TransACT savaged by fires
Simon Hayes
JANUARY 20, 2003
UP to a quarter of broadband carrier TransACT's 20,000 customers were
without telephone and internet services at the height of the weekend's
Canberra bush fires, following power cuts and fire damage to the network.
Telstra has also experienced "significant damage" to its infrastructure,
with 4500 homes without phone services.
12-hour battery backups on TransACT's supernodes powered the phone network
as mains electricity was cut to much of the capital on Saturday. The
batteries eventually ran low, cutting off many customers.
But in suburbs like Duffy, where TransACT's cables and nodes sat on poles
shared with power company ActewAGL, the damage was much more severe.
As homes burned, so did the poles, most of which ran through resident's
back gardens.
ADVERTISEMENT
A TransACT spokesman estimated 1500 customers remained without services
through a combination of power cuts and destroyed infrastructure.
"ActewAGL lost about 500 poles, and our equipment was destroyed," the
spokesman said. "We've lost cables and in some areas where the fire has
gone through we've lost the nodes that sit on the poles and deliver
services to 20 to 50 homes.
"(In restoring services) we have to rely on ActewAGL, which estimates it
will have the majority of power restored by this week."
According to the power company, about five per cent of the ACT remains
without electricity, including Weston Creek, and parts of Curtin,
Yarralumla, Deakin, Lyons, Chifley, Pearce and Mawson.
While Telstra received 2000 fault reports during the fire, a spokesman
estimated 4500 customers were without phone services, many evacuated and
not aware of the faults.
"We experienced problems with power services to exchanges and base
stations," he said. "Although they are equipped with generators and
batteries they only last for so long, and in a lot of cases we haven't been
able to get in and replace them.
"We have crews going in to assess the extent of the damage.
"We expect significant damage to our last-mile infrastructure, which hung
on shared poles which in a lot of areas were destroyed."
The telco also had 18 mobile phone base stations down during the fire
thanks to power cuts, with up to 12 also affected when an optical fibre
cable was cut.
"It was chewed through by rats escaping the fire," the spokesman said. "In
their frenzy to escape they will chew through anything."
This week Telstra will work on restoring services through a network of
temporary cables, ahead of a final repair job once the ActewAGL poles are
replaced. The carrier has also brought in mobile base stations to provide
extra cellular phone coverage in the interim.
Twelve Optus base stations went down during the fires, but all but two have
now been re-powered with generators.
http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,5860142%5E15306%5E%5Enbv%5E,00.html
