NBN Co confirms flooding kills FTTN nodes

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news The NBN company has confirmed that minor flooding as has been seen in Bowral this week is enough to stop its Fibre to the Node cabinets from functioning, although the nodes do feature circuit breakers to stop them leaking electricity directly into floodwaters around them.

Yesterday Delimiter revealed that heavy rain appeared to have flooded Fibre to the Node infrastructure in the rural New South Wales town of Bowral. At least one FTTN cabinet has suffered water ingress, and it is likely that others in the town are suffering from the same problem.

At the time that the photos of the situation were published yesterday, it was not known whether the flooding would stop the FTTN cabinets affected from functioning.

In addition, as the ‘nodes’ are directly powered by the main electricity grid, it was also not clear whether the nodes would be leaking dangerous electricity into the immediate floodwaters, endangering local residents.

The situation with NBN nodes and flooding is becoming a regular point of debate in Australia’s telecommunications industry.

Several weeks ago, in another example, Delimiter revealed that the NBN company had deployed a FTTN cabinet on the banks of the Tamar River in Tasmania, ignoring advice from local residents that the infrastructure would be sure to be breached by water during periods of excess rain.

node-2

As at the time of publication, the node was embedded in wet mud just centimeters from the water of the river.

In the wake of the photos being published, Delimiter contacted the NBN company to ask what would occur in terms of the nodes’ functionality and electricity leakage in the event of flooding.

In response, a spokesperson for the NBN company confirmed that the level of flooding seen in Bowral — where the node concerned is at least several centimeters under water — would stop the node from functioning.

“The nodes will not be in operation with this level of flooding,” the spokesperson said.

Given the current level of flooding, this potentially means that much of Bowral’s telecommunications services would be offline in the event of a minor flooding situation as has been seen in the rural NSW town this week.

The resident who sent Delimiter the above photo stated that the area had received 285mm of rain in 36 hours. The situation has caused havoc with local roads. However, Bowral is known to be a relatively ‘wet’ area in the Southern Highlands of NSW and often does receive substantial rainfall.

However, there is some good news for local residents — they need not fear that they would be electrocuted by venturing close to the FTTN infrastructure.

“Water of this level triggers the circuit breakers and will result in no power,” the NBN spokesperson said.

It is not clear how the situation would be rectified when the floodwaters receded, but it appears likely that a NBN Co or contracted engineer may need to physically visit each node site to bring telecommunications services back online.

The original version of the NBN as envisioned by the previous Labor Government called for most Australian premises to be covered by a full Fibre to the Premises rollout. Most of the FTTP infrastructure being deployed by Labor is what is known as “passive” infrastructure. This infrastructure does not require electricity and can even survive being wet or completely flooded.

However, most of the replacement FTTN infrastructure being deployed under the Coalition, in particular, is “active” infrastructure. It requires an active electrical power connection. The 30,000 FTTN cabinets, or ‘nodes’ currently being deployed around Australia also come with battery backup capability within the cabinet. Such infrastructure is easily disabled by water ingress.

opinion/analysis
So you get a few centimeters of rain and then your local telecommunications services could be out for days while NBN Co sends someone out to check on the situation. Am I reading this correctly?

Image credit: Supplied by readers

128 COMMENTS

  1. “Water of this level triggers the circuit breakers and will result in no power,”

    Um, the circuit breaker is in the cabinet? Hope not.

      • If the circuit breaker is in the cabinet, it’s like having a circuit breaker in your bathtub while playing with a hair dryer. Maybe the wrapped it in plastic bags so it’s all good.

        • It doesnt matter where the protection device is so long as its upstream of the fault location. Taking an educated guess, there is likely to be a 240V to 24V transformer in the cabinet protected on both the 240V side and the outgoing side on the 24V. It will also have one protecting the cable that feeds the node. So the incomer has protection, the cabinet overall, plus the outgoing 24V from the transformer to the node cards and control gear. Other than that, any telecomminucations wiring will be 52V DC with a negative ground which is immune to water hence why phones work when during a flood.

          • The Power Supplies are redundant 240->48V. The DSLAM runs on 48V. Hence the batteries being in 48V cells.

          • Thanks for the correction. Most of the industrial electrical systems I work on and install are 24V… but then again, the telco industry has always been a little backwards to the rest of us ;-P

          • The setup is similar to Telstra RIM’s. Unmetered 240VAC Mains unfused fed from the grid with an RCD in a pit outside the cabinet, Inside the cabinet there are 2x 240VAC to 48VDC Rectifiers with 4x 12V 100AHr batteries in series. Telco power systems are POSITIVE to Earth. Nothing is immune to water. SMH

          • Old phone systems used to be 52VDC with a positive ground didnt they?

