[LINK] Battery back-up mandatory for NBN?

[Harry McNally]

Kim Holburn wrote:
> Anyone have any idea how long the Telstra exchanges would hold up in the
> event of a prolonged blackout?  I assume they have a maintenance plan and
> testing as well.  Is that likely to happen in private homes?  I don't think
> so.

A story I was told by a senior Telstra employee was about dissatisfaction with
Telstra service during some floods in FNQ quite a few years ago. The exchanges
couldn't be accessed to refuel the diesel backup generators so the phone
system only kept working on the available diesel and the large battery set in
each exchange.

Customers complained when the service started failing after three weeks.

This pre-dates DSLAMs and other network equipment in exchanges now so the
running time may have changed.

It's an interesting issue for the NBN NTU design whether it senses loss of
external power and does significant power reduction to only provide POTS
facilities to extend battery life.

Also does the NTU battery compartment design allows standard primary cells to
be installed in place of rechargeable ones ?

Can the rechargeable backup battery be removed for external charging ?

Will the customer be permitted to change batteries in the NTU in an emergency ?

As long as the options are considered in the design of the NTU then emergency
use should be feasible.

Harry