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Australia's Telstra Requires Fibre Customers To Use Copper Telephone

Posted by timothy on from the v8-and-a-buggywhip dept.

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."

2 of 217 comments (clear)

  1. Could make sense by NFN_NLN · · Score: 5, Informative

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

    1. Re:Could make sense by miaDWZ · · Score: 5, Informative

      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.