            Nothing is immune, but ELV DC with good connections is pretty close to it ;-) Especially if it has no ground reference.

      • “Basic stuff”

        So besides being far more future proof, lower maintenance, far less costly to run…FTTP is also far more resilient to adverse weather conditions. Well thank goodness we never get bad weather in Australia!

    • There are numerous mains-powered cabinets in streets, housing traffic light controllers, transformers and various other equipment. They have been in operation for decades without electrocuting anybody.
      As to telecommunication being taken out by rain, well, that’s no change from the (very poor) status quo.

      • “decades without electrocuting anybody” do you really want to stand by that statement? Don’t come to my house and do electrical work with that she’ll be right attitude.

        • The reason electrocution is rare is because people who deal with high voltages take electrical safety very seriously and emphatically do not have a “she’ll be right” attitude.
          My point is that it is perfectly possible to make a mains-powered cabinet very safe, and there is no reason to believe that nbn cabinets are unsafe.

          On the other hand there is plenty of evidence that reliability will something to be desired.

    • The circuit breaker is located high up on a power pole in areas that have aerial power but in most cases those with underground power, it would be located in a electrical pillar (possibly close to the flood height).

    • The issue probably isn’t really an NBN issue, but a power company issue as the electricity supply boundary point is likely to be the base of the node. Similar to houses and streets with underground power.

      • It is an nbn(tm) issue (not an NBN issue) because nbn(tm) are installing powered nodes in flood prone areas – the NBN did not do anything like this because FTTP uses passive (unpowered) street equipment. It is not a power company issue because the power company is not responsible for designing or installing the nodes.

        • Yeah, I’d blame nbn™, they could have built it on a plinth. Guess they didn’t check flood data for the area.

  2. Renai. Yes, you read correctly. (I have some experience in the telco space)

    I’d like to remind you of something said a few years ago …. “Destroy the NBN”

    Chickens are back in the roost and we will regret this disaster for decades to come.

  3. Just another day in the life of the perpetual fuck up known as MTM…

    Or as those who roll it out aptly called it FRAUDBAND.. ironically the only thing they actually got right…

    • Just another day in the life of the perpetual fuck up known as MTM…

      Don’t forget the one hefty tax bill for the future the children will have to wear as this lumbering turkey called the MTM lurches from one cost blowout to another in its life cycle with the ever moving completion date.

      • Indeed HC, but of course such people like our dearest FRAUDBAND friends here, aren’t worried about the children…”now” ;)

  4. So we end up with a “21st century” telecommunications network, built by private contractors at a cost of $50 billion, that’s barely faster than the one built half a century ago, and which stops working altogether in heavy weather.

    Well done, Malcolm, mission accomplished, NBN destroyed.

    • How is it barely faster? My broadband went from 5Mbit to 100Mbit in one jump! Plus being under 100m from the node, I can jump a further 120Mbit to 220Mbit when the network cap is lifted.

      Besides that, if you work the costings for the ALP’s fiasco vs premises serviced, you will find that it would have ended up in the 100’s of billions, not 50!! Being off budget is dangerous with ALP at helm, it will be a fiscal bloodbath for the Unions to shower themselves in!! You never ever take what they tell you its going to cost with the ALP, always keep in mind that their surplus ended up being a 40Bn deficit ;-) But they dont care, most of the people who vote for them only look at lefty media headlines for their political info and never ever really look into it after the fact…

      • “How is it barely faster? My broadband went from 5Mbit to 100Mbit in one jump! Plus being under 100m from the node, I can jump a further 120Mbit to 220Mbit when the network cap is lifted.”

        The backhaul to each node doesn’t currently allow for that. The backhaul, at full capacity, allows for 1.05Mbps guaranteed throughput. This can be upgraded to 10GPON in the future, but is currently not planned. So the network cap will not be lifted in the near future.

        “Besides that, if you work the costings for the ALP’s fiasco vs premises serviced, you will find that it would have ended up in the 100’s of billions, not 50!!”

        The latest per premises cost NBNco. provided for the current rollout infrastructure of FTTP was just over $3200. The trial with thin fibre and less redundancy pushed that to $2400. FTTN is currently sitting just over $2000, likely to fall to around $1400 after ramp up.

        I’m not sure what maths you’re using, but even 93% at FTTP could only cost $33B at the higher $3200 figure, without taking into account thin fibre etc. The fact that Labor started the rollout is irrelevant to the total cost- NBNCo. are running the rollout.

      • “How is it barely faster?”
        Since you claim to live in the 3% of premises within a healthy distance from the node, why don’t you ask the other 97%?

