To be fair VDSL is good enough for a single household to run a 4K stream or two and other activities provided you actually get the whole 55Mb downstream and not the BS "up to" line the telcos like to use for their craptastic DSL offerings. 100Mb+ isn't really a necessity for most people.
You can get 100Mbit even, if the node happens to live in your front lawn. Problem is they're installing them up to a km away and only promising 25Mbit -- and lots of people aren't even getting that. There are people on 10 and less.
Also, why spend MORE on "Maybe 25mbit or up to 100" with no upgrade potential when you could install the fibre and have reliable gigabit right away? It makes no sense.
The NBN should be for the future, not for what's okay for most people today.
Imagine if we only had dialup now because that was all we needed 15 years ago. That's what the Liberals are doing to the NBN.
Are coaxial cable connections not available? These days, you can get 10/1 Gbps with DOCSIS 3.1 (although TWC in USA offers only 300 Mbps), and the standard seems to be improving still.
In some areas they are, but it's a minority of houses in Australia. Telstra and Optus have them.
NBN is decommissioning the Optus HFC network and replacing it with VDSL. Yes, I'm serious.
They're taking over and using the Telstra coaxial network, which should improve upload speeds, but they aren't planning to offer anything above 100Mbps (about 94 actual throughput) on it. They're replacing the DOCSIS 3.0 equipment, but with more DOCSIS 3.0 equipment.
Since Telstra's max plan goes about 115mbit, this is actually a downgrade in speed at my house. I'll be waving 20Mbit/s goodbye.
Only in some parts of my city at least. I'm lucky enough to have HFC to my house in Brisbane, it's expensive but it's a very consistent 35Mb/s down (the upload is barely 1.5Mb/s though).
Could you imagine telling someone that moves a lot of files around their computer, or compiles large projects regularly, that they don't need a faster HDD/SSD?
Would you tell someone who renders 3d movies for their job or hobby that they don't need a faster CPU/CPU?
Telling people who regularly pull (and upload!) docker containers, software packages, or meaningful work data like pictures, videos or backups that they don't need to have time shaved off their activities is equally strange.
A decade ago we had to 'imagine' what quality internet we might need in 2017. But now it is 2017.
As qzervaas says, think to the future. But you're also missing out on business needs. Shooting data across a network opens up all kinds of things.
For example, think of a medical scan - lots of high-quality imagery. The same scans could be readily available to your GP, your specialist, and your surgeon, all in different locations, all relatively on-demand.
