Yammer Highlights August 2020

Dennis Parsons

Internet Connectivity Survey

I’m re-running the Internet connectivity survey I conducted in early 2018 so please get involved and let us know how you connect to the Internet at home. The turnout so far has been excellent and the results interesting, reflecting the rapidly approaching end for pre-NBN connections. Only a few percent of members report remaining on “legacy” connection types compared with the 60% who were in the original survey.

Half of members now report having an NBN HFC connection with FTTN and FTTC equally making up almost all of other NBN connections.

I’ll produce a full report next month comparing the two surveys.

https://www.yammer.com/melbpc.org.au/#/Threads/show?threadId=834063525208064

Computer Help

Our resident flip-phone dinosaur, Merv, posed an interesting question around Google accounts and our transition from Microsoft based services to Google based ones. Given that he may have to eventually surrender to progress and replace his much-loved flip-phone for an Android-based smartphone he was wondering if he will be able to use his Melb PC e-mail address instead of a Gmail one to set up such a phone.

The consensus was he would be able to but it could lead to problems down the track if he left Melb PC or the arrangement with Google ended, so the best approach would be to sign up for a standard Google account if and when the time comes.

Please note this isn’t based on any inside knowledge of the transition to Google, just the best guess of members on Yammer.

https://www.yammer.com/melbpc.org.au/#/Threads/show?threadId=833722241417216

NBN Questions and Comments

One of our more daring members recently discovered that his NBN HFC connection was able to be upgraded to a 1Gbps connection so he felt the need for speed and applied. The speed increase was duly applied and boy is it fast! Roger posted Speedtest results showing consistent 900+Mbps download speeds even during peak hours. His download speeds over wireless were lower due to limitations of his equipment but were still a very impressive 600+Mbps at times. Interestingly the upload speed allocated to the connection is relatively low at under 40Mbps but given the highly asymmetric nature of data use by most users, this isn’t an issue.

The extra speed doesn’t come cheap but it’s good to see what the future might hold for those of us lucky enough to have a connection type capable of such speeds. Not so good if you’re stuck with FTTN.

https://www.yammer.com/melbpc.org.au/#/Threads/show?threadId=811224404041728

https://www.yammer.com/melbpc.org.au/#/Threads/show?threadId=817927361142784

Coronavirus Discussion & Comments

For those of us interested in the trend in the number of daily new infections (and who isn’t to some extent even if it makes you want to hide under the covers) Bill has been regularly posting his analysis of the numbers and plotting the data using a 7-day moving average to smooth out the significant daily ups and downs in new cases, giving a good indication of where we stand and where we’re going. At least things are looking optimistic now.

https://www.yammer.com/melbpc.org.au/#/Threads/show?threadId=825545662275584