Website: https://futurebroadband.com.au/about/ ( geoblocked to non-Australian IP addresses )
Their Network Status page
Mondays to Fridays ( only )
WST (West Coast) = 8AM – 5PM
AEST (East Coast) = 10AM – 7PM
Live-Chat: Yes
Ph: 08 6117 0600
Call-back via website: Yes
Boss: Jason Mikronis ( jason @ futurebroadband.com.au )Customers with 24/7 Support arrangements have their own dedicated contact number. Calls are routed to the company phone and computer systems and will be answered by the first available engineer.
Rewards scheme - vouchers - discounts begin from month 2 onwards.
How it looks like from the portal:
Every Future Broadband customer is issued 20 referral vouchers, aka codes, in the online portal under the heading 'Vouchers'.
When a voucher is used on signup (on the confirmation page of the online application or verbally if ordering over the phone), both referrer and referee will get a discount of $35 plus 1000GB bonus data for their data bank if they are on a databank plan ( a unique feature if I might add ).
For the referee, the discount will come off their first invoice. For the referrer, the discount will come off their next invoice but only when the new user has actually connected, not when they used the code.
A referrer can only get discounts for vouchers used in the previous month up to the value of their invoice. Discounts do not roll over to the next month.
A referrer can either give away a specific voucher or they can use their voucher shortcode, which will automatically assign the next available voucher. When using the latter option, you need to be careful not to run out of vouchers. More vouchers can usually be obtained on request.
A prospective customer can easily get hold of a voucher (code) by contacting a current FBB customer or by using the shortcode listed in their profile.
Data Banking & Monthly Rollover (on applicable plans):
A Data Banking plan automatically rolls over any unused data into a ‘Data Bank’ for future months. If your service exceeds the included usage allowance in a month and you have data available in the bank, it will be withdrawn at the end of the month before being liable for excess usage. A maximum of 5,000 GB can be stored in the bank at any time. Usage cannot be redeemed for credit, transferred between services and expires when a service is cancelled or changed to a plan without data banking.
Data banking is an interesting feature and, for those interested, you can actually become a little creative and use it to your advantage. As you are allowed one free plan change per month, you could buy a higher plan for one month, bank the excess data, then drop back to the lower plan and use the data in your bank if required. Bear in mind that, if the plan change involves a speed change, say from 50/20 to 100/40 or vice versa, there will be a $25 charge.
On some plans, new customers get 2000GB of bonus data on signup. On top of that, if they used a referral code, they would get an additional 1000GB of bonus data. That means a total of 3000GB, a great start! Additionally, if the new customer refers someone else, they get another 1000GB of bonus data on top. As mentioned, the total you can accumulate in your data bank is 5000GB.
What happens when I use more than my quota for the month?
FBB does not shape your connection when you go over quota. Instead, they will charge you for excess usage as per the Critical Information Summary:
"Excess usage is billed at $10 per 250GB or part thereof. For example 50 GB excess = $10, 300GB excess = $20"
Of course, if you use the data banking feature as intended, you should never have to pay excess. Whenever you have data in your data bank, this will be used first when you use more than your quota.
If your data bank is empty or near empty and you think you are at risk of going over quota, the sensible thing to do is to purchase 1000GB at $15 for your data bank. You can do this via the online portal. That 1000GB will stay in your bank until needed. Buying data for your bank makes more sense than paying $10 or $20 for excess data that will expire at the end of the month.
Note, however, that based on the warning displayed when you select this option it can take up to 48 hours to be processed, so one needs to consider that if getting near the end of the month and the risk of going over.
Billing / payment matters - some info about billing/how to pay copied from the Critical Information Summary:
Paying for your service
• To pay for the service you must use Autopay with an Australian credit or debit card (Visa, Mastercard or AMEX)
• Upon placing an order with us we will debit a deposit comprised of any setup charges, the first monthly fee, plus hardware you may have ordered.
• Monthly Invoices are generated on the 1st of each month and are auto-debited soon after. Your first invoice with us will include a pro-rata component reflecting the arrears since service activation to the end of the month.
• Customer invoices are made available to download once logged into the customer portal.
• For greater payment options please see our Enterprise-Lite NBN Bundles or Enterprise NBN.
From experience, invoices are detailed and accurate. The money usually comes out of the CC account on the 10th of the month, so about 10 days after getting the invoice. This gives enough time to check the invoice for accuracy. If any referral codes were used during the month, the voucher code(s) and discount(s) will be listed as well.
As mentioned above, all plans have a setup fee of $55. This can be partially offset by using a referral code. The referral code will give you a discount of $35, making the effective setup just $20. ( credit to ozimarco )
Technical details:
CPE Setup:
BYO: Yes
Upstream provider: TPG AAPT IP-Line ( SMB class )
WAN protocol / encapsulation
Static routeable IPv4 ( /30 i.e. 2 x usable public IPv4 )
( requires inputting of supplied IP address, subnet mask and gateway information as per Network Build )
For example, on a TP-Link VR1600v V2 modem router ( NBN FttN VDSL2 )
IPv6: Yes ( one time setup fee of $10 applies for a /56 or $20 for a /48 )
(
/56 4,722,366,482,869,645,213,696 IP addresses and /48 1,208,925,819,614,629,174,706,176 IP addresses if for some reason ain't enough
)IPv6 config ( as well as IPv4 ) with PfSense ( credit to Kesawi -
): accessible here in PDF
802.1Q VLAN ID Value ( where applicable ): Default is 100 ( but can be changed to any value one prefers )
Priority value = 0
802.1Q VID applicable for: NBN FttN, FttB, FttC, HFC. Not applicable / blank for NBN FttP, Fixed Wireless.
NBN Plans ( website has more information including the continued availability of 100/40Mbps )
Provisioning lead-time ( TPG-AAPT ): up to 3 work days on average.
Unlimited: No but there's Data Banking
RSP email: No
VOIP: Yes - Maxotel ( SIP credentials supplied )
3rd party VOIP: Yes
DNS Resolvers: 203.8.183.1 ns1.aapt.com.au 192.189.54.19 ns2.aapt.com.au
Alternates: those from Cloudflare 1.1.1.1 and 1.0.0.1
Reverse DNS / PTR with matching forwards: Custom reverse DNS matching is available at $30 per change based on the or your applicable Critical Information Summary for the Enterprise Lite plans.
What will work - proven / tested:
Netcomm NF17ACV
Netcomm NF18ACV
Netcomm NL1901ACV (built-in LTE SIM slot for failover)
Ubiquiti EdgeRouter Lite (firmware v1.x and 2.x) (with failover to Netgear LB2120 LTE device )
Ubiquiti EdgeRouter X (with failover to Netgear LB2120 LTE device)
Asus RT-AC88U (stock and Merlin firmware) (with failover to Netgear LB2120 LTE device)
Asus RT-AC68U
Asus DSL-AC68U ( connect on LAN port 1 as WAN ) ( FYI – will work on VLAN 100 but not iiNet VLAN 2)
TP-Link Archer VR600 v2
TP-Link Archer VR1600v
MikroTik hAP ac² (with failover to USB LTE stick)
Ex-Telstra Technicolor Smart Modem Gen 2 (DJA0231) ( rooted to enable Ethernet/Static IP and VLAN100 )
PfSense and many more
All information is current at the time of publication and should not be relied upon. Prospective customers should always confirm with Future Broadband first prior to making any commitment of any sort.
10:0:0:0:2/126
0:0:0:1/64 (based on 56-bit prefix)
0:0:0:1/64 (based on 56-bit prefix)
