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

[Richard Chirgwin]

On 16/05/11 4:01 PM, David Boxall wrote:
> 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,

The problem exists because people want continuity. Today, the batteries 
are in the Telstra exchange; in the future, some will move to the home. 
We've pulled apart the costs to the nth degree.

A sealed gel battery for the home device is probably a bit of an 
improvement over the large lead-acid batteries in a telephone exchange: 
gel batteries don't spill. They are still recyclable.

However, we need to have a scheme for battery recycling, because it's 
the householder who has the worst habits with batteries. Someone who 
deals with lots of lead acid batteries in an industrial capacity gets 
them recycled because they aren't allowed to chuck them in the bin.

RC