Now is a great time, to look at cloud-based telephony solutions.
THE AUSTRALIAN: Anthony
Klan 12:00AM January 15, 2018
NBN ready to disconnect landlines to one
million homes and businesses.
Landline phone networks servicing almost
one million homes and businesses will be permanently decommissioned in the next
6 months, with 313,000 formal disconnections next month as the National
Broadband Network enters its peak switchover phase.
According to the NBN, 926,235 premises will
face “formal disconnections” in the next six months to June, with the average
rate of formal disconnections continuing to grow, to average about 5,000 week
from mid-year.
Under the terms of the NBN, existing phone
networks are to be disconnected 18 months after the NBN is made available in an
area, with the approaching surge reflecting the beginning of “peak roll out”
of the NBN between 12 and 18 months ago.
A
NBN Co spokesman said in practice, however, the vast majority of homes would
have already been disconnected before
the “formal disconnection date” for their
area because they had already signed up for the NBN and had shut down
old landlines.
NBN take-up figures shows that, on average,
18 months after the NBN had arrived in an area, 73.5 per cent had signed up to
the scheme. Of the remaining 26.5 per cent, some would have opted again keeping
a landline, and some would not have had connected landline to begin with,
including vacant homes.
The NBN Co spokeswomen said disconnections
were ‘carefully managed” and it sent “up to five letters” to each different
home warning them of when their landlines would be disconnected, with that
correspondence in addition to materials sent by telcos.
“We then send material via registered post
to residential premises that have not yet connected (to the NBN) five weeks
before the disconnection date,” the spokeswoman said.
“By the time the disconnection date
arrives, the vast majority of services have already been migrated, and we
closely manage the final single-digit percentage yet to migrate, who still want
to migrate.”
“Some decide not to migrate as they prefer
a mobile-only service, it’s a holiday house, or they have another (non-NBN)
provider.” NBN is a wholesaler that sells internet connections – which are also
used for telephone calls – to telcos such as Telstra and Optus, who sell those
connections to individual customers.
There are competitors to the NBN who have
created their own fibre internet networks but they are relatively small.
The switch from copper landlines to the NBN
has raised some concerns, including that during power outages it will not be
possible to use landlines unless a home has installed back-up battery and that
building managers may fail to switch to the NBN emergency phones in lifts.
A NBN spokesman said people were encouraged
to have a “charged mobile device” on hand in case of emergencies during power
blackouts.
He said NBN Co had worked closely with
monitored fire alarm and life emergency phone companies “for many years” to
“maximize awareness of the need to migrate these services”.
“NBN created monitored fire alarm and lift
emergency phone register in 2015 to assist the industry and building managers
to register their services for NBN to provide assistance (and) reminders of the
need to migrate these services,” he said. According to NBN Co, 1.3 million homes have
already been “formally disconnected”. The NBN rollout is expected to be
completed in 2020; the last of the legacy landline networks will be
decommissioned 18 months later.
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