Australia's Telstra Requires Fibre Customers To Use Copper Telephone

daria42 writes "Progress is happening rapidly in Australia, with the country's government continuing to roll out a nation-wide fibre network. However, the country's major telco Telstra doesn't appear to have quite gotten the message. Releasing its first National Broadband Network fibre broadband plans today, the telco stipulated that fibre customers will still be forced to make phone calls over the telco's existing copper network. Yup, that's right — fibre to people's houses, but phone calls over the copper network. Progress."

Comments

Could make sense

[NFN_NLN]

Fiber requires external power for the lasers.
Traditional phones lines are powered by the telco so they'll work during a standard blackout.

Re:Could make sense

[miaDWZ]

Traditional phones lines are powered by the telco so they'll work during a standard blackout.

All NBN endpoints have a backup battery to allow phones to continue to work for a good few hours even in a power outage.

Re:Could make sense

[NFN_NLN]

All NBN endpoints have a backup battery to allow phones to continue to work for a good few hours even in a power outage.

The telco (unless it is third world) will have massive diesel generators (and a stock pile of diesel) to keep things operational in an emergency. As long as there is electricity or diesel the phones should continue to work.

Re:Could make sense

[deek]

Fibre based phones requires power to devices on both ends. Copper based phones can (and are) powered by the telco on their end.

So those massive diesel generators aren't going to be much use in an emergency, for a fibre network.

Re:Could make sense

[EdIII]

They won't operate the same at all.

If "copper telephones" are anything like what we have in the US, a corded telephone connected to the wall receives all the power it needs to operate from the CO (central office) in the street. In this situation the telco does not need to concern itself about any equipment on-premises. As long as the customer has a standard cordless telephone that is enough to place a call.

This is the primary reason why people claim that corded telephones and copper service is the most reliable method of communication in an emergency. Which is true as long as you place zero responsibility on the consumer beyond the possession of a standard telephone required for service.

The alternative is still fairly cheap, but it requires telcos to actually upgrade. There is no reason that the same battery/diesel backups in the CO's can't be used as a backup for fiber.

What is not solved is that you now need battery backup on-premises. That is not an insurmountable problem. Most cable companies in the US have been offering VOIP service for years with equipment that has built-in battery backups. It varies, but I have seen VOIP only equipment that allows a standard phone connection, and cablemodem/VOIP combos that do both. In any case, $50 at any electronics store will get you a battery backup capable of a few hours with the load from a base station for a cordless telephone.

The biggest challenge in the US has been providing emergency phone call support. For quite some time VOIP services offered by the cable companies did not have the capability of connecting you to the correct PSAP and transmitting the correct information. To my knowledge that has been largely solved. The major VOIP providers I deal with have been offering e911 services for almost two years and I have been able to offer 911 on any VOIP desk phone in any branch office with only minor coding efforts.

I don't know how much money the telcos would gain by getting rid the COs entirely. I am betting that they are staying on copper for telephone because it is cheaper than upgrading all the COs to fiber and providing customers on-premises equipment that they have never had to provide before.

Also remember, that battery/diesel backups don't last forever anyways. That goes for cell phone towers too. Any major disaster with sustained power outages for more than a day or two is going to see severe impact in service for all communications.

Re:Could make sense

[Mr0bvious]

Indeed - sorry I must have been half asleep (perhaps fully asleep) when I made that post - for some reason I thought the OP I replied too was claiming that the cordless phones will be useless in a power outage when the fibre replaces the copper - obviously upon rereading that post I was actually in fierce agreement with the OP..

I'll get back in my box now..

ps, I'm an Australian and pretty much everyone I know uses their mobile (cell) phone as their primary voice contact device - we use our copper lines for our ADSL connections... I don't even have a handset plugged into my copper outlet.

The rental on a copper line from Telstra is over $30 a month - all we get for that is the ability to make charged phone calls - I make none, so I pay $30 a month to Telstra for my phone line just to get ADSL from my ISP over. My ISP charges me $50 a month for a 100GB of data over a ADSL 2 connection over that Telstra copper - I can only acheive a very poor 1 - 2Mb over that very poor and under maintained expensive Telstra copper and I'm in a nice dense suburban area. So I end up paying over $80 a month for a poor 1 - 2Mb connection.

I can go 'naked' - that's the term for having a internet connection without paying Telstra for the copper - you pay the ISP instead, and the ISP install hardware in the Telstra exchange to handle their own back haul. But this saves only $60 a year as the ISP need to pay telstra a portion still, hardly worth it for the down side... Basically Telstra applies a tax on the entire copper system, that I'm sure I've paid for now at least 10 times over.. Its a hideous monopoly that I can't wait to see the back of.

Re:Could make sense

[vlm]

Speaking of which, can you even buy non-cordless phones these days?

You have to go to walmart, but they do exist.

The real problem is you need a copper line that is homerun to a CO not to a SLC hut. SLC hut battery backup is ... not so good, if there is any at all. Supposedly there existed a SLC-96 system 30 years ago that was CO powered off the T-1 repeater supply, but they've only installed fiber SLCs for decades now and the few I've seen the insides of have metered electrical service.

People who only know a little telecom think every copper line is a home run to the CO. People who worked in telecom know that 20 years ago SLC market penetration was at least 1 in 10 residential lines, and now, I would not be surprised if the majority of copper lines are run to a SLC.

It does depend on your neighborhood. If there's a homeless panhandler on the sidewalk, thats urban and probably 100 years old and you probably have copper homerun, unless its a "factory to condo conversion" and the telco put a SLC in. If its a "1950s baby boomer house" like mine then its 50/50 and in fact mine is on a SLC (which was a nightmare to get DSL back in ye olden DSL era). If its a modern mcmansion I guarantee the LEC installed a SLC, they're not going to home run copper all they way from each house to the CO.

This is Australia calling.

[mjwx]

It's Telstra, what do you expect. This is the company that has kept regional centres on dialup and whilst giving a RIM-job to major urban centres.

They have repeatedly been busted for telling other telco's "there are no ports available at X exchange" but then selling Telstra ADSL services from the same supposedly full exchange.

Do you honestly expect Telstra not to try and screw up the NBN.