NBN: Underground vs overhead cable debate rolls on

Sure a lobby can insist on the underground option, but are they willing to pay for it, or are every other taxpayer that is happy with overhead cables willing to be subsidising them?

If a council objects demands underground cabling, then NBN services to that area will have to be priced according. Residents cannot cry foul over their price hick given that they caused it in the first place. NBNCo has to operate as a viable business, not a charity.

Having worked on overhead Telco networks for the last 15 years i can say an overhead fibre in sydney gets broken on average once a week. In 90% of cases you are running fibres at least 500m between splices the costs and time involved in this extremly high, trucks to be rolled,splicing times,traffic control. Also there is the question of Condemed poles from power authorities on average there is between 350 to 500 pole changes a month you would have to create slack points all over the overhead network to accomadate for fibres to reach the new poles stood in my opinion a very costly excercise to erect but even more to maintain for the years after.

Surely, if we're going to spend billions of (taxpayer) dollars, does it make any sense to leave it vulnerable? Would only take a drunk driver crashing into a pole, to leave a neighbour disconnected and bereft of what is only going to become an ever increasing vital infrastructure.

In places where no such ducting is already available, wouldn't it make more sense to "bite the bullet" (as it were), and when digging trenches, make them big enough to future expansion. Maybe even sub-lease space to electricity suppliers as a way of perhaps encouraging the eventual eradication of these dangerous eyesores from our streets? Wouldn’t that be a wonderful extra benefit from the use of public money?

Save your breath ! This has got absolutely nothing to do with logic or (un)common sense, and everything, to do with rolling out the NBN at the cheapest possible cost. I can hardly wait to hear the bleatings and finger wagging of our illustrious politicians, complaining about the absolutely intolerable levels of their shiny new NBN's downtime, after they have forced its implementation via overhead power poles. IDIOTS.....!!!

Wake up to reality about costs - underground cable SAVES money - modern duct trenching techniques are simple, and LOW maintenance once installed. They don't get damaged by winds, storms, bushfires, hoon drivers, car crashes, oversize lorries etc. No wood rot requiring replacements. No broken wires from bird risk and damage. And NO huge bills every year as chainsaw thugs brutalise street trees, destroying vital carbon-keeping green canopy so overhead wires can hold sway over neighbourhoods and streetscapes.
And maintenance issues for NBN are even more cost-critical because fibre-optic isn't as simple as copper cable. String it up along existing power lines and every repair becomes an OH&S nightmare. Not just for worker safety - but the poles weren't built to take that kind of load anyhow. Some of the crossbars are held in place just one fitting.
Reading last year's tender submissions, it's clear that telco's haven't a clue on the REAL logistics involved long term. As for the NBN itself - what's the point of having high speed broadband in the first place if users can't get onto the network for hours at a time because "the wires are down in a windstorm" or it's suddenly kaput when some car totals itself round a pole. And guess what: wires melt, wood burns - powerlines were early OUT's in both the Black Saturday and Canberra bushfires.
If we're going to spend $43 billion on NBN, it had better be goof-proof, climate proof, drunk-driver proof and available 24/7 - not "swingin' in the wind".
Undergrounding cables isn't an option or extra cost - it's essential COMMONSENSE.

HI RL.
For your information

HI RL.

For your information the Lobby Group Cables Downunder was originally formed to fight the Optus Roll out but switched its focus to "Power Lines" because it makes no sense to get rid of one cable and leave the rest. In 2001 we actually had the NSW Government have an inquiry into this issue at a cost of $124,000. While the technical aspects of the enquiry were brilliant The Economists in and employed by IPART made a complete mess of it and were obviously heavily biased against the issue. The result is that the then Premier Bob Carr asked for an achievable scheme to bury all cables and got a report instead saying why they should not be buried.
In this case if the NBN goes overhead you will have another vested interest who will oppose the Burial of Electricity cables as it will take away their supporting structure, The Power Poles. Currently the communications legislation reads that if the Power Lines are buried the communications cables must also be buried with in Six Months. Watch that be changed if the NBN goes overhead.

It will be very interesting to see just how much 3rd world 'spagetti-junction' type overhead NBN cabling will be rolled out in Canberra as opposed to throughout the rest of OZ...? Then perhaps it will finally become clear to the rest of us ie, 'the great unwashed' that indeed, our political illuminati say, "let them go and eat cake"...!

Here We go again. Vested interests and politicians, What else could you expect?
Do they expect us to be grateful for OPTUS MK II ?
Pigs might fly!

Power poles (and associated cabling) are hideously ugly. For network security over the long term, bury the damned lot.

Drive along a street, then imagine the same street without any power poles!