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Comment by ldp01 | Hacker News Reader

It sounds like the crux of the issue is connectivity is now fast, reliable, and cheap. Employees don't need to waste time commuting anymore, so they don't.

Now spare a thought for those of us sweating in the digital wasteland that is Australia.

Every so often I have to walk over to my fridge and nudge my 4G modem to improve the signal strength. I have a script running 'round the clock to reset the darn thing if the connection drops completely (this somehow it fixes it). I need the 4G connection because the copper wire to my house is so broken it can no longer support an ADSL signal.

Fibre is apparently coming in like... 2019? It is expected to run at a maximum of 25Mbps.

Needless to say, remote work is not exactly on the cards.

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FWIW, I have 100Mbps on NBN fibre in Brisbane, and I remote work (for a WordPress agency, as it happens).

Fast internet is definitely possible in Australia, although right now, you might need to move to get it (alas). It's also not yet cheap (but we can partially expense internet, and you can also write it off for tax).

I've got 100Mbps plan over copper with FTTN. Generally get about 96mb/s down and 35Mb/s up. It's great.

But I'm lucky, and I get that. We play the broadband lotto, and it's not easy to win. If I move I no doubt will be back in the ADSL2 world hoping I'm close to the exchange.

100Mbps on FTTN? That's not bad!

I'm holding my breath for when the NBN finally rolls through my area. Even 25Mbps would be acceptable at this point.

I had a chuckle today when I saw a restaurant in the Perth CBD was using a Vividwireless 4G modem. I would have thought the middle of the city at least would have a decent wired connection.

I'm actually considering to move to Brisbane to bootstrap my startup. Which area you live in and who's your provider?

Missed your comment; I'm in West End, which is fully fibre but in two parts: most of the suburb is Telstra South Brisbane Fibre (which they built when the Qld Gov knocked down the old exchange to build a hospital), while all greenfields (apartments, e.g.) are NBN. My apartment is NBN Fibre with a dodgy company called MyPort (who were preinstalled in the building, but refuse to give me a critical information summary), while my office is Telstra Fibre with iiNet.

Both get 100 down, but Telstra Fibre only offers 5 up. The NBN on the other hand has 100/100 sync available if you want it.

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