It appears some people want these claims to be wrong but so far nobody has offered up any valid conflicting evidence. Credit: Rodolfo Clix, file photo (www.sxc.hu)

Since posting our "Australia's copper network is 'rooted'" article both Malcolm Turnbull's office and Telstra have responded saying that the fault rate on Telstra's copper network is not 30 per cent - more like ten per cent. These claims even made it on to a Delimiter article mentioned here: "Copper network not "rooted", says Telstra"

However, the responses deal with a completely different subject. The initial article described the physical nature of copper lines emanating from the turret and not a reference to customer complaints. We got back in touch with our source (whose credentials are impeccable and whose opinion is far from merely 'hearsay') who answered the criticism and gave us some more information. In doing so they opened yet another avenue which suggests the network might actually be even more 'rooted' than was at first claimed!

Telstra told Delimiter:

Telstra has rejected unsubstantiated claims that its copper network was suffering a fault rate of up to 30 percent, pointing out that in October this year, only about 1.3 percent of its telephone lines nationally suffered any kind of fault, and that it invests hundreds of millions of dollars each year keeping it that way.

Malcolm Turnbull's office sent the following information from an ITNews article:

Peter Ferris, general manager of design and planning at NBN Co, said: "That, compared to more than 10 faults per 100 services for the Australian copper access network, meant fibre would prove a more effective technology for up to 60 years, Ferris said.

Our source points out:

Faults per 100 services is a count of the number of working Telstra services. It refers to the number of people who report a fault each year. This is the number that interests the ombudsman but has no relevance to the actual physical network.

They went on to provide some general examples:

In suburban Australia over 85 per cent of the copper network is over 30 years old. The life expectancy for the copper is 30 years. A 'typical' suburban street has 50 homes, Copper cable was provisioned at 'two to two-and-a-half' pairs per home. That means there are around 100 pairs per street. Subsequently, at the start there was near 100 per cent redundancy. Each Telstra pillar services around 200 customers spread across four streets or so. As such there are 4 x 100 cable pairs. The 4 x 100 cable pairs terminate on the customer side of the pillar. A 300 pair cable (or larger) terminates on the exchange side of the pillar. Customer pairs are cross connected (called 'jumpered') to the telephone exchange side pairs in the pillar. Because of faulty pairs, ageing, water intrusion, changes and split-redeveloped blocks, redundancy in the cables is now much less than the original 'near 100 per cent.' It is now closer to zero. Now add to this the adds, moves, changes, and the repairs performed by contractors who have no ownership of the infrastructure and who have not updated records for over five years. The result is we have no redundancy and a 30-plus per cent error rate in the records for the last kilometre - the pillar to the home.

Intriguingly, our source offered the following additional information which once again hasn't been discussed anywhere in the mainstream. It is to do with pair gain systems which have traditionally been used by Telstra to reduce the amount of copper needed to connect estates over five kilometres away from an exchange. However, it transpires that these systems may have been used extensively to prop up rotten copper lines around the network in order to make them serviceable for basic voice services. Their use is significant in that data cannot travel through a pair gain system - also referred to as a RIM (an FAQ on RIM units can be found here).

Pair Gain Systems are virtual circuits which have been installed to accommodate growth. Most people don't know they are on these 'inferior' systems until they apply for ADSL. Then they need to be changed onto a real copper pair. These lines won't work with Fibre to the Node.

Our source concluded:

Also, don't be distracted on the exchange side faults, these are minimal, most old copper has been replaced, a lot with fibre to a RIM.

This then poses the following question, "Just how many RIMs are in use now?" We are waiting to hear back from Telstra.

Addendum

A somewhat noisy minority seems to think that a conspiracy is occurring in that our nameless source doesn't exist and that this site is mindlessly pushing government propaganda instead of criticizing government policy. On the contrary, as with every similar article on ABC Technology and Games, the purpose has been to further everyone's understanding of the National Broadband Network and its potential replacement - the benefits and the flaws of both. The NBN itself has been scrutinized to bits and many of its claims check out. In fact we've scrutinized it so much that many of the potential benefits have come into the public domain from our independent research and not from government releases. The NBN is by no means perfect and there's plenty left to criticize, but as a big picture, the balance of the available information shows it will pay for itself many times over and enhance the lives of all Australians. Those are what the available facts point towards.

They also suggest that the mooted replacement technologies will cost considerably more in the not-so-long run, do away with many of the social benefits and cost savings to other infrastructures and they may not even work at all. As such, the importance of establishing certainty in these matters is paramount - such would be the detrimental impact to everyone in this country if that were the case.

Some people have asked why ABC Tech is covering this so much. Now you have your answer: it's incredibly important and few other outlets are bothering.

It's tricky to be precise on some matters because Telstra is unlikely to criticize its own network, NBN Co refuses to get involved in anything beyond its remit (on principal) and contractors have signed contracts not to talk to the media (at least the ones in the field). Nonetheless, many partner companies and infrastructure planners are unanimous in their views of the NBN but nobody is able to put their name to them publicly because the companies they work for would be put at risk. I'm never going to 'out' a source.

There are some things you'll have to take my word for. There is no conspiracy. All conclusions on this site are drawn from the available information. We avoid, "he said, she said" wherever possible and the grand aim is to inform the public and politicians about every aspect - positive and negative - of both the NBN and its alternative.

Crowdsourcing has been invaluable. If you want to get involved follow @ABCtech on Twitter, comment on these articles and I recommend getting involved on the NBN sections of the Whirlpool forums. Hearsay might not make it to an article, but it can be incredibly useful for opening up new avenues of enquiry and finding new experts.

As such, if you have any information - and I'm talking facts - which contradict what you read on this site, let us know. If you're an expert in an area, let us know too. As you can see, we'll keep you anonymous. Nobody will be more interested to hear about new information than me. Principally, we need hard information on the physical state of Telstra's copper network and to know if Fibre to the Node is reliable enough to support the immense benefits to existing infrastructures especially those which directly affect healthcare and business (both enterprise and small). The majority of these benefits require bandwidth and reliability.

We're always looking for more information. This is your network. Get involved.