[AusNOG] Pokethernet cable tester

[Mark Newton]

On Feb 3, 2014, at 1:14 PM, Glen Turner <gdt at gdt.id.au> wrote:

> Paul Jones wrote:
>> The whole idea of the licence requirement starts to break down when your comms service is delivered via fibre, as there is nothing electrically you could do anyway to break it.
> 
> The risks don’t go away, they change. For example, control of sharps.

And Australians have never met a risk they won’t unsuccessfully try to regulate away.  

The countercase is the USA, which does an order of magnitude more cabling work than we do (data and electrical) with no government licensing, cheaper, and with clearly acceptable safety and network integrity outcomes.  Want to wire your own house? Go your hardest.

So it seems to me that there exists proof by demonstration that the licensing scheme in Australia is probably unnecessary, unless we’re somehow inferior to Americans, or our Australian linesmen are uniquely susceptible to electrocution.

The scheme started during telco (re/de)regulation, when Telecom wanted obstacles in the way of Joe Bloggs touching phone wiring without the benefit of the magical golden gloves the line techs were using, and non-tariff trade barriers in the way of people importing cheap telephones before they’d finished writing-off the development costs on their touchphones. It basically preserved the “Telecom Approved” labeling system that had kept competitors out of the industry for years previously.

Anyone who bought a modem in the 1980’s or 1990’s by mail order from the USA knew precisely how much Australians were paying for the Austel Tax when they compared the price against the identical article with the Austel tick for sale in the shops.

These days having a license just means that you constrain your actions for fear of losing your license. I’ve never held one, so I’ve never had any compunction about doing whatever cabling I've needed to do.  It’s liberating, try it some time :-)

  - mark