        Do you know what ‘exponential’ drop off means?

        “if you work the costings for the ALP’s fiasco vs premises serviced, you will find that it would have ended up in the 100’s of billions, not 50!!”
        That’s interesting, because it’s proven that they only spent $6b, whereas the Liberals are proven to have killed $20b.

        “Being off budget is dangerous with ALP at helm”
        You mean the people who have been consistently better at economic management than the Liberals in every term, with the Kevin/Gillard government bringing our OECD rating up to #1 in the world and affording us a AAA credit rating?

        Seems like if anyone could have delivered a project off budget, it was the party that DOESN’T drag us down in the world ranking -EVERY- -SINGLE- -TIME- (with our current leaders being rated as worse than Menzies).

        “it will be a fiscal bloodbath for the Unions to shower themselves in!!”
        You know the Royal Commission proved them innocent, right? That leaves the only criminals being the people who set up that particular Royal Commission…

        The rest of what you wrote was further unsubstantiated bullshit. Citations or GTFO you goon.

  5. FTTN is not robust, a half baked bandaid solution now we just need to power outages due to bushfires or other events to prove how cheap and nasty it is. Unfortunately the HFC is the same standard never actually designed to provide a robust reliable connection. This is why Telstra never delivers critical services on node or HFC. I’m not saying FTTP is fool proof but it can weather more events than all other deliver types.

    • Still needs power for the household modem to work….

      Still needs power for the RIM / Local fibre node to work…

      Landline phones are no longer ideal for emergency use in a disaster type situation. My advice would be to grab one of the 2 or 3 mobile phones in your house and use it, since mobile towers are battery backed up and all ;-)

      • “Still needs power for the household modem to work….”

        For businesses/critical systems, modems and telecommunications are generally battery backed.

        “Still needs power for the RIM / Local fibre node to work…”

        No….you don’t. That was the point of the GPON infrastructure. The FAN (the fibre equivalent of an Exchange) needs power. But it is housed in teh Exchange and likely to have its’ own backup power source. The GPON infrastructure to the “node” requires no power whatsoever.

      • “Still needs power for the household modem to work….”
        Like literally every other technology? What a deal breaker!

        I guess that battery backup connected to my FTTP modem won’t do anything.

        “Still needs power for the RIM / Local fibre node to work…”
        Bzzt guess again. They’re called passive for a reason.

        “My advice would be to grab one of the 2 or 3 mobile phones in your house and use it, since mobile towers are battery backed up and all ;-)”
        Yup that 1 bar connection from Telstra inside my house is really great in emergencies. I can only imagine how many more bars I’d get when everyones’ power is out in an emergency situation.

        Any other pointless gibberish you’d like to spew forth?

        • Typical LibTroll though, it’s like they’ve never heard of solar with battery storage…

          • In QLD my rates are 15c / 27c and a daily charge of $1.50, but who knows where they’ll end up with all the shenanigans the providers are pulling lately.

            I have a 7kW array and am just waiting for the price to come down on the RedFlow ZCells (I’ll be looking at getting 2). After looking into it, I prefer them to the Li-ion solutions, for a range of reasons (no loss after cycling, can store the charge indefinitely, etc).

            And people are forecasting a 40-50% drop in battery storage by 2018-2020:

            http://reneweconomy.com.au/2016/australian-battery-storage-costs-may-fall-40-two-years-28839

            We’re getting very, very close.

          • The flow cell does read very good for longevity and no loss of capacity. It works very well if using to charge from grid AC, but the 10% loss of DC to DC conversion efficiency with the additional loss of almost 1% efficiency each year is a concern if using it for solar storage. In your case it brings your array back to almost 6kW instead of 7kW.

            Otherwise it still does wipe its proverbial arse using the lithium competition which only wins in terms of weight.

          • There’s a few things happening with Li-ion too that may make things really interesting (carbon nanotubes, titanium dioxide anodes and a few other tweaks) but if they get the Aluminium-air batteries happening, I think Li-ion might be done.

            http://fortune.com/2015/04/27/gigafactory-obsolete/

            I think waiting for a while is probably a good thing.

          • Looking through the article the Alu-air battery was meant to be commercial ready by 2015 and the giga factory 2016 so both targets are off. I havent even heard of it to be honest.

            I was under the impression that litthium sulfur was the next stage for capacity and charge time etc.

            Either way, I’ll ride my lithium stocks for a little while longer ;-)

        • Step outside and you might find the signal improves dramatically… Could set up a chair outside too if you cant be arsed standing ;-)

          • “Step outside”
            Great solution in an emergency situation. Floods? Just step outside, you’ll be fine.

