I recently bought a villa for use during working and want to connect to broadband.

Hi Jim,

This is probably a misunderstanding over what Naked Broadband, or Naked DSL is. A lot of people go for Naked DSL with the belief that because there is no phone service provided, then you will be able to save about $30 a month on line rental. But that's not exactly the case. To wind it back a bit, let's look at how broadband is provided over a copper line connection.

1. A standard telephone point is made up of Twister Pair Copper. This means that two copper wires are twisted around each other, and connected to the Telstra phone socket in your home. The Twisted Pair is led back to a pillar in your street, where it is connected to something like a circuit board. From there, it is switched to a larger trunk cable, which leads back to the telephone exchange in your neighbourhood - usually no more than 2-5 km away.

2. At the exchange, different providers host large networking arrays, made up into what's known as a DSLAM ("Dee- SLAM"). This stands for Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexer. It is wired back to that company's network core, which is, in itself, wired back to international loading points in either WA or NSW. So with Internode, their DSLAM is connected (usually with optical fibre) back to Adelaide, where they host their network core, which is in turn usually wired back to NSW. From there, Telstra, Optus or TPG host the really big cables that go under the ocean.

3. Back to your neighbourhood. The line between the house and the exchange is owned by Telstra, and that's it. No-one else can provide the so-called 'last mile' of communications: this part of a network takes up about 99% of the cost and difficulty! That's because there's one (or more) going to every house, shop, office suite and flat in Australia. So if there's 10 cables serving the country, and 2000 exchanges serving each neighbourhood...there's about 10 million connections in the 'last mile'. Telstra rents out the last mile connection to the exchange for about $24.50 a month to companies like Internode. With overheads, that makes for a retail price of about $30 to you.

4. At the exchange, your Twisted Pair can be split. The phone line can go to Telstra, and the line carrying internet can plug into an Internode DSLAM. This is called 'Standalone DSL" or Unbundled DSL. This is expensive, and difficult. So the cheaper option is to have both your phone line and Internet line plug into an Internode DSLAM. This is a Bundle, and because it's cheaper and easier for Internode, they will discount the overall price.

The 3rd configuration is very different. This is where your phone line remains dormant, and just the internet half of your Twisted Pair plugs into the Internode DSLAM. This is called Naked DSL. The advantage here is that because the phone line is dormant, there is no 'crosstalk' bleeding over from the phone line that could affect the stability of the Internet line. This provides overall better speeds and stability. What it does NOT do, is eliminate the line rental. Internode is still paying line rental to get you to the exchange. So:

Internode Easy Broadband, 200GB is $70 a month, for Standalone DSL. You would have to pay your $30 line rental direct to Telstra, for total out of pocket of about $100.

Internode Easy Broadband in a bundle is $70 + $30, minus a $20 bundling discount, for a total price, paid directly to Internode, of about $80.

Internode Easy Naked is about $80 a month.

Unfortunately, not every DSLAM in Internode's network is equipped to provide the Easy Naked service, for a whole host of reasons (some of it has to do with incompatabilities with your Twisted Pair connection, and some of it has to do with what equipment Internode uses at your exchange). But the Easy Broadband Bundle is the same price, and the only difference really is that the line might be a bit slower. Not hugely slower, but a little bit.

The fact that you're provided with a dial tone and phone number is immaterial. Internode won't even provide you with a phone; you could never plug a telephone handset in and you'd be getting the same result as you would with Naked DSL. You can't complain that you're 'paying for a service you never use' - you're paying for the rental of a line that you ARE using, and if that phone service WASN'T being provided, you'd be paying the same anyway. I use this analogy: it's like when you want a burger and fries at McDonald's, but it's cheaper to buy the Happy Meal and throw away the fries. Internode have found an equitable solution for you, identical in price to what you ordered and offering so significant difference in quality. They've done the right thing: other ISPs might have just said "Sorry, not available" and left it at that.

Thanks,

Adam at CompareBroadband

1300 106 571