The National Broadband Network (NBN). Four words (or three letters) capable of sending a shiver down an Aussie’s spine (or at the very least conjuring up an epic eye roll). Earlier this week the NBN rollout reached its halfway point with over 5.7 million households and businesses now able to access to the service. However, as many people with the service would tell you, what was supposed to deliver us fast, reliable internet has seemingly produced anything but. Fraught with frustrations and complications, these are the five issues users of the NBN commonly face today.
#1 Buffering
The dreaded circle of dots. Sitting down to relax, streaming a video, and being forced to wait hours for the first few minutes to load. Worse still, when you’re halfway through an episode of *insert your favourite TV show here* and the screen pauses because it can’t handle the pressure. Don’t even get me started on the lag or video quality. Infuriating.
#2 Maintenance
You’re going about your day having a peaceful time browsing Facebook when suddenly all hell breaks loose and the internet connection is lost. That’s right, it’s maintenance time again! You’d be hard-pressed to get through a week without someone somewhere being affected by the continual maintenance that is carried out by internet service providers. (You know who I’m talking about.)
#3 Politicians
Ah, Politicians. We just love to hear their promises, don’t we? We were promised that every Australian would have access to the NBN by the end of 2016. It didn’t happen. We were promised that the project would be fast, affordable, and completed sooner rather than later. Nope. Also, for some ungodly reason, it was decided that it was best to continue to use ageing copper technology while installing the NBN. *Facepalm* Lord help us.
#4 Embarrassment
According to the latest Akamai State of the Internet Report, Australia now ranks 50th in the world for average download speeds. Estonia, Kenya, Thailand, and Bulgaria are just a few of the nations that are besting us in internet speeds. Need I remind you that our current Prime Minister used to be the Minister for Communications? It almost beggars belief.
#5 Rage
Interruptions due to buffering, inconvenient maintenance from internet service providers, broken promises from politicians, and embarrassing statistics all lead us to one place: rage. I can’t count the times I’ve cursed at the lights blinking on my modem or prayed to some other-worldly being in an attempt to will my streaming back to life. Even just thinking about it makes me annoyed. In this sense, bad internet is bad for our health. We don’t want to be annoyed, we don’t want to stress about buffering or loading times.
For the love of all that is good in the world, please help us.
*restarts modem*
Image Sources: Pexels, Sick Chirpse, Awful Announcing, The Conversation, YouTube.
