[LINK] Batteries again [Was: Future of Telecommunications in Canberra]

[David Boxall]

On 15/05/2011 3:02 PM, Tom Worthington wrote:
> ...
> Transact is now installing Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) underground in
> to Canberra suburbs. The company installs a metal box on the outside of
> the house, similar in appearance to an electrical meter box. This houses
> the fibre termination, Ethernet and telephone interfaces and,
> importantly, a battery backup. The backup lasts for up to eight hours
> and maintains voice communications as a priority, first dropping d-TV,
> then Internet, to save power. While I and others, have advocated that
> battery backup should be part of the new NBN service, it is not clear
> this will be done and so Transact's service is superior to NBN in this
> respect. During Canberra's fire-storms, the service continued to operate
> across the city despite power brownouts (apart from the suburbs where
> the infrastructure was destroyed by the fire).
> ...
The concern with batteries is, as always, health and environmental 
impacts. What is Transact's experience? Where are old batteries 
processed and by whom? What are the costs to health and the environment, 
as well as financial costs? Bearing in mind that, for basic 
telecommunications, a landline is not our only (nor, in an emergency, 
our best) option, is the convenience worth those costs?

-- 
David Boxall                    |  The more that wise people learn
                                |  The more they come to appreciate
http://david.boxall.id.au       |  How much they don't know.
                                                         --Confucius