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Forum: General Talk
03-23-2017, 03:30 PM
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Uninformed managers – an offshoot of the Uninformed Client scenario.
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Forum: General Talk
03-23-2017, 01:16 PM
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Those who have FTTP are offered the choice of including battery backup as part of the installation. It isn't expensive.
This is where it gets complex here in Australia, because the initial scheme was to provide FTTP to all non-remote subscribers. The scheme was changed when the government changed, but only for regions where installation programs hadn't been commenced. The local copper distribution cabling was retained in the remaining areas, where FTTN was then offered. The copper trunk mains are the ones being replaced by fibre optic everywhere except for remote areas, where satellite communications are being offered, instead.
It's not the population number that's the big problem here, it's the distance between population centres, and that increases the unit costs for all networks in Australia – road, rail or communications.
Amen to that, no more so than when it comes to maintenance.
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Forum: General Talk
03-23-2017, 04:45 AM
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The only telephone exchanges I've seen here had rechargeable battery banks, not generator backup, but that's not to say that some didn't. So, is it on their heads if someone dies after a prolonged power outage that exhausts those batteries and no landline service is available?
In the case of FTTP, the onus is on the individual subscriber to decide whether or not to include a battery backup. In the case of FTTN, I have no idea whether or not the nodes have emergency power supplies, but they obviously need a power supply to feed the copper connections to the customers.
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Forum: General Talk
03-22-2017, 01:31 PM
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I'm not sure I understand all that's being put here. Redundancy usually means having a parallel system to take over in the event of failure of the main system. Reliability arises from a number of measures, including but not restricted to redundancy. Dual feeds, ring-mains and backup generation or storage are the usual redundancy measures for power supplies. Dual feeds are of limited help unless they are physically separated. Our members here who have a knowledge of terrestrial communications should be able to tell us what has pertained in Australia, and what is provided with the implementation of the NBN.
The most fundamental measure is the provision of an alternative means of supplying energy to the system. The former copper network was powered by a battery-backed DC supply, so that telephone lines kept working for a while if the local AC power grid went down. I assume the NBN fibre-optic system is also provided with backup to maintain it in the event of a power grid outage, but again I rely on those in the industry to confirm that. Consumers with FTTP are further offered the choice of including a battery backup at the premises, at additional cost, to power the optical-copper converter needed to connect voice and data devices to the system. (I have a spare UPS to provide the same facility, so I didn't opt for that offer.) I have no idea what is provided for those who have FTTN.
PS: a two-wire electrical system is only useful for redundancy if there is a separate return circuit. In power systems, this is sometimes done using an earth return. Is that what you mean by a "conditioned" two-wire system?
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Forum: General Talk
03-22-2017, 04:42 AM
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I often wonder what "political" means in this context. I've always assumed it actually meant "partisan", so I try to stick to abstract non-partisan comments in these threads, where it's hard to avoid discussing matters of public interest that involve government.
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Forum: General Talk
03-21-2017, 09:07 PM
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Speaking in general, the big problem for governments who want to do something real, is that they mostly no longer have any in-house expertise to provide them with objective advice on dealing with such matters. Consultants (and I am one) have their own axe to grind and want repeat business, so they'll generally tell the Minister or whoever what they want to hear, and if they don't, they get ignored. The phenomenon is well-known and often exploited by unscrupulous players, and bears a name that describes it perfectly: Uninformed Client.
Filtering content, or the stated intent to do so, by the way, started a long time before the NBN.
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Forum: General Talk
03-21-2017, 01:39 PM
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There's a once-off setup fee, and that's all. Mind you, it is a not-for-profit organisation, so they're not looking to squeeze the CEO's golf fees out of the clients.
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Forum: General Talk
03-21-2017, 01:12 PM
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Assuming Telstra is maintaining their mobile network in Albury, there's no reason other than cost to consider switching to the NBN. My mother is in a retirement home in Hobart and uses the facility's WiFi system to access the Internet on her iPad, simply because it's cheaper for her than continuing to use the iPad's mobile SIM card. Needless to say the facility's WiFi runs off the NBN.
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Forum: General Talk
03-21-2017, 03:36 AM
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It's pretty much what I described in my post above.
This will make a great example for a future university business or government faculty case study in how pure partisan politicking can create costly, inefficient government initiatives. I'm sure people in other countries are seeing some of this happening, where an opposition will campaign vigorously against anything and everything that a government does. In the old days, they'd generally quietly shelve their campaign when they got into government, but now they seem to have more often convinced themselves with their own BS, so they have to come up with something to replace their opponent's proposals, no matter if it is inferior.
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Forum: General Talk
03-21-2017, 03:22 AM
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Fixed your Telstra ownership statement.
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Forum: General Talk
03-21-2017, 03:11 AM
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No, but you're not missing much. NBN = National Broadband Network, which was conceived as a (mostly) nationwide fibre optic voice and data network by the former government under PM Kevin Rudd, but vehemently opposed by the then-opposition/now government who locked themselves into a hybrid fibre-copper solution because they said it would be cheaper. Arguably, it isn't and doesn't work as well.
Here in Australia's South Island, we were fortunate enough to be among the first installations, so we have a complete fibre optic network, whereas the benighted rest of the country has to put up with the hybrid network. I had no problem with any of my two installations (home and office), which work well. Remoter parts of our wide brown land have been promised satellite communications, some of which are said to work.
Like I said: you're not missing much in all that, being in the soon-to-be Scexit part of the UK, where communications are probably far superior to those in the colonies.
PS: FTTP = Fibre to the Premises, as against FTTN = Fibre to the Node (ie somewhere in the neighbourhood, but not your front door).
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