            Meanwhile, that landline connection that used to work just fine… You know, what the topic was about. Still works as well on the FTTP tech, btw. Not so much on literally anything else.

          • Just as wet outside as in isnt it?! If your on your root it wont be the home phone your calling with. And Im guessing your home phone is also cordless and of no use without power?

        • The bog stock standard modem doesnt have a built in battery backup. We cant argue that ALL FTTP connections are best because yours alone has a battery backup.

          Stock your cupboard with a torch and some board games or books… Are you that addicted to the internet that a 1 in 5 or 1 in 10 storm power outage is so dramatic its a case of life and death?!

          My phone 4G works when the power is out, doesnt yours?

          • “We cant argue that ALL FTTP connections are best because yours alone has a battery backup.”
            You’re continuing to demonstrate very little knowledge of the FTTP NBN. You have to opt -out- of having a battery backup; indeed at first it wasn’t even an option – you HAD to have it. Both install types were free to install, so no – the FTTP connection without battery backup IS the exception. The user is made known full well what the consequences of that will be and they have to sign away their rights to complain about it.

            “Stock your cupboard with a torch and some board games or books”
            This is your strongest argument against Christophers comment? Play board games? What kind of pathetic tripe are you trying to sell?

            Tell it to the elderly or disabled whose medical alarm systems fail.

            “My phone 4G works when the power is out, doesnt yours?”
            For a fraction of the time the battery backup does, of course.

          • “This is your strongest argument against Christophers comment? Play board games? What kind of pathetic tripe are you trying to sell?”

            My argument was that the amount of time you could expect to be without internet or phone access is irrelevant unless your a multicorp or have a full time connected medical alert device, so therefor quit winging like uninterruptible internet access is a human right and do something other than facebook or instagram until the power is restored.

            And if its the case that it is absolutely necessary in medical alert systems, then the fibre could be subsidized for the install or as is the case in the newer ones, a 3G / 4G sim could be used for backup ;-)

            Why should the entire country be paid for to be dug up and serviced with fibre when 80% of takeup is 12.5Mbit or 25Mbit plans that FttN is more than sufficient to cover?! Those wanting fibre only want it because they believe its a magical cure all and or for nerdy dick measuring competitions on whose broadband is fastest or has the lowest ping…

          • so therefor quit winging like uninterruptible internet access is a human right and do something other than facebook or instagram until the power is restored.

            The UN declared it a human right in 2011, but then you aren’t a “leftie” and probably think human rights are a waste of time anyway.

            Those wanting fibre only want it because they believe its a magical cure all and or for nerdy dick measuring competitions on whose broadband is fastest or has the lowest ping…

            Is that what you’ll tell your kids when they are working for an asian company?

          • Ill let you know in 15 years or more… the FttP might be completed by then!

            No wonder the UN has little traction outside of the left wing nutter circles… In that case, we best be sending billions to “the country of Africa” to get their NBN rolling! Just slap it on Swannies credit card ?

          • Ill let you know in 15 years or more… the FttP might be completed by then!

            Perhaps by then the AEC will be able to figure out who “won” ;o)

            No wonder the UN has little traction outside of the left wing nutter circles… In that case, we best be sending billions to “the country of Africa” to get their NBN rolling! Just slap it on Swannies credit card ?

            True, and maybe in 15 years Australia may start to think about starting to catch up the the rest of the world! At least were doing better than Greece!

            http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/888933224641

            Give your kids my best for them, I guess they’ll need it ;o)

          • “At least were doing better than Greece!”

            Minority government and senate full of clowns coming up… I’d say were lapping at their heels and dont even know it yet… and thats best case with LNP forming minority! If ALP form minority, the hair brained policy of 50% renewables will send us to the dark ages alone without any purse strings the unions tug at for their backpay in pounds of flesh :-(

          • and thats best case with LNP forming minority!

            Not really. If the LPA get back in they’ll give away $50b to Google and Apple (most of which will go to the IRS in the good old US of A).

            I’m more worried about how the LPA will make up for a $50b shortfall in their revenue…

  6. With no USO obligations I’d say days is probably going to be optimistic too.

    I figured there’d have to be decent fail safes for the live power connections (electricity companies cop nasty penalties otherwise … including their exec’s). I’m still not convinced about submersion of those batteries though (more about damage to the equipment/batteries than people though in that case).

  7. So you get a few centimeters of rain and then your local telecommunications services could be out for days while NBN Co sends someone out to check on the situation. Am I reading this correctly?

    Sounds worse than the situation we have now, such is the folly of putting active equipment in the streets.

