Copper shutdown post 2020 proposed

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DarkShadow

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#1719782 14-Feb-2017 07:17

The way I read it, the voice product requirement only applies to Chorus. It's the RSPs who choose to buy it or not.

Chorus currently offers both an ATA port product and a 128k/128k product for $25/month. The regulated voice product would probably be similar.

PaulBags

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#1719824 14-Feb-2017 09:04

Copper works flawlessly for multi-month long power outages & during national states of emergency. You tell me which service is comparable? Cell sites overload or lose power, and it would take considerable personnal investment & maintenance to keep fibre based voice up that long - if the fibre network even stays intact.

Fibre internet's way faster so we've made the move, and copper voice alone is way too expensive already, ~$60/month, so we couldn't justify keeping it. But it will be sad to see the most reliable service go. And I'm not convinced there's anything comparable enough to justify forcing shutdown.

SaltyNZ

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#1719830 14-Feb-2017 09:09

PaulBags: Copper works flawlessly for multi-month long power outages & during national states of emergency. You tell me which service is comparable? Cell sites overload or lose power,

Copper works because the exchange has battery and diesel backup. So do cell sites, and the exchanges they haul back to. If there's a multi-month power outage or national emergency I don't think copper is going to be in a much better position than cellular.

There may be an advantage in terminals, but most people I know have cordless phones at home. They won't fare any better than a mobile phone.

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MikeAqua

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#1719835 14-Feb-2017 09:20

SaltyNZ:

PaulBags: Copper works flawlessly for multi-month long power outages & during national states of emergency. You tell me which service is comparable? Cell sites overload or lose power,

Copper works because the exchange has battery and diesel backup. So do cell sites, and the exchanges they haul back to. If there's a multi-month power outage or national emergency I don't think copper is going to be in a much better position than cellular.

There may be an advantage in terminals, but most people I know have cordless phones at home. They won't fare any better than a mobile phone.

My experience is that when a strong or severe earthquake is felt in Nelson cellular service becomes in-accessible for text/calls. I assume this is due to overloading as there was no significant physical damage during any events, but it becomes impossible to get a call through and difficult to get text through.

The day a quake actually happens here I assume it will be a total cluster-truck from a comms perspective for the first couple of days.

That reminds me I must get a little transistor for the emergency kit.

Mike

PolicyGuy

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#1719837 14-Feb-2017 09:23

SaltyNZ:

PaulBags: Copper works flawlessly for multi-month long power outages & during national states of emergency. You tell me which service is comparable? Cell sites overload or lose power,

Copper works because the exchange has battery and diesel backup. So do cell sites, and the exchanges they haul back to. If there's a multi-month power outage or national emergency I don't think copper is going to be in a much better position than cellular.

I believe relatively few cell sites have backup generators, so if you experience a wide area power outage for more than a day or so, cell coverage dies until the suppliers bring in gensets for the towers with bat flatteries

SaltyNZ:

There may be an advantage in terminals, but most people I know have cordless phones at home. They won't fare any better than a mobile phone.

That's why, if you still have a land-line, you ought to have one 'cheap as chips' corded phone so you can still make and receive calls even if the mains are off.

If you're on fibre-only, you really should consider a UPS - maybe like this one: Geekzone review: Constant Vigil Lite UPS for UFB

SaltyNZ

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#1719858 14-Feb-2017 10:01

PolicyGuy:

I believe relatively few cell sites have backup generators, so if you experience a wide area power outage for more than a day or so, cell coverage dies until the suppliers bring in gensets for the towers with bat flatteries

Yes, that's true. Most individual cell sites tend to have about 8 hours of battery backup. More critical ones (e.g. sites where several transmission links terminate or the like) might have generators on site.

I think the message is that although copper has a potential advantage in one very narrow use case, it is not a sufficiently critical advantage to justify the drag it puts on infrastructure for the other 99.999% of the time. The cost of maintaining the copper network for a year or two could easily trade off against permanent generator installation at all the cell sites. A UPS solution for ONTs, maybe not, given how many there are, but that also could be something that we could roll out more slowly, perhaps starting with the most vulnerable people.

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richms

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#1719935 14-Feb-2017 12:16

I can always power the ONT and a cordless phone myself, the exchange buildings with the OLT in them have a generator. Whereas the cabinets that supply copper DSL will never have a permanant generator installation on them. IMO that makes the fiber a much more reliable option than DSL.

I would not expect them to maintain the copper backhaul to the antique NEAX gear forever in a fiber world when the number of people on the copper for phone makes keeping the dinosaurs running pretty pointless when most people are moved off them onto a new IP based system. So while they have that, then yeah copper might let you make phonecalls to people with a slight advantage over other solutions, so long as there is no damage to the multipair cables.

