Woke up this morning to find the Internet down. Not just the broadband at home, but all of our phones as well. Optus had fallen over. I shrugged it off at first, thinking, well, at least I won't be tempted to waste time on Facebook. I'll be able to get an early start at work. And I was, except, of course, that I couldn't access any of the online tools I normally use.
It was certainly remarkable, and you know with all the concerns from ministers, senior executives, directors all demanding updates and 'when will it be restored' the actual 2 techs who have been around long enough to know where the code was patched last to actually try and fix it were saying "this would probably resolve faster if I could spend the time doing it and not having to update 8 different directors every 15 minutes". Also anyone want to guess if the cause is ever determined that there was a document filed by a dissatisfied tech probably in the last 18 months who has been desperately trying to make management aware that there was a critical point which could fail catastrophically unless we invest the time and resources, they final gave up a left when it was pencilled into the 2029/2030 budget estimates.
Part of me wonders if people raced off to the various Telstra shops to get a prepaid to tide them over.
That said, I have a friend that has an Aldi phone on the family deal that uses it primarily for hotspotting because the amount of datat they get is insane (and you can have 4 phones on the deal for $80 a month). We use the same deal here (because we have 4 people in the household), and sometimes I'll forget to turn off hotspotting and use it all night and not even notice the difference between the NBN speed and the hotspotting speed (I've even watched movies, etc on Netflix). The first time this happened the only reason I knew it happened was because I forgot to plug my phone into the charger and it beeped at me in the morning to tell me it was down to 10% power...
with aussie broadband for our wireless broadband - also good. I can just imagine the preppers getting excited and saying "i told you so! its happening!"
As much as I think Elon Musk is a prat, and that he should stick to giving professionals money to run his projects and personally stay away from them, his Starlink internet seems to be remarkably amazing by Australian standards. A friend of mine is currently travelling Australia in his very cool kitted out van (he has a "work from home" job he can do anywhere) and just got it to try out. The speed test he shared was 436Mbps. So, if anyone has about $600 for the portable hardware and about $120 month for internet (I think Telstra NBN is $110 a month now, which comes with a residential phone line that we've never used, but have to have as their deal), it might be worth looking at, too.
Agree 100% with your assessment of Musk; the "oh but he's a genius!" narrative grinds my gears. You don't have to be a genius to spot good ideas and find smart people to run them for you. How the "genius" narrative has survived all his adventures since the Thai cave rescue is an endless mystery, since he's spent the last few years determinedly demonstrating to all and sundry what a colossal knob he actually is.
I saw an interview with him a while ago (pre-covid; post-20th C) and he opening stated that he would just come up with an idea and then pay people to do it, which is fine; funding people to turn your SF dreams into reality is a cool way to spend money. Somehow between then and now I think too many people are giving him too much credit and he's embraced the mythology.
Maybe he needs to surround himself with people willing to tell him to shut up, fuck off, and let the experts run things again.
yeah that puts in words exactly how i feel about him too. Have some friends living out in the wilds of the snowy mountains and they will never look back after getting on to starlink. I've seen the string of satellites and as an avid sky watcher i have opinions about that side of it as well - its such a strange sight to see them plowing across the sky with every 10th one just that smidgen out of alignment.
He's got about 5,000 up there at the moment, I believe, with the plan to have 12 - 42 thousand.
It's (was) an interesting idea to have every inch of the planet provided with exceptional internet, and seemed noble when he first started talking about it (when it was going to be free), but I also wonder about the orbital impact of that many sats whizzing around up there...
Yes, it seems a cheap backup phone with a different provider and one of those wireless transistor radios that were all the rage amongst us kiddies in 1970 London are becoming essentials. Maybe I can steal my 88yo neighbours wireless when he's fallen asleep to Ray Hadley again.
Starlink in Oz is A$ 139 per month for the residential option. The hardware is A$599 or if you can work with used/refurbished kit it's A$299. Check though if you can get signal at the compound. You can do that through the app.
This triggered a strong urge to re-listen to Fail State, and also made me grateful that I refused to give one telco all my business. I lost my mobile coverage but iinet had me covered with interwebs, which sadly meant that I had no choice but to rock up to work. My product manager was forced to hotspot off his phone all day as his broadband was dead 😂
After years of shit service from Optus, although we still use them for broadband, we have Telstra phones, and a back up wireless modem with 50Gb not expiring for 12 months, also Telstra, so we're covered when shit goes down. Handy today for sure.
