1 week Ago By Zachariah Kelly
Australia has a little old thing called the Universal Service Obligation (the USO), which is basically a country-wide policy that makes sure the population has access to necessary basic phone services. However, it’s quite an old policy that includes the use and maintenance of old copper lines – and according to Telstra, it’s archaic compared to what we be using. Telstra’s on the .
The company isn’t trying to thwart its responsibilities to the policy, but instead the company is calling on the Australian Government to make changes to bring it forward with newer, more reliable technology. “Right now, the network that provides these basic standard telephone services (STS) to Australians in some areas relies on old copper and radio technology. It’s a dinosaur compared to what’s available today.
They’re so old that some of the technology required is no longer being manufactured, and we’re having to recycle and refurbish old parts to keep it going,” Telstra’s regional Australia executive and regional customer advocate Loretta Willaton said in its post. If you’re unfamiliar with why copper isn’t particularly great for networking these days, it comes down to a few things. Firstly, it’s often expensive to maintain considering outages (you only have to look to the ).
Moreover, compared to the service quality you get with a 4G network, fibre (via VOIP), or even a satellite network (via Skymuster or a Low-Earth Orbit satellite network like Starlink), you don�.
