Should be interesting to see how things are in a few years when the rose colored glasses break and reality hits, as someone who has worked in the DSL market for ten years, as far as I am concerned the NBN is too little too late at way to much cost, Telstra is laughing all the way to the bank having sold their copper and introducing technology that will be more competitive than what the NBN can do!
If you've worked in the DSL market for ten years and are against the NBN then I (and I'd imagine others) would love to hear why. As I've noted previously, people who oppose the NBN
and have experience in the area are few and far between, so a contrasting opinion from someone who can speak with some authority would be very interesting to read.
However, if you're going to do this then you need to be able to provide some facts / reasoned arguments to support your contention the NBN is a waste of time / bad idea / white elephant / whatever. So far you've ignored every pro-NBN/pro-fibre argument I've put forward in favour of simply repeating that it's a bad idea - aka the "la la you're wrong I can't hear you" defence. If you want me (and I'd imagine at least some other readers) to take your opinion seriously then you need to back up your contentions with facts.
Currently, in most small business, the first line coming in has power supplied to it via Telstra. Provided the business / householder has an older type phone that takes it power from the phone line, then a phone connection is always available. When teaching out western NSW, it was (and still is) quite common for the power to die for hours at a time. However, we all knew where the one and only operating phone was.
However, fairly sure I heard on ABC Radio a few weeks ago, that the NBN will link to a house via a box on the outside wall. This said box will have batteries to provide power. When the batteries run down (about a 2 hour life from what I heard), then the NBN phone connection fails.
Given that electricity outages of > 2 hours are fairly common, both in the city and bush, does this mean that the business / householder will have no phone access when the batteries fail?
This is largely correct. With a plain copper phone line the electricity to run the basic phone service is supplied via the phone line itself, so if the power goes out at the connected premises the phone line will continue to work. With a fibre-delivered phone line (ala NBN) there is no electricity transmitted down the piece of fibre-optic cable, so in the event of a power outage at the connected premises the phone line will stop working unless there is some form of backup power supply (batteries).
It's worth noting a few points though:
- with copper phone lines the power supplied via the line is only enough to power a very basic, non-cordless phone, which are becoming increasingly uncommon. If you have a fancy corded phone (rare), a VoIP phone line (increasingly common), a cordless phone (most homes) or a PABX of any sort (most businesses, even small ones) then you're still out of luck if the power fails.
- don't forget that most people have a mobile (or at least access to one) as a backup "phone line".
- NBNCo is providing battery backup units, as you noted - but they last for something more like 5 hours, not 2.
- interestingly, the battery backup units are a common source of complaints from the initial batch of users connected to the NBN - most people don't want them, to the extent that NBNCo is considering making them optional.
- I believe NBNCo has more beefy battery backup units (which last much longer) available, which they install when the phone line is deemed "critical" - e.g. if someone in the house has a chronic life threatening medical condition, an "emergency button" for elderly people to push if they fall connected to the phone line/internet, etc. I'm not 100% on this though.
So yes, for the minority of users who use a basic non-cordless phone and don't have access to a mobile, a 4+ hour power failure can mean no working phone line in the NBN world. This is one area where fibre
is inferior to copper phone lines, but it's a pretty minor one, and certainly nowhere near enough of a concern to scrap the entire idea...
That is a very good article - thanks for posting it. I'd note his initial contention is wrong though - the latest stats show the majority of Australians support the NBN
despitethe cough job that has been done marketing (which is really saying something!)
I'd
strongly encourage anyone interested in this topic to set aside 15 minutes to read it, regardless of which side of the debate you are on.
The article is quite long, not necessarily perfect, and perhaps a bit strong on rhetoric at times (especially towards the start), but what it does provide is:
1) a great explanation of and commentary around the
terrible marketing job the Labour government / NBNCo are doing in relation to the NBN,
2) an interesting and well-explained set of secondary benefits the NBN will provide in the areas of health, education and the wider economy - and bear in mind this is just another set of ideas a tech journalist has come up with / read about, and therefore far from comprehensive, and,
3) some insightful commentary around why focussing on the NBN purely as a way to deliver fast internet is short-sighted.
Even if you're against the NBN and the linked article doesn't change your opinion, by reading it you will at least be a lot better informed about the project and perhaps better understand why many people are such staunch supporters it.
PS: if you're someone who is still thinking the NBN is a waste because wireless will make it redundant, I'd also encourage you to read the two articles linked to in the above article:
Telstra's 4G wireless cannot replace the NBN – Blog – ABC Technology and Games (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) and
Broadband Cringe and Envy: wireless vs. wired – Opinion – ABC Technology and Games (Australian Broadcasting Corporation). Neither article provides much in the way of hard science (but the info is out there if you want to read it - just Google it, or take a squizz at what I posted a few pages back for the science-lite version), but the author does explain the issues with capacity / upgradability / reliability / etc of wireless quite eloquently and in plain English.
