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

[Capsaicin]

If ice storm knock down the power line, it will knock down the phone line too.

It just goes to show the cavalier attitude of the Labor government that they haven't adequately planned for vast tracts of Australia being taken out by ice storms.

Re:progress

[Ghaoth]

I suggest you don't live here. There are many parts of Australia where Telstra is the only supplier. their mandate, aparrt from making money, is to provide communications to all of Austrlaia. Most of the other companies suck in rural and outback areas. It there was an alternative, that would be called competition.