip, for free local and national landline calls. internet $79.95 per month, and phone $9.95 per month. Gotta be happy with that. Now how do I get NBN while out in the playground ?? Mmmm I wonder.

We have ADSL Milo, and for our needs its quite fast enough, can get up to 1meg/second.

I thought the NBN was still going ahead for Nowra?