There is considerable evidence to suggest that Australia's copper network is in a worse state than those of other nations. How bad is it and can it be fixed? Credit: Magilla (canofworms.org)

In the world of political and media misinformation that is the NBN, an important issue, that hasn't been fully addressed, is "How fit for purpose is Australia's copper network?" This seemingly mundane and tedious question directly affects tens of billions of dollars in government spending. How?

The bulk of the Coalition's NBN alternative policy uses the existing copper network to get the internet to your home or office - a system called Fibre-to-the-Node (FTTN). It aims to do this in order to follow the broadband upgrade path in other countries - where incumbent Telcos (foreign equivalents of Telstra) are upgrading their copper networks to 'sweat the last ounce of value' from them before the inevitable switch to Fibre-to-the-Home (the system that Labor has jumped straight to).

But there are unique challenges with following a FTTN policy in Australia - not least of which is that neither the government nor NBN Co owns a copper network and so would have to somehow acquire Telstra's - we'll deal with that in a future article. For now we're focusing on the condition of the main copper network.

Why might it be a problem?

The potential internet speeds offered by FTTN are undisputed. However, in order to realise them, the copper network needs to be in good condition (in addition to homes being close to exchanges and having the right wiring). Deutsche Telekom, for instance, goes to great (and expensive) lengths to ensure its copper network is running optimally and has subsequently become a poster child for FTTN's potential. Meanwhile, countries like the UK only offer FTTN in areas where the network can support it (less than half of households) and promise minimum speeds of only 15Mb/s.

The Coalition is promising a minimum 25Mb/s download speeds to all Australian households by 2016 with this rising to 50Mb/s by 2019.

But these promises are threatened by considerable evidence which questions whether significant portions of Australia's copper network are fit for purpose with regards to a full-scale FTTN rollout. The evidence ranges from voluminous customer anecdotes and historical media coverage, through observations by Telstra engineers, Unions, telecoms experts, cross-party parliamentary inquiries and statements made by Telstra itself, all the way to photographs of appalling maintenance jobs.

There are definitely problems, but to what extent? This is important to know because in most instances, we won't know the potential speed offered by FTTN until the network is turned on. There can be potential for remediation, but that could mean potentially-colossal cost blowouts. The Coalition has budgeted for some remediation, but nobody knows for sure how much is needed. In an industry where Telstra and Optus collectively spent some $50bn on their networks over the past decade and Telstra's annual copper network maintenance costs are commonly regarded to be range from several hundred million dollars to over a $1bn, the assumption that everything is fine needs to be tested.

What follows is the best evidence available in the public domain.

In Telstra's own words

Telstra currently remains tight lipped about the state of its copper.

But that wasn't always the case. The first significant quote comes from the April 1998 edition of Australian Communications. At the time, Telstra wanted to build a Fibre-to-the-Node network as a competition blocker and get rid of ADSL-based internet. Telstra's Group Manager of Corporate Affairs, Martin Ratia, said: "We are not going to keep archaic technology going just for a couple of service providers who do not want to upgrade... We cannot keep a copper network in this country for half a dozen ISPs who want to make a quid." Around that time, Telstra CEO, Frank Blount, forecast that the customer network would be all Fibre by 2010.

In 2004 a spokesperson said, "Telstra is not interested in pursuing VDSL. We are not trialling VDSL. We see fibre to the premises as the most likely technology to support very high speed access services of the future."

These are telling views of the company's regard of its network but don't explicitly describe its condition. However, the company spelled things out, ten years' ago, in 2003. As Alan Kohler wrote:-

A month ago, before a Senate committee inquiry into broadband competition, Telstra's Bill Scales and Tony Warren rather let the cat out of the bag.

Warren, group manager, regulatory strategy, told the committee: "I think it is right to s