JOSH SZEPS, Presenter: It seems that there are these power surges that are causing modems to get fried, and because of the rugged terrain a lot of people in the Blueys are being left without any mobile phone signal as well when they lose their NBN. Susan Templeman is the Federal Labor MP for Macquarie that covers the Blueys and the Hawkesbury. G’day Susan, thanks for being here.
Susan Templeman, FEDERAL MEMBER FOR MACQUARIE: Thanks Josh.
SZEPS: What’s going on?
Templeman: Well we’ve obviously got some sort of design problem in those white NBN boxes that you get if you’ve got Fibre to the Curb, so it only applies to where there’s fibre coming down your street, it stops at the side walk and from there to your house you’ve got copper – and it’s getting zapped by lightening or a power surge. In some way it’s frying the box, and we’re not just talking about just losing one once, some people are up to their 6th of 7th box because we’ve had a lot of storms in the last couple of months because funnily enough, this is a really storm prone area. And so everywhere from Hazelbrook down to Lapstone, everyone’s just on edge whenever there’s a weather report about a storm, and we either have to race home and unplug everything before the storm or take our chances. Technicians are saying they’re having to replace 30 or 40 boxes a day for several days – up to a week or so – every time a storm comes this way. So, it’s causing huge problems for people, especially those working from home.
SZEPS: But why is this particular to the Blue Mountains? Because we don’t have fibre to the home anywhere, do we?
Templeman: There’s Fibre to the Premises was the original roll out, so part of the Blue Mountains and Hawkesbury has that, but the next best is Fibre to the Curb which means that you’re stuck with this antiquated copper coming from the street to your house.
SZEPS: But I’m saying don’t lots of us in Sydney have that situation?
Templeman: Well some people have Fibre to the Node – they’ve got that in the Upper Mountains, and they don’t seem to be having any problems -
SZEPS: I see
Templeman: - in storms so it seems to be the design, something that’s happening in these mini pits. Other parts of Sydney do have Fibre to the Curb (FTTC), but they probably don’t have the compounding problem of very poor mobile signals in some areas. So, I’m talking to you on my mobile – but that’s not thanks to a Telstra or Optus Tower – that’s thanks to it hooking into my NBN at home. Without the NBN, if I’m lucky, I get one bar of 3G. So, we wouldn’t be having this conversation if there was a storm, because I would have either turned off my NBN to protect it or it would have blown.
SZEPS: So, you mean you’re calling over Wi-Fi?
Templeman: Yeah Wi-Fi calling.
SZEPS: So that would pose a problem during bushfires or something?
Templeman: I think that’s what people are saying, you know, now the storms are accompanied by rain. But of course, a year ago there was lightening, and it was creating more bushfires. So, it’s not hard to imagine this situation a year ago. We didn’t have NBN a year ago, we had good old-fashioned landlines, but during bushfires this creates a huge amount of fear. There’s anxiety now – right now its school holidays so kids are home their playing games and they get a call from mum or dad saying ‘Hey, there’s a storm coming, unplug the NBN’, you can imagine some of those conversations with teenagers –
SZEPS: Yeah (laughs).
Templeman: - (laughs) you know, and I had a teacher say to me ‘Look, my box blew, I had to wait a couple of days but they’re coming. But when I go back to school, I don’t have time to be at home waiting for a technician to deliver a new box’.
SZEPS: Yeah not to mention if you need an appointment for the NBN they’ll slot you in for 17 weeks at precisely 3:02 and then they won’t come until the next day. That’s my personal experience at least (laughs).
Templeman: (laughs) I have to say the one thing I’ll say about NBN, they have been responding to the replacement boxes, their technicians have been out delivering 30 or 40 at a time but its taking them a week or two to cover the areas they’ve needed to after each storm. So, this is just a huge problem for a range of people. And remember businesses have the same set up, so you know, doctors surgeries, businesses have said they can’t do Eftpos when it goes down, GPs ant do Medicare rebates they can’t get test results, you know, so from everything form kids playing games and streaming your TV service to so many people working from home, being encouraged to work from home, but it’s a bit rough when you say to your boss ‘look sorry, there’s a storm coming, I’m going to have to unplug all of my gear now and I’m going to be offline for the next hour or so’. And if you haven’t been able to do that there is a real risk that you will lose your service for a week. One of my locals has set up a back up office at a friends house because she’s onto I think her fourth box, and she just knows she’s in a really storm prone part of the Mountains and she seems to get zapped a lot.
SZEPS: I’m speaking with Susan Templeman the Federal Labor MP for Macquarie which covers the Blue Mountains and the Hawkesbury about this phenomenon of Blue Mountains residences having their NBNs on the fritz when storms hit. One person on the text line, Jan, says ‘Hey Josh the same thing has happened to us in Mona Vale, it’s only happened once but it happened after a storm and we have Fibre to the Curb also’. Annie says, ‘I live in Lawson and I don’t have the issue because I have a good surge protector’. Another person writes ‘Hi Josh, why doesn’t everyone put in a decent surge protector?’. Do you know if that would work Susan?
Templeman: Well interestingly the advice from NBNCo is not to have a different surge protector. So they explicitly – I was just reading, I’ve got a GP clinic that lost its service and they’ve replaced it and they’ve given them a spare, which is what people have been asking for and I think we’re going to have to see that happen more and more – but they’ve explicitly said don’t put on additional surge protectors. NBN needs to get to the bottom of it, and when you say it’s happening in Mona Vale, that shows it’s happening probably everywhere where there’s Fibre to the Curb, but we might be experiencing it on a bigger scale. And Lawson won’t experience it because they’re on Fibre to the Node in mode in most of Lawson. So, it is really specific to the type of technology and NBN needs to identify is it the box that is just a dud box that they’ve commissioned? Or, is it something happening in the pit where the fibre and the copper meet and then the copper comes into your home? What is causing the problem? Because remember, if my NBN goes, nothing else in my house will flick off it’s just this bit of technology that is experiencing it, it is highly susceptible to it.
SZEPS: But as you say it’s tricky to tell the teenagers to get offline when there’s a storm. I tell you what, it’s even trickier to tell three year olds that Bluey has to not be playing on iView when there’s a storm as well (laughs).
Templeman: That’s right, and that’s every time you hear a slight rumble. And I think we’ve been really grateful to see the weath
