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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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