  8. What a f***ing joke. And based on all available evidence, we’ve got 3 more years of this yet to come. I look forward to the day when we (in other words… LABOR) have to spend $100 Billion fixing this farce. I’m sure all the blame will fall on Labor and none of it on the Coalition, Malcolm or his hand-picked team of yes men.

  9. I know, let’s put these enormous and intrusive cabinets on the tops of poles. That way more taxpayers can enjoy their hard-earned wasted in an even more visual ugly way.

    What a totally predicted and unfunny joke fttn is.

  10. Works best when it floods and rains. Boosts the faulty signal over the noise. It’s a requirement of the snake oil Alcatel noise reduction I believe.

    Great for productivity and the economy I believe. You are supposed to watch your Foxtel even on the job with all the downtime I believe according to Murdoch and the Liberals.

  11. To be fair, it would have to be a decent flood to kill a node (trip the breaker). The batteries are close to 30cm high. Plus a few cm extra to the first electronic components. The breaker would trip within 400 micro seconds of it detecting a ground short, so there’s no risk to the public.

    Essentially, a node just moves the problem of flooding to being more regular, for less people. Exchanges are usually well drained, situated in high areas and even have backup pumps in some cases. They would rarely flood and if they did, there’d be bigger things to worry about than just phone lines going down (power, roads, mobile cells fed from the exchanges etc.). They’d take out (potentially) tens of thousands of premises, or several thousand in rural areas more prone to flooding.

    A node would only take out a few hundred. An area of nodes might go down regularly, if prone to flooding or badly drained. Shit for those in the area. Better for the telco. Though probably costs just as much when you have to traipse across the countryside to each node, rather than having it centered at the exchange.

    • For me it raises the bigger problem that the comm’s would largely be down in these situations. Given that sort of rain usually triggers disaster conditions, isnt that kind of when you want comm’s to be as reliable as possible?

      • These days landlines are losing their crown as the “fallback” emergency. Even to older people. My mum can barely use the alarm clock on her mobile, but she’d use it for 000 without thinking. And mobile cells usually being on hills for best reception so avoiding flooding and using fibre backhaul make them more likely to survive.

        It’s a sad state of affairs that landlines are becoming the less reliable infrastructure. But unfortunately, physical infrastructure is very unexciting and prohibitively expensive, per customer, compared to wireless.

        • “It’s a sad state of affairs that landlines are becoming the less reliable infrastructure”

          In terms of disaster comm’s they really aren’t despite the bad state its in.

          If a large incident happens the first thing that’s generally expected to fail/over load (in most disaster plans etc) are the mobile networks. I mean a 12-24hr black out would prevent most people from being able communicate (ie batteries run dry).

          The ability to place a land line phone call requires very little to work. For purely communication perspective the copper is extremely resilient and tolerant of a lot of things happening to it (all those things will completely screw ones internet but you can make a phone call).

          • “The ability to place a land line phone call requires very little to work. For purely communication perspective the copper is extremely resilient and tolerant of a lot of things happening to it ”

            That’s very true. It’s the one advantage copper has over fibre- self-driving power system. Mind you, if the exchange goes down….well, you’re screwed anyway. So it’s not a huge advantage, but it has served us well. Ironically it was better in the past when it went to a local operator- the Exchange didn’t come into it and you could get help from your local area regardless.

            “If a large incident happens the first thing that’s generally expected to fail/over load (in most disaster plans etc) are the mobile networks. I mean a 12-24hr black out would prevent most people from being able communicate (ie batteries run dry).”

            True, except many more remote cells are now solar fed. I know several in the remoter areas of the Southern Highlands are. Feasibly they could continue working for weeks….actually, I take that back. The weather would never stay that good for that long in the Highlands!

        • Mobile towers themselves may not be susceptible to flooding but mobile networks still have many more points of failure than landlines do. In the “best case” mobile towers do have direct fibre backhaul and battery backup but the vast majority of locations are nowhere near the best case (AFAIK). They couldn’t really be considered reliable in an emergency.

          • “In the “best case” mobile towers do have direct fibre backhaul and battery backup but the vast majority of locations are nowhere near the best case (AFAIK)”

            Actually, most do these days. It’s far and away the most common. There are microwave fed ones, but they tend to be very rural. Telstra’s 7000 odd sites are probably 85% fibre fed.

        • Good to see you 7T, dont think I’ve seen you around for a while :)

          More worried that the default position for ANY comms is now going to be inactive in serious events. How did that become OK?

          You want as many options as possible, and even if they are using more mobile services, you’d hope a fixed line service would operate most of the time.

