Telecommunications Law - Consumer rights around decommissioning copper lines & rights to service?

Forums › ICT Policies and Regulation › Telecommunications Law - Consumer rights around decommissioning copper lines & rights to service?

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#2680856 26-Mar-2021 07:23

Starlink is a whole new ball game when it comes to satellite internet, and isn’t comparable to legacy satellite internet technology. Starlink and other low earth orbit (LEO) internet offerings sit between VDSL and Fibre in terms of performance. If you go to the Reddit r/starlink sub, this GZ thread here and YouTube speed test reviews you’ll see real world performance here and overseas.

nztim

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#2680871 26-Mar-2021 08:09

spacedog:
I understand what you are saying @sbiddle - but I'm just the messenger here and this is what I was told by Vodafone and they pointed the finger at Chorus. Perhaps the folks at Vodafone are just confused and incorrectly informing me. Just like @chorusnz incorrectly informed me via a letter drop that I would be getting UFB and then said the letter drop was a mistake....

Vodafone and other RSPs buy Spark Wholesale NEAX voice services via Chorus so that is why Vodafone will be saying its Chorus

Chorus own the exchange buildings, the copper network - Spark own the NEAX switch which sits inside that exchange building and are retiring them and would have advised Chorus to advise the end RSP that that switch is getting shut down

The simple fact is the Chorus replacement for the NEAX (Baseband IP) is not on your current RSPs portfolio of products they offer

So you either need to use their Alternative or change RSP

Any views expressed on these forums are my own and don't necessarily reflect those of my employer.

nztim

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#2680883 26-Mar-2021 08:45

cyril7:
Hi, as I understand it the regulations around pulling of exisitng copper only allows it to be pulled where a funded solution is in place to keep services running, ie UFB or RBI(4G/Wisp) based solutions, if none are the copper must be retained and must be serviced.

Cyril

Fibre must be in place and must be free to install before copper can be withdrawn

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richms

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#2681020 26-Mar-2021 12:52

nztim:
Fibre must be in place and must be free to install before copper can be withdrawn

The copper is in place, and not being withdrawn, The copper withdrawl is still a long way off from happening anywhere, at which point those places will end up like the new subdivisions with only a fiber service available. Until then any retailer can choose to put their own gear into the building and hook it up to the copper or resell someone elses, if there is a business case for it. Vodafone are basically saying that they do not want to provide the service anymore.

This is the same as all the other copper services that are being withdrawn. Basic rate ISDN seems to be one of the recent one to get the boot. Now, it seems noone wants to provide it at all and people will have to move on from it, same will happen for POTS eventually.

At some point there will have to be the price paid for fiber to the property, if it's worth waiting to see if the govt expand what they will pay for vs the continuing years of dysfunctional internet and phone is something the OP will have to decide.

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#2681055 26-Mar-2021 13:36

richms:

This is the same as all the other copper services that are being withdrawn. Basic rate ISDN seems to be one of the recent one to get the boot. Now, it seems noone wants to provide it at all and people will have to move on from it, same will happen for POTS eventually.

As well as everything else going on, ISDN had some additional problems.
Just for back ground, the organisation I worked for had a number of ISDN Basic Rate terminations in the Auckland area. These were used for nationally important work, and the organisation is one of NZ's larger consumers of telecom products & services, so we usually got a high level of service.

About three years ago, we had a major outage of the ISDN, it took several days to rectify. We had already been told that ISDN was going out of service in a couple of years, but were not well along in our replacement plans.

Post incident research revealed that all the ISDN telephone-exchange equipment was well out of manufacturer support and was not replaceable. Old boxes were being robbed for parts to keep the in-service boxes running - something like a not-particularly-major fire would simply take ISDN out of service with no chance of restoration.
We were also told that second-line support depended on a very small number of retired engineers, who were contracted in as and when required, and available only if they wanted to be.

The advertised out-of-service date was in fact, we were informed, pretty much the latest that they thought they could probably keep the whole rusty & cobweb-encrusted system operating

CYaBro

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#2681074 26-Mar-2021 14:01

spacedog:

My business is located on Waiheke (as some may know from my prior posts on Geekzone) and we have a long history of issues with getting reliable broadband service at our location. We have copper landlines and ADSL that runs around 4-5mbps and goes down multiple times a year due to a long and deteriorating copper cable that runs to our properties from Rocky Bay through Whakanewha. We are also in an area where we do not receive cellular signal either so Vodafone 3G/4G RBI has been explored and is not an option. Fibre was run (last year) across our property driveway, but we were told that is Chorus's backhaul and only available to customers on request. I made an 'NGA on application' through Vodafone and Chorus came back with $103,000 for us to connect (the fibre and an access port is literally <4m from one of our buildings). So our options our limited to get any service and now it seems they are saying we are going to lose our analog phone lines and our ADSL service and be cut off from phone and internet access.

Can't believe they quoted you that much to connect to the fibre if it is that close!?
I had fibre connected here on our rural property and it came in just under $14k.

Opinions are my own and not the views of my employer.

nztim

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#2681206 26-Mar-2021 16:55

PolicyGuy:

As well as everything else going on, ISDN had some additional problems.
Just for back ground, the organisation I worked for had a number of ISDN Basic Rate terminations in the Auckland area. These were used for nationally important work, and the organisation is one of NZ's larger consumers of telecom products & services, so we usually got a high level of service.

About three years ago, we had a major outage of the ISDN, it took several days to rectify. We had already been told that ISDN was going out of service in a couple of years, but were not well along in our replacement plans.

