NBN Fixed Wireless Service in Upper Lansdowne Greater Taree area NSW

[paulkk]

My brother is a farmer in Upper Lansdowne NSW is connected to the NBN fixed wireless service using VOIP via TPG.  The service has now been down for over 2 days, so he has no phone and no internet.  Upper Lansdowne is in the bush and is currently surrounded by out of control fires.  Without up to date fire information he is working blind regarding the fire risks.  Can someone please advise how we can find out how long it will be until the NBN service to this area is restored?  If this is going to take weeks or more my brother will need to ditch the VOIP connection and seek to reestablish a landline.

Thanks Paul

[Will]

Hi @paulkk 

Welcome to the Community!

Thanks for reaching out to us. I can understand the urgent need to get the information about the service downtime of your brother's account. To check this further, we need to locate the records on our end. Can you send us a PM with the customer ID or username for the account? You might as well provide the following:

• Service address
• Homephone number

For your reference: How do I private message (PM) in the community

Regards,

Will

[Will]

Hi @paulkk,

Thanks for providing the account details via PM.

I can see that you have already contacted our Technical Team yesterday and that you have been informed of the reported NBN outage as well. In as much as we'd like to provide you an Estimated Time of Restoration (ETR) at this point, I'm afraid that we don't have that information yet.

The latest update from NBNCo regarding the said update was posted today at 7:26 AEDT. NBNCo advised that the site (and impacted services) remain offline and that they are reviewing if it is safe to send Field Services to site. It was also noted that it is unlikely that they will be able to attend today given the conditions. They specifically mentioned that there is no ETR at the moment.

Nonetheless, this case has been raised to our Monitoring Team. Once an update is available, you will be notified via SMS to the number you provided our Technical Team.

[paulkk]

Thanks Will. 

The NSW Rural Fire Service web site shows that the Rumba Dump fire overran the property last night.  I had previously arranged for my brother to call me around 7pm tonight (Wednesday) by climbing up the hill and tree, so are fervently hoping to receive that call and to know that they are alright.  I find it incredible that in the event that the VOIP service is unable to be relied upon in emergency situations there is no alternative solution.  This really sound like our rural community are being treated as 2nd class citizens.

Regards  Paul

[Will]

We hear you, @paulkk and we can understand your current sentiment about the lack of available service that can be used at this point.

There has been some new developments on the case. As of 10:24 AM AEDT, site access has been granted and a field tech was en-route. But on a more recent update (1:06PM AEDT), NBNCo noted that the on-site technician has connected a generator. However, there's still no ETR at this point. We'll let you know once we have additional information.

[paulkk]

Good morning Will,

My brother contacted me yesyerday evening.  He and his wife had been up fighting spot fires for 36 hours non-stop.  The power to their farm has cut off.  Last night I got a message from the TPG technicians that NBN advised the Internet (and thus the phone service) had been restored.

I have just tried to call the landline (I didn't want to wake them when they were trying to get some rest) and I get the message that "Optus advises that the number has been disconnected". 

As they use yourselves as providers (TPG) why do they get a message from Optus?

As your technicians advise the service has been restored, why am I not getting though to them?

Regards  Paul

[Will]

Oh no, that was a terrible ordeal that they have to go through, @paulkk. I hope they're okay at this point.

NBNCo indeed has already tagged the outage as resolved. We can detect the NTD box, so it appears that power may have been restored in your brother's house, however, our tests show the modem is not authenticated. Since the homephone uses VOIP, the modem needs to have internet connection for the phone to work.

I can see that you have already contacted our Technical Team earlier and that this has been raised to our Engineering Team for further investigation. That being said, in the event that you hear from your brother, please clarify if the modem is turned on and that it's plugged in to the NTD box still. Nonetheless, our Engineering Team will reach out to you for the updates regarding the escalated ticket. Don't hesitate to leave a comment if you need our assistance.

Regards,

Will

[paulkk]

Thanks Will,

If my brother does have an opportunity to contact me I will advise him to keep the modem and phone switched on.

I am not sure what the NTD box is, but if this is a signal termination point then it is possible that it is situated in a remote structure on the highest point of the property, powered by solar panels and a battery.  The structure has line of site to a very distant NBN tower and to the farm house which it then communicates with by a wifi connection.  The farmhouse also has solar panels but it is possible that in the event that the normal electricity power supply has gone down my brother has turned off devices to preserve as much of the solar panel generated power as possible.  I also know that he has a deisel generator but do not know if he still has enough fuel to run this, or is again saving what he has so that he can power water pumps in the event of a fire reaching the farmhouse and all the outhouses.

Hope this helps,

Paul

[Will]

Hi @paulkk,

The NTD is the termination device to which you're supposed to plug the modem directly into (not unless they have an internal ethernet wiring in the house). So if the NTD has a dedicated power supply but the modem is left turned, then that would explain why we can only detect the NTD but not the modem. And since the modem isn't authenticated, the phone won't work as well.

Hopefully, you can hear from him soon so we can understand the status of the devices better.

[Will]

Hi @paulkk

I tested the connection and it appears that the modem is already authenticated to the server. Both the internet and homephone should be working at this stage.

Let me know if you're still having trouble contacting your brother on their homephone.