          The power going to the copper is the issue, obviously, and one the Liberals chose not to consider with their plan. It wasnt a major problem with normal phone lines, which were also effected by rain just not to the point where you expected them to switch off.

          While we complain about the condition of the copper service, they were built to protect the line from elements, and for the most part that worked. But these nodes take the inbuilt protection out of the process and leave the live copper lines exposed.

          Needing to be manually reset once things are operational again is just the cream on top with this.

    • “Looks like the water would need to get to at least the cabinet handle height to be able to trip the node.”

      Agreed, I remarked this earlier:

      –To be fair, it would have to be a decent flood to kill a node (trip the breaker). The batteries are close to 30cm high. Plus a few cm extra to the first electronic components. The breaker would trip within 400 micro seconds of it detecting a ground short, so there’s no risk to the public–

      “The cabinet space under neath is all battery, therefor DC power and only extra low voltage and no affected by submersion.”

      Not dangerous. But certainly not no effect. Ask any telecommunications engineer what flood water does to copper cable, let alone terminals. Particularly with DC power running through them….

      • Agreed that the DC current and water would impact them physically, but I meant that the continuation of service supply wouldnt be affected for the short time of submersion a flash flood would impose on it.

        All nodes should be visited after a decent rain even to pre-emptively check on its condition. But at the current rate of NBN takeup, a dedicated trip is most likely not required as they are there changing over premises every other day anyway.

  12. Can we all stop the paranoia about mains electricity? There’s plenty to fault about these designs, but Australian standards around mains power and safety well and truly cover this.

    Focus on actual flaws rather than spreading FUD.

  13. So is the government supplying mobile phones to the elderly who would normally rely on a landline for emergency calls. Flooding is quite likely to be a time when the elderly might need to make an emergency call also!

  14. Not really convinced there is an immediate safety concern here. However, one would need to question the turnaround and the time it takes to recover in the case a node was to trip out – 1 hour or 1 week? etc – while the local area is “out of service” for this time frame.
    I do see the oddness of some installs – eg, the photo of the node cm’s from the edge of the river. To me it doesn’t really matter if it’s safe or not (in general it wouldn’t be installed if not) – it’s just plain odd and strange to do that – and may risk other things that are not commonly planned in the “general risk assessment” – will this thing sink over time in the soggy mud? or a boaty mooring the tinnie off the cabinet, will the local ducks eventually chew through the cabinet and expose dangerous live wires…..

    • The only real safety concern would be for things like medical alarms and folks that have a phone line through it.

      Malcolm did only promise “sooner, cheaper and more affordably”, he said nothing about “sturdy” or “usable in emergencies”.

  15. For a point of comparison we need to have both FTTP and FTTN deployed in Bowral, so when flooding occurs we can show the residences in streets that had FTTP and were flooded had no problems and the residences in streets that had FTTN and were flooded lost their BB service.

    We don’t have that point of comparison.

    • “We don’t have that point of comparison.”

      Actually we do. Approx. 6km away in a neighbouring town of Mittagong, they have NBN in their new estate of approx 200 premises. There was no loss of service.

      There are also several well documented cases of FTTP in QLD working during floods. As long as the FAN remains active (usually housed in the local exchange) the service remains active.

    • Or we can just compare passive equipment to electrical equipment and with the clarification from nbn themselves that just a few cms of rain is enough to turn off an entire portion of the landline telecommunications network one can use a bit of (un)common sense and deduce that one technology is clearly superior to the other in such an instance.

      Additionally, nbn have NOT clarified that they have rigged the FTTP portion of the network to switch itself off with just a few cms of rain. There’s a reason for that.

      Think.

      • Fire and flood were two of the reasons (amongst many more) the expert panel recommended FttP in the first place.

        • Dont fibre optic plastics and glasses melt when heated? So the specially apointed (by labor) “experts” list of reasons for fibre is now : votes, cos other nations can afford it so can we, occasional sporadic fire and flood resistance, votes, playstation updates (mind you, my updates still took hours last night and went no faster on 100Mbit than it did on 5Mbit, meaning the Sony server is the bottleneck), business use that requires it despite them being able to install it if required and claim it back on tax, and votes…

          • “Dont fibre optic plastics and glasses melt when heated?”

            Not unless the node is subjected to more than an hour of intense heat. Any node that is that densely surrounded by bushland is gone anyway. The electronics in an FTTN node would be cooked after 10 mins above 80 degrees.

          • “mind you, my updates still took hours last night and went no faster on 100Mbit than it did on 5Mbit”
            Sony delivers me anywhere between 15-65Mbps depending on their mood, so if you get less than that I’d be wondering about your RSP.

