Telstra will axe copper network

We’re sorry, this feature is currently unavailable. We’re working to restore it. Please try again later.

Advertisement

This was published 20 years ago

Telstra will axe copper network

Telstra will replace its century-old copper wire phone network with new technology within the next 15 years, saying the ageing lines are now at "five minutes to midnight".

Telstra executives revealed the problem at a Senate inquiry into broadband services on Wednesday - the same day the company was forced to apologise again for problems with its BigPond email service.

In an email sent to customers late on Wednesday night, Telstra said the most recent email problems had to do with balancing the load on the system, rather than its actual capacity.

"The BigPond team would like to apologise for some intermittent email problems you may have experienced this week," Telstra said.

"We quickly dedicated all available resources to the problem, working to address it by rebalancing the email load."

Telstra's chief executive, Ziggy Switkowski, has promised to spend $100 million upgrading BigPond, after 1.5 million internet customers had their emails delayed by up to 48 hours.

The Telstra board is likely to come under fire for the email problems from shareholders at the company's annual general meeting today.

Telstra's manager of regulatory strategy, Tony Warren, gave the Senate broadband inquiry details of the company's problems with its ageing copper network.

He said ADSL, the high-speed internet service that runs over copper wires, was the bridging broadband technology Telstra was using until it replaced the network.

He described ADSL as the "last sweat" of revenue Telstra could wring out of the 100-year-old copper wire network.

A Telstra spokesman denied the ageing copper wire had anything to do with the email problems.

Most Viewed in Technology

Loading