Floods won't affect Qld NBN roll-out
Summary: The disastrous floods affecting Queensland will not have an impact on the roll-out of the National Broadband Network (NBN) in Townsville, the office of Communications Minister Stephen Conroy confirmed today.
The disastrous floods affecting Queensland will not have an impact on the roll-out of the National Broadband Network (NBN) in Townsville, the office of Communications Minister Stephen Conroy confirmed today.
The flooding has so far cost Queensland $600 million in damages and has led to the evacuation of many residents in towns in south-west Queensland. The mainland roll-out site of Townsville, located out of the disaster zone in north-eastern Queensland, would not be impacted by the floods, the minister's office told ZDNet Australia in a statement today.
"The flood situation is currently not having any impact on the NBN roll-out in Townsville and no delays have been experienced as a consequence of flooding in other parts of Queensland," Conroy's office said. "NBN Co's contractor has recommenced work on the Townsville roll-out on 4 January 2011 following the Christmas shut-down period."
Floods were also unlikely to bring supply problems to the construction site.
"NBN Co's contractor currently has sufficient supplies to continue work on the roll-out of the NBN and therefore road closures in other parts of Queensland are not currently having an impact on this project."
Conroy yesterday announced that the government would assist restoring internet connections for residents who had lost their connection as a result of the floods.
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Talkback
Honestly, If the Tele. Infrastructure has been damaged and the existing would need to be replaced, would it not just be smarter to roll out the fibre for the NBN to that location now? Take the opportunity.
That would just make too much sense for this Govt, wouldn't it?
I'm sure these people would rather their phones and internet services were up and running a little before that.
I can imagine however, it's going to take many many months for the rebuild of some of these areas. There will be lots of heavy plant equipment in the area, construction work going on all over the place. If there is a good time to do a fibre rollout to an area, this rebuilding time would be a good time.. Heaven forbid another letter that a person sends to their MP complaining about their nature strip being ripped up by those mean and evil NBN installers..
Isn't this a massive mistake, because as we all know Queensland moved all of its power underground (from poles) for reasons like this, Queensland is very prone to floods and storms which regularly take down poles (and the cables with them)
But... surely NBNCo are damned if they do/don't, in "some people's eyes", as subterranean pits (submerged under 2m of flood water) would be pretty susceptible to flooding issues too, one would assume?
I'm guessing that perhaps the more dangerous nature and potential loss of life from high voltage power lines coming down (in water) may be more to the point. Although there are potentially other issues with fibre too (glass, laser radiation etc)...!
Doing it on poles is a lot cheaper, but its ugly (not really an issue) and much more susceptible to environmental issues. Whats ironic is that i3's method of fiber deployment in the sewer (just like Queensland putting their power underground through their sewer) is practically immune to floods, or storms or whatnot.
Its not trenching that was done in Queensland, its putting all the cabling in the sewers (or more technically on the upper concrete roof of the sewer)