Post incident research revealed that all the ISDN telephone-exchange equipment was well out of manufacturer support and was not replaceable. Old boxes were being robbed for parts to keep the in-service boxes running - something like a not-particularly-major fire would simply take ISDN out of service with no chance of restoration.
We were also told that second-line support depended on a very small number of retired engineers, who were contracted in as and when required, and available only if they wanted to be.

The advertised out-of-service date was in fact, we were informed, pretty much the latest that they thought they could probably keep the whole rusty & cobweb-encrusted system operating

This is EXCATLY what we are taking about in this thread - The NEC NEAX 61k was introduced in 1983 and parts stopped been manufactured in 2001, the NEC NEAX 61E was introduced in 1987 and parts stopped been manufactured in 2003

Since 2001 and 2003 respectively Spark has had to pilfer parts from other countries decommissioned NEAX switches around the world, firmware update the pilfered line cards to deal with our reverse pulse dial plan (0123456789) vs (0987654321) and prey a major outage doesn't happen on a big exchange that would be very difficult to recover from

We migrated our last ISDN customer off last week before the CPC3 NEAX gets shut down 1 April 2021 (however I feel its going to be running for months, just as Miramar is still running as businesses panic trying to sort their crap out)

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richms

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#2681236 26-Mar-2021 18:01

We were told that 1 april was the last day for ours in mt eden, so got IP phones finally before then. I am sure that if the shutdown wasn't given a date that we would still be using the 25+ year old deskphones that "didnt need replacing since they still work fine"

Shutdowns are needed to get people moving along, but if you read that other thread about obsolescence on here you can see that some people think that stuff should be around and supported forever.

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nztim

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#2681248 26-Mar-2021 18:43

richms:
We were told that 1 april was the last day for ours in mt eden, so got IP phones finally before then. I am sure that if the shutdown wasn't given a date that we would still be using the 25+ year old deskphones that "didnt need replacing since they still work fine"

Shutdowns are needed to get people moving along, but if you read that other thread about obsolescence on here you can see that some people think that stuff should be around and supported forever.

You have to give a date or people will do nothing, I also understand short extensions with delays to fibre installs or other issues

But with MIR4/MiR5 NEAX the date was 18 December 2020 with notices sent 6 months prior to that. The fact they are still in service THREE MONTHS after the close down date is crazy, service should be relinquished immediately, people have had enough time.

Any views expressed on these forums are my own and don't necessarily reflect those of my employer.

richms

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#2681260 26-Mar-2021 19:48

nztim:

You have to give a date or people will do nothing, I also understand short extensions with delays to fibre installs or other issues

But with MIR4/MiR5 NEAX the date was 18 December 2020 with notices sent 6 months prior to that. The fact they are still in service THREE MONTHS after the close down date is crazy, service should be relinquished immediately, people have had enough time.

They should at least send all calls thru some IVR making the person on the phone press something to acknowledge that the service is EOL and may disappear at any time.

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nztim

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#2681277 26-Mar-2021 21:31

richms:
nztim:

You have to give a date or people will do nothing, I also understand short extensions with delays to fibre installs or other issues

But with MIR4/MiR5 NEAX the date was 18 December 2020 with notices sent 6 months prior to that. The fact they are still in service THREE MONTHS after the close down date is crazy, service should be relinquished immediately, people have had enough time.

They should at least send all calls thru some IVR making the person on the phone press something to acknowledge that the service is EOL and may disappear at any time.

Its still the 1980s in there, and probably doesn’t support IVR :)

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spacedog

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#2681296 27-Mar-2021 07:07

@CYaBro - at $14k I might have considered it. Especially if it would have opened up fibre to our neighbors I could probably organized cost sharing amongst us. At $103k, "Yeah...nah."

@nztim - I'm not familiar with Baseband IP for voice. Will that be better than trying to switch to VOIP over the ADSL if Chorus keeps the copper running but kicks our POTS phone service off? Or does it just eat into the ADSL bandwidth and I'm left with the 'death wish' you described?

nztim

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#2681297 27-Mar-2021 07:46

spacedog: @nztim - I'm not familiar with Baseband IP for voice. Will that be better than trying to switch to VOIP over the ADSL if Chorus keeps the copper running but kicks our POTS phone service off? Or does it just eat into the ADSL bandwidth and I'm left with the 'death wish' you described?

Baseband IP is VOIP.’The way it works it this.the same piece of Chorus equipment that provides your ADSL also makes a connection to your RSPs VOIP server and give you dial tone and voice service.
Because the SIP registration happens at the Chorus ISAM your slow ADSL wont impact voice quality

Not all Chorus DSLAMs have the line cards and as mentioned above not all RSPs support this - If you DM me one of your current POTs numbers I can see that if BBIP is available at all

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RunningMan

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#2681298 27-Mar-2021 07:50

spacedog:Will that be better than trying to switch to VOIP over the ADSL if Chorus keeps the copper running but kicks our POTS phone service off? Or does it just eat into the ADSL bandwidth and I'm left with the 'death wish' you described?

It's not Chorus closing POTS, it is Spark who own the NEAXs that are being withdrawn. It's not so much VoIP eating into your ADSL bandwidth as the other way around. Even a very poor ADSL connection should sustain several simultaneous VoIP connections, but without good QoS anything hogging bandwidth (particularly upload) on the same connection will cause interruptions to active VoIP calls.

nztim

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#2681309 27-Mar-2021 09:04

Ok... OP has a line attenuation of 36db I would not consider VOIP for a second on such a bad line

good news his his cabinet has ISAM-V Cards and supports Baseband IP so its just a matter of choosing an RSP that will support it

Any views expressed on these forums are my own and don't necessarily reflect those of my employer.

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