[LINK] Battery back-up mandatory for NBN?

[Tom Worthington]

Richard Chirgwin wrote:
> ... Everyone's forgetting that Tasmania is a pilot. ... The minister
> didn't claim that the batteries *are* being provided, he said he has
> instructed that the backup *will be* mandatory; which I suppose
> returns to the "pilot vs. live" issue. ...

My understanding is that the NBN is being provided in Tasmania as a
commercial service, not an experiment. So if the NBN is supposed to have 
a battery backup, these customers should have it.

As there are only a few hundred NBN customers in Tasmania and the system
is already engineered for backup batteries, it should be feasible to 
install all of these by the end of November 2010.

Richard Chirgwin wrote:
> ... So it's not that tough an issue; and if people want the battery 
> backup to be mandatory and NBN Co's responsibility, then they're 
> quite free to put that view to the USO inquiry. ...

There are numerous submissions to DBCDE on Fibre-to-the-premises in
greenfield estates which mention option of battery backup. But I could
not find any which suggested how many hours backup was needed:
<http://www.google.com/search?q=Fibre-to-the-premises+in+greenfield+estates+uso+battery+backup+site%3Adbcde.gov.au>.

The report "USO FORWARD LOOKING TECHNOLOGIES FOR 1998/99 AND 1999/2000"
by GIBSON  QUAI  PTY  LTD, January, 2000 on the ACMA web site suggests
24 hours battery backup for customer equipment:
<http://acma.gov.au/webwr/telcomm/universal_service_regime/usotechnology_report.rtf>.

Even with the need for battery backup and the number of hours agreed,
there would remain the issue of who was going to pay for and arrange
replacement batteries. The batteries only cost about $25 retail, but the
cost of a technician to replace them would be much higher than that. I 
don not believe that it is practical to have this as a user replaceable 
item. This could increase the cost of the NBN by one or two dollars per 
month, per customer.


Kim Holburn wrote:
> ... At least 4 hours? ...

Yes, I proposed 4 hours backup for the NBN customer equipment in 
presentations to government and industry during 2009. This is the figure 
the NBN is using, but I don't know if they got it from me, or elsewhere. 
I am not sure where I got it from and it may be because this was the 
time the backup battery lasts in the LG LSP-350T CDMA fixed wireless 
telephone I saw in India in 2005: 
<http://blog.tomw.net.au/2005/12/cybercafes-in-mapusa.html>.


Harry McNally wrote:

>... Can the rechargeable backup battery be removed for external charging

 From the diagrams in the NBN Tasmania manual, the battery appears to be 
a standard lead acid gel unit, as used for burglar alarms: 
<http://www.nbntasmania.com.au/283/NBNT1829%20NBN%20UPS%20Brochure.pdf>.

So it would be possible to remove the battery for charging. However, 
these batteries need to be correctly charged and are not foolproof. I 
replaced the battery in my UPS, but it is not something I would 
recommend the average member of the public do: 
<http://blog.tomw.net.au/2010/03/new-ups-battery.html>.

ps: If you think gel batteries are safe, try dropping one on your foot. ;-)


-- 
Tom Worthington FACS CP HLM, TomW Communications Pty Ltd. t: 0419496150
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia  http://www.tomw.net.au
Adjunct Senior Lecturer, School of Computer Science, The
Australian National University http://cs.anu.edu.au/courses/COMP7310/