[LINK] Battery back-up mandatory for NBN?

Paul Brooks pbrooks-link at layer10.com.au
Wed Oct 27 11:07:03 AEDT 2010


On 25/10/2010 4:45 PM, Tom Koltai 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.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> RC
> Actually, it is that tough of an issue.
> There are a whole group of people that can't tie their shoelaces.
> These folk normally just buy slip-on shoes.
>
> But to be told that by Government that your slip-ons will be replaced by
> shoes that need laces and that one has no choice is an issue.

No its not - its another aspect that community groups that exist to help these people 
can help them with.
Yes, there will be people that will find this incomprehensible - just as there are 
people that find bus timetables incomprehensible.
As a society, we develop ways of helping these people out - and I can see groups, 
perhaps like meals-on-wheels or other groups that do home visits, evolve to provide 
for changing over the battery when needed.

The reality is that line-power for telephone handsets when the mains power has failed 
is NOT a requirement of the current network either - its a convention, but is not 
required of any telephone service. Its nothing more than an accident of history - the 
phone systemn was invented back before distribution of electricity was widespread, and 
they needed some way to ring the bell.

The NBN equipment, including the units deployed in Tasmania, come with a small UPS 
power supply in which it is possible to put a battery for backup if you feel you want 
the backup.
The batteries are readily available from places like Dick Smith and Jaycar, the same 
sort of batteries people put in house alarm systems.

The battery is optional because so much of the population are not in this vulnerable 
category, much of the population has access to alternative means of communication like 
mobile phones. The proportion of the population who might want a battery is small - 
not negligable, but significantly less than 50% say - and the environmental load 
associated with mandatory wasteful distribution of batteries and replacing them every 
3 - 5 years is high.
Those who want or need power backup can certainly have it. Those that don't feel they 
need it, don't need to pollute the planet with batteries they don't need.

> The copper needs to be phased out on a gradual basis, over the space of
> at least a generation.
>
> In other words, those persons that are now 60+ need to have time to be
> in the ground before the copper can be turned off.
> I guess by my estimate an eight year switchover timetable is unrealistic
> for all of the reasons discussed heretofore on link.
> A 25-30 year phase out period would be far more sensible.
>
> It took Australians 25 years to learn to put on their safety belts in
> their cars.
>
> Some things are just a generational "thing". PSTN via copper delivery is
> I believe one of these.
I don't think so, because changing over is not actually such a big deal.
The NBN guy comes in and puts a box in your house.
You, or the NBN guy, unplugs your standard analog handset from the current wallsocket, 
and plugs it into a new socket.
You have dialtone, and can make and receive calls.

Nobody has been that bothered about 'generational change' moving from 
coppet-to-the-home to a phone port provided off the Optus HFC network.
Nobody has been that befuddled in Canberra by changing from a wallsocket connected to 
Telstra copper to another wallsocket connected to TransACT FTTN network.
People seem to cope OK with plugging their handset into a port on an ATA they connect 
to their broadband line, and still getting dialtone (and BTW that ATA won't work when 
the mains power fails, so no dialtone or calls)
Nobody need be that traumatised by changing from one phone socket to another phone 
socket, keeping the same handset they are familiar with, regardless of the network 
behind the socket - including an NBN box.

P.





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