Copper condition and lack of maintenance
A statement from Ron Shepherd in Stage 1 on the issues he has had with his internet access:
“…technicians in our street were “repairing a neighbour’s cables” in the access point … Up to that time I have had few problems with my connection. Thereafter I have logged no less than 30 dropouts averaging around 30 minutes a time. The work now being carried out on the copper cabling has been described by the technicians on site as “frustrating” due to the lack of backup wires within the cable strands, and unofficially, the service personnel tell me the wires can no longer be repaired. I’ve reported my dropouts to Telstra…”
This validates my previous statement that every time the copper is touched, it has the potential to cause problems for others.
Ron’s story is quite common around the estate. I personally have had 3 faults lodged myself in the month of December 2017. These faults spanned several days chasing up, documenting conversations, and eventually getting a person who was able to escalate and provide a resolution on each occasion.
Accountability and Responsibility for NBN network faults – “the fog of war”
There is a chain of responsibility between the Retail Service Provider (RSP) and NBN which has been formalised, and a sequence of conditions must be present before an RSP is allowed to lodge a fault with NBN.
I will say this again.
An RSP cannot lodge a fault with NBN unless a certain series of conditions exist.
These conditions include things like 5 dropouts a day does not constitute a fault, and the RSP is to place the customer on a ‘stability profile’ in the hope to reduce these drop out rates. The stability profile significantly reduces the speed you were getting. Excerpt below refers:
Other things include NBN insisting that end users must use an approved modem, certified to be working by an NBN service provider, in order for a fault to be lodged.
This was explained in my previous post of March 10, 2016:
As most are aware, the process of dealing with your RSP can be somewhat frustrating. You deal with Interactive Voice Response (IVR) services, and more often than not call centre operators are in another country, who are required to follow a very specific ‘script’ in dealing with you to eliminate all possibilities of errors at the user end.
If your service is not working to your satisfaction however, please inform your RSP.
The state of our copper
This particular series of joins on Ivo Whitton Circuit (using the ‘plastic bag’ method of weather and corrosion protection) is an example of what we are dealing with. The connection to my premises has broken in this spot, and I am now on the only spare pair that is available to my premises (which of course also runs in this bundle). After that, you are out of luck. There are many other residents who are in the same situation around the estate, who are on their last pair.
NBN have stated they will present the community with a proposal in early February 2018 based off the results of the EOI held in December 2017.
It is worthwhile considering the above when making your decision moving forward with a Technology Choice Individual Premises Application for FTTP.
Steve Ulrich
Gleneagles Estate NBN Committee
Hi Steve
We too had no major NBN internet problems until a week ago when we experienced a major issue that unlike previous occasions could not be resolved by very lengthy phone calls to Telstra. A technician from NBN arrived on yesterday and asked to see the old Telecom pit which was news to me as I had never seen it before but eventually found it buried under a half a metre of garden out the front. That was fun. The technician then spent another hour “fixing stuff” and I am happy to report that things are now humming along touch wood. I will send you some pictures of our Telecom pit in an e-mail. Our pit looks good compared to others you have circulated which is a bit of a worry if that is the case in general with the overall network.
Regards
Quentin
Steve
A pervious poster made reference to the lack of spare pairs in the copper system. We are in Mt Vernon and during December 2017 drop outs increased and on New Years Eve the NBN service stopped altogether. After the usual run around with time wasting calls, a technician arrived who traced the fault to the cable running from where the copper enters Stage 1 and to the junction box in front of our house, a distance of approximately 800 metres. There are no more spares left. A further 10 days of calls to NBN and the latest offer (two days ago) has been to ‘top up’ a wireless dongle with 10GB. Since then they appear to have gone to ground and are not answering emails or telephone calls.
This reinforces my view that we do not have a choice about copper or fibre. The copper network is finished. Sooner rather than later it will progressively fail in the rest of the estate as the supply of spare pairs is exhausted.
Warwick
Warwick