            “occasional sporadic fire and flood resistance”
            Yeah cuz it never rains just a few cms in Australia.

          • 5Mbit connection was Telstra, 100Mbit NBN connection is Optus. Friends was on Dodo ADSL2+ and all run slower than they should from Sony. Either way, those out thinking that an increase in sync speed to the local exchange is going to make everything run faster are kidding themselves… CVC, internation pipes all come into play.

          • playstation updates (mind you, my updates still took hours last night and went no faster on 100Mbit than it did on 5Mbit, meaning the Sony server is the bottleneck)

            Hours???!

            My PS4 has never taken longer than a half hour, even for the big ones…

          • PS4 might get priority over PS3? Was a 6Gb download with 12 parts so installations slowed it too.

            How big is a big one in your opinion?

          • PS4 might get priority over PS3? Was a 6Gb download with 12 parts so installations slowed it too.

            Maybe, never really looked into it.

            How big is a big one in your opinion?

            Once again, never really bothered looking, they don’t take long enough for me to worry about it. The last one I did (3.55) was 286Mb (still sitting in the cache).

          • Little different to 6Gb huh ;-) I’d say 1/21 of the size if I had to guess ;-) Take into account the install takes half the time as the download, I could postulate my update taking between 30 and 40 times the time yours did / do, and if yours was a mere 10 mins, thats still 300 mins at least or 5 hours ;-)

          • Maybe. My point was mostly about the time that decent network connections saves people, which is why we have 1Gbps connections at my work. Gives us more time to get on with more important shit (or doing family stuff at home) than sitting and waiting for stuff to finish downloading.

  16. you Liberal National Murdocracy ppl make me laugh.
    Uncle Rupert asked Mr Rabbit to destroy the Labor NBN and well they did their Uncle’s bidding for a while.
    Morons.
    i moved to NZ for work reasons. They initially looked at fibre to the node and rolled it out but guess what? htey realised it was the wrong option.
    I’m with an ISP called bigpipe. I have fibre into my apartment loungeroom. The fibre termination box the ONT (optical network termination point) i have a flawless 200/200 Mb/s up and down connection. Something that my native Oz can only dream of.
    NBN is a political issue, and so it should be. The Liberal National Murdocracy thinks it’s about movie downloads….the Labor party etc knows it’s about competing online and there’s the difference right there

    • NZ isnt punching out deficit after deficit either and only has a population density of 17 people per square vs Australia’s 3!

      How much of that 200/200 do you actually consume at any one time?

      Did you buy a mansion when working at Macca’s incase you had 10 kids later or did you buy a small house within you means, wait to be promoted or got educated into a higher role and then purchased the next size house up and so on and so forth?

      The Labor party know nothing about competing, otherwise they would support lower business taxes accross the board. The NBN was a vote buyer thought up at the last moment to try and save some votes, plain and simple. They found a sore spot, took it off budget so it didnt make the deficit look even worse and ran with it.

      So while Im thinking of it, whats the income tax like over there? And which party is in charge, left or right? ;-)

      • How much of that 200/200 do you actually consume at any one time?

        I have 1Gbps symmetrical here and “at any one time” I can saturate it moving images around ;o)

        The Labor party know nothing about competing, otherwise they would support lower business taxes accross the board.

        They don’t, but the business people they put on the PoE that made the actual decision to use FttP do.

      • “Did you buy a mansion when working at Macca’s incase you had 10 kids later or did you buy a small house within you means, wait to be promoted or got educated into a higher role and then purchased the next size house up and so on and so forth?”
        lol thinking todays younger generations have a shot at buying a house, ever.

        “The Labor party know nothing about competing”
        How DO you explain Gillards #1 OECD rating, btw? OECD are crooks I suppose?

        • Not when they all want to go straight to a 4 bedder with ensuites, garage and pool and dont want to work their way up. They also dont want to have to save for a deposit nor live in a shadey suburb before upgrading.

          Link please, not a fairfax one either for the OECD?

          • “Not when they all want to go straight to a 4 bedder with ensuites, garage and pool and dont want to work their way up.”

            4 Bedder house????? Mate, I’d be happy with a 2 bedroom apartment in the Outer West. Cheapest decent sized one I can find is $650k. 10 years ago I was being paid $20 an hour no-contract. I’m now on $36 an hour, with MAXIMUM 1 year contracts. I’m still 15 years from being able to afford a deposit on a non-LMI mortgage.

            Perhaps when you’ve grown up in a world of properties that START at 10 times your BEST average annual pay at 30 years old, you can start lecturing us about “not working hard enough and a sense of entitlement”. I have no respect for people who don’t even try and understand a different generation’s circumstances.

