Telstra defends wet weather network faults - News - Communications

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This story was printed from ZDNet Australia.
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Telstra defends wet weather network faults

By James Pearce, ZDNet Australia
March 10, 2003
URL: http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/communications/soa/Telstra-defends-wet-weather-network-faults/0,130061791,120272726,00.htm

Telstra has denied weekend reports some of its network cables are in danger of bursting in heavy rains, labelling such claims as "alarmist".

Adam Redman, group manager of Telstra public affairs, denied reports air pressure in 2,741 cables was so low they breached safety standards. Some of Telstra's cabling has an "air core", and air is pumped through this to minimise the amount of water entering the cable. Forty kilopascals (kPa) is considered ideal, and this is what is pumped into the cables at the exchanges.

"The cables are long, and by the time [the air] gets to the end of the cable it could be [down to] 20 kPa," Redman told ZDNet Australia . "However, 20 kPa can withstand up to two metres of water."

"There is a loose correspondence between fault volumes and rainfall," said Redman, saying this was true for any telephone network. "Making the network 100 percent waterproof would be an absurd cost, as technically possible as building a time machine and economically as feasible as building a space station on the moon."

Redman said Telstra was currently undertaking an AU$40 million project to repressurise some cables and review the pressure in others. In some instances it is considered more cost effective to add additional pressure using a gas bottle. For example, if there is a leak between two manholes Telstra will put in a gas bottle rather than tear up the street, according to Redman.

"What I think has to be done...is to minimise the effect and impact of faults on consumers by fixing them faster," said Redman.

Rather than concentrating on individual faults, Redman thinks it is more indicative to consider that 99.13 percent of Australian telephone services did not experience a fault in January, and the time Telstra takes to repair faults has improved "dramatically" since 1998, when only 70 percent of faults were fixed within the expected time frame.

Meanwhile, Telstra has indicated it will launch an internal inquiry after software problems saw thousands of BigPond customers locked out of the service on Friday.