It was certainly remarkable, and you know with all the concerns from ministers, senior executives, directors all demanding updates and 'when will it be restored' the actual 2 techs who have been around long enough to know where the code was patched last to actually try and fix it were saying "this would probably resolve faster if I could spend the time doing it and not having to update 8 different directors every 15 minutes". Also anyone want to guess if the cause is ever determined that there was a document filed by a dissatisfied tech probably in the last 18 months who has been desperately trying to make management aware that there was a critical point which could fail catastrophically unless we invest the time and resources, they final gave up a left when it was pencilled into the 2029/2030 budget estimates.
I just finished zero day code today. The timing of that was rather serendipitous and very funny at the same time.
Part of me wonders if people raced off to the various Telstra shops to get a prepaid to tide them over.
That said, I have a friend that has an Aldi phone on the family deal that uses it primarily for hotspotting because the amount of datat they get is insane (and you can have 4 phones on the deal for $80 a month). We use the same deal here (because we have 4 people in the household), and sometimes I'll forget to turn off hotspotting and use it all night and not even notice the difference between the NBN speed and the hotspotting speed (I've even watched movies, etc on Netflix). The first time this happened the only reason I knew it happened was because I forgot to plug my phone into the charger and it beeped at me in the morning to tell me it was down to 10% power...
Holy shit. What a great idea.
yeah - we do the aldi phone thing in my family. Its been amazing.
with aussie broadband for our wireless broadband - also good. I can just imagine the preppers getting excited and saying "i told you so! its happening!"
As much as I think Elon Musk is a prat, and that he should stick to giving professionals money to run his projects and personally stay away from them, his Starlink internet seems to be remarkably amazing by Australian standards. A friend of mine is currently travelling Australia in his very cool kitted out van (he has a "work from home" job he can do anywhere) and just got it to try out. The speed test he shared was 436Mbps. So, if anyone has about $600 for the portable hardware and about $120 month for internet (I think Telstra NBN is $110 a month now, which comes with a residential phone line that we've never used, but have to have as their deal), it might be worth looking at, too.
Agree 100% with your assessment of Musk; the "oh but he's a genius!" narrative grinds my gears. You don't have to be a genius to spot good ideas and find smart people to run them for you. How the "genius" narrative has survived all his adventures since the Thai cave rescue is an endless mystery, since he's spent the last few years determinedly demonstrating to all and sundry what a colossal knob he actually is.
I saw an interview with him a while ago (pre-covid; post-20th C) and he opening stated that he would just come up with an idea and then pay people to do it, which is fine; funding people to turn your SF dreams into reality is a cool way to spend money. Somehow between then and now I think too many people are giving him too much credit and he's embraced the mythology.
Maybe he needs to surround himself with people willing to tell him to shut up, fuck off, and let the experts run things again.
yeah that puts in words exactly how i feel about him too. Have some friends living out in the wilds of the snowy mountains and they will never look back after getting on to starlink. I've seen the string of satellites and as an avid sky watcher i have opinions about that side of it as well - its such a strange sight to see them plowing across the sky with every 10th one just that smidgen out of alignment.
He's got about 5,000 up there at the moment, I believe, with the plan to have 12 - 42 thousand.
It's (was) an interesting idea to have every inch of the planet provided with exceptional internet, and seemed noble when he first started talking about it (when it was going to be free), but I also wonder about the orbital impact of that many sats whizzing around up there...
I'm excited at the idea of a battery-powered dictionary/thesaurus, for use in cases of emergencies.
I have one of these. I call it iPad and it wasn't much use this morning.
Yes, it seems a cheap backup phone with a different provider and one of those wireless transistor radios that were all the rage amongst us kiddies in 1970 London are becoming essentials. Maybe I can steal my 88yo neighbours wireless when he's fallen asleep to Ray Hadley again.
Starlink in Oz is A$ 139 per month for the residential option. The hardware is A$599 or if you can work with used/refurbished kit it's A$299. Check though if you can get signal at the compound. You can do that through the app.
link is https://www.starlink.com/residential
Welcome to my world, with semi-reliable rural internet.
This triggered a strong urge to re-listen to Fail State, and also made me grateful that I refused to give one telco all my business. I lost my mobile coverage but iinet had me covered with interwebs, which sadly meant that I had no choice but to rock up to work. My product manager was forced to hotspot off his phone all day as his broadband was dead 😂
After years of shit service from Optus, although we still use them for broadband, we have Telstra phones, and a back up wireless modem with 50Gb not expiring for 12 months, also Telstra, so we're covered when shit goes down. Handy today for sure.