But when more and more people are getting "copper" phone service from a port on the back of their router then there will be a time when the usage of the copper cables from cabinet to exchange gets so low that noone can be bothered digging them up to fix the leak and the voice gets served from the cabinet and all advantages disappear. (or the NEAXs just go boom and there are no more parts at the scrapyard to make them keep working)

Richard rich.ms

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evilengineer

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#1720115 14-Feb-2017 16:40

hio77:

Obviously fibre is the way forward, some of the gear in NZ is not capable of say, G.Fast for example or simply is not feasible.

Rural areas will still be regulated and in fibre areas i fully support dropping of copper service

So at what point do Chorus start arguing that the smaller copper network has lost it's economies of scale and try to get the regulator to agree to raising prices for the poor sods stuck in non-fibre areas?

SaltyNZ:

If all the regulatory changes make it through, LFCs will be able to string fibre on power lines. That will make it a lot cheaper to offer fibre in rural areas. And when the day finally comes that all those lines are buried, they'll just bury the fibre too. I harbour a faint hope that I'll see fibre at my place at some point within the next 5 years.

Amen to that. Get some fibre slung on the power pole at the end of our drive as soon as. :)

atomeara

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#1720191 14-Feb-2017 20:14

The govt will protect rural interests, copper will remain regulated in non fibre areas until such time as a suitable technology replacement exists.

Chorus is continuing to expand and improve rural copper cabinets with there own money, with another 35 being upgraded in the first half of this year.

Depending where the funding goes I am expecting a heap more to be upgraded in RBI stage 2, as well as heap more backhaul fibre for cellsites, WISP and there own cabinets.

Under the proposed Telecommunications (Property Access and Other Matters) Amendment Bill, it will hopefully allow communication providers to string fibre under existing power poles, there is a nice provision where they have to give the option to connect anyone whose property they passover for free (if they are within 500m of the line). I am expecting Northpower and UFF to make a pretty big play here. There is a good option for rural lines companies to tack fibre on to there exiting lines and make some more money.
It will also make it harder for people to object to ROW and MDU installs.

I would also not be surprised if we see UFB stage 3 at some stage, there are plenty of urban areas that have missed out.

Copper wasn't much use in Kaikoura. Even if copper stays Spark and Chorus want to remove the old NEAX and move to Baseband. So if you are on a cabinet and that looses power you have no land line.

A big earthquake could result in big communication outages.

SaltyNZ

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#1720414 15-Feb-2017 09:21

atomeara:

A big earthquake could result in big communication outages.

I think this is key. People are getting hung up on 'but copper works even with no power' without realising that yes, your phone line might work with no power. But that won't help if your house fell down on top of it, whereas your mobile phone got out with you because it's in your pocket. Nothing's immune to outage in a disaster situation, and that includes copper phone service.

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hio77

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#1720571 15-Feb-2017 12:20

atomeara:

The govt will protect rural interests, copper will remain regulated in non fibre areas until such time as a suitable technology replacement exists.

Chorus is continuing to expand and improve rural copper cabinets with there own money, with another 35 being upgraded in the first half of this year.

Depending where the funding goes I am expecting a heap more to be upgraded in RBI stage 2, as well as heap more backhaul fibre for cellsites, WISP and there own cabinets.

Under the proposed Telecommunications (Property Access and Other Matters) Amendment Bill, it will hopefully allow communication providers to string fibre under existing power poles, there is a nice provision where they have to give the option to connect anyone whose property they passover for free (if they are within 500m of the line). I am expecting Northpower and UFF to make a pretty big play here. There is a good option for rural lines companies to tack fibre on to there exiting lines and make some more money.
It will also make it harder for people to object to ROW and MDU installs.

I would also not be surprised if we see UFB stage 3 at some stage, there are plenty of urban areas that have missed out.

Copper wasn't much use in Kaikoura. Even if copper stays Spark and Chorus want to remove the old NEAX and move to Baseband. So if you are on a cabinet and that looses power you have no land line.

A big earthquake could result in big communication outages.

Move to baseband IP services for voice is already happening, particularly in some more remote areas..

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richms

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#1742815 17-Mar-2017 16:07

You can easily have your own backup for power. Cant have a backup for communications as it needs the network.

Richard rich.ms

SaltyNZ

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#1742816 17-Mar-2017 16:10

richms:
You can easily have your own backup for power. Cant have a backup for communications as it needs the network.

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