          • Settle your tits mate, Im 35 and bought my 2.5 bedder for $350k 10 years ago at the the height of the boom and its only now worth $400k-ish.

            Its nothing to do with my generation. And your right, I have no sympathy at all for people who choose to live in Sydney / Melbourne on entry level wages and refuse to move to smaller towns like Newcastle or Woolongong etc, where the wage is the same, houses are half the price and there are no tolls or crap like it.

            So negating your entire second paragraph, its looks like were back to : move somewhere cheaper or quit whinging. Simple logic really. Otherwise, do what I did when times were lean and I didnt have kids : FIFO ;-)

          • Read it properly. My generation comment was a direct rebuke to being referenced to like i was a boomer when im only gen x.

            And didnt your team promote the NBN as the answer for tech jobs to be able to work from the cloud or at home?!

          • “My team”? Who do you think I voted for Dan? ;o)

            An you’re clueless if you think Gen X is off the hook…especially when you think paying only $350k for a place 10 years ago is expensive….hell my third property was more than that, and that was a townhouse.

          • Going by your last comment about your third house, Im going to go with anyone but the Labor party and their neg gearing policies?!

            Im still not sure why gen x has come into this as it was never part of the argument. I brought my age into it to refute sevens agument I got my house cheap as I was a boomer or something.

            And congratulations on your townhouse… Sarc. For Newcastle / Lake Macquarie, 350k was a lot of dough, but me and the missus worked hard to buy in a suburb we liked with no shops and minimal public transport in order to keep away from the welfare grubs we both grew up with in our childhood suburbs.

          • worked hard to buy in a suburb we liked with no shops and minimal public transport

            Ah, that’s why it’s only worth 50k more after 10 years then….location, location, location mate, you always need to look at proximity of public infrastructure if you want to maximise your investment ;o)

          • Didnt say i was unhappy ? You also need to maintain fences, kitchens and bathrooms ? Being out of work for long periods of time kinda smashes the crap out of any savings. Glad to be out of construction though, high highs, matching lows. ..

          • Didnt say i was unhappy ? You also need to maintain fences, kitchens and bathrooms ? Being out of work for long periods of time kinda smashes the crap out of any savings. Glad to be out of construction though, high highs, matching lows. ..

            Agree with all that! And if you’re ever unhappy with life, you really need to sit down and reprioritise things ;o)

            Some things you think are important in your life, really aren’t, and vice versa :o)

            If you find your own way in life, and are happy, that’s all that really counts.

  17. “I have no sympathy at all for people who choose to live in Sydney / Melbourne on entry level wages and refuse to move to smaller towns like Newcastle or Woolongong etc”

    So, your solution to the problem of a massively skewed property markets ruining any hope of a young person owning a nice home, having a stable job and providing for a family in a place they like….is moving to a place they don’t like, where jobs are much harder to find, don’t look for a nice house….and don’t have a family…. Yeah. You got my point exactly. Oh, and by the way, $36/hour is an entry level wage???? I earn 20-30% MORE than average. By your logic, I should be able to afford a mansion.

    “move somewhere cheaper or quit whinging. Simple logic really. Otherwise, do what I did when times were lean and I didnt have kids”

    Excellent. I’ll just pack up my life, move to a place I don’t know anyone, commute 2.5 hours into the city because that’s where people live so that’s where the jobs are, forget any hope of having a typical Australian life with a family….JUST so I can buy a mediocre house there….where I don’t want to be….by myself.

    My 82 year old father bought a massive 4 bedroom apartment in Rose Bay for $65 000 in the 70’s. Alot of money- About $350k in today’s money. He was a pilot and was paid well- About $50k a year. He is absolutely disgusted that the same apartment would now sell for MINIMUM $2M, simply because property market. The average house price in most cities in 1985 was 4-6 times the average wage. The average house price, now, is closer to 20 times the average wage. I don’t care how old you are, if you don’t see an inherent issue with how the property market is skewed, you’re part of the reason it will never change.

    • Actually you are. As your the one still trying to pay for the overpriced and undersized property and I’m the one who paid within my means at the time and compromised on many things. Why would a property market slow, when people like you continue to pay over priced houses?!

      • I can’t buy anything overpriced. I can’t afford it. I don’t plan on buying as a result. That’s the point. And yet, the property market will still continue to get further and further out of my range.

        In case you hadn’t noticed, first home buyers and young couples aren’t actually the reason the property market is ludicrous….

        • Of course you can buy over priced. Over priced doesnt mean unaffordable you know. You might be able to afford to buy or rent a two bedder in Sydney vs a 4 bedder in a more rural town or city.

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