The node which journalists were shown can handle a maximum of 384 customer lines. Telstra's idea was to have no house more than 800m away from a node within its five cities footprint, and no more than 1,500m away from the node everywhere else.
Those less than 800m from the node will be able to access speeds of 25-50Mbps, while bandwidth for those 1,500m from the node will top out at 20Mbps.
Each node takes two weeks to complete because first Telstra has to lay a concrete plinth which has conduits in it for the fibre and copper to pass through. The concrete has to cure before the node can be hooked into external power, fibre and copper.
Once completed, the cabinets won't be opened often because services could be provisioned remotely. In fact, every time the node is opened, an alert will be sent to a team responsible for monitoring the nodes 24/7.
The cabinets have been designed with harsh Australian conditions in mind. According to Telstra they have been shock tested, impact tested, temperature tested and ballistic tested — able to handle three shotgun blasts from a specified distance.
(Credit: Suzanne Tindal/ZDNet.com.au)
looks like telstra's pretty sure of itself getting the bid, but each to there own, one point i am a little curious about, if that thing can handle 384 customers, then 800 metres each way from it generally would have a fair few more customers than 400...
also, may just be me, but personally I'd prefer telstra to mintuarise those huge things before they start plonking them everywhere