Copper to be installed at new housing estate due to NBN loophole

Residents of a new housing estate at Wollongbar, near Lismore in NSW, have learnt that their new homes will be connected with copper rather than fibre optic cable due to a loophole in the NBN legislation.

According to ZDNet, the NBN has taken over the role of being the fibre optic provider of last resort, and as long as key criteria are met, has to provide fibre optic cable to new housing estates free of charge.

However, as the estate was first approved in 2008, the responsibility to provide telecommunications infrastructure remains with Telstra. Telstra, in turn, have opted to connect the greenfields estate with copper rather than fibre optic cable.

The news broke after local residents told their local newspaper that it would reportedly take “days, months or years” to get a new (and already obsolete) copper connection from Telstra at the estate.