[AusNOG] NBN FTTC services and power hits

Tue Jan 4 11:30:40 AEDT 2022

OK - NBNco has visited, replaced my NCD (with another Netcomm for better or
worse) and took a look at the DPU.  They have also removed the bridge back
to the copper PSTN (they said that some surges or hits can cause the DPU to
switch the circuit back to the PSTN and not revert to the NBN!).

Anyway, it's working again so we will see how it goes...

Thanks for the comments/ideas, Chris

On Tue, Jan 4, 2022 at 9:21 AM Anthony Schofield <
anthony.schofield at vocus.com.au> wrote:

> Hi Chris - Hope you're well.
>
> My (inner city) FTTC service was extremely unstable after it was first
> delivered. Lots of short duration drop outs. Not good for Zoom meetings
> when working from home. It took 5 separate NBN tech visits to resolve the
> problem over two months. We also had to "phone a friend" at NBN assurance
> to get it escalated. I have the Nokia DPU in a pit. The last thing that was
> done to resolve my issue was a hard reset of the DPU - by applying a magnet
> to the reset switch. The DPU is environmentally hardened and sealed (to
> protect from water) so the internal reset switch uses a magnet to activate
> it. I've had no issues since that was done.  One thing that was also done
> (visit number ~3) was removing the "bridge tap" of the old copper PSTN
> lines back to the exchange (as mentioned by Alex Morrehouse).
>
>
> Regards,
> Anthony Schofield
>
>
> On Mon, 3 Jan 2022 at 20:56, Chris Chaundy <chris.chaundy at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Hi Greg,
>>
>> Thanks for the info (a fair bit I was already aware of though) but up
>> where I am, pretty much everyone has their own DPU (big properties along a
>> dirt road.  No concern with pits full of water though - everything is on
>> power poles including the DPUs and the fibre that connects them back to the
>> network (plus the copper feed into my house)!  It does go underground
>> further down the mountain near the township but I'm not sure where the next
>> 'active' kit is located (there is a lot of reading in the document the link
>> you sent :-).
>>
>> These are not brief hits but outages that have lasted for days.  Your
>> comment about the DPU losing its configuration is interesting though and
>> may well be the issue.  I hope they replace it when NBNco visits me
>> tomorrow!
>>
>> Cheers, Chris
>>
>> Sent from my iPhone
>>
>> On 3 Jan 2022, at 19:55, Greg Lipschitz <glipschitz at summitinternet.com.au>
>> wrote:
>>
>> 
>> Hi Chris,
>>
>> The nbn DPU (the "mini-vdsl/gfast dslam" which lives in the pit) is
>> reverse powered (about 6-14W) from the NCD (the nbn box inside your house).
>> nbn use a mix of Netcomm and more recently Nokia DPU's. The DPU only
>> needs 1 customer NCD connected to it to supply the power.
>>
>> The DPU can connect up to 4 premises and the interesting thing is that
>> any of the RSP's who have a customer connected to the DPU can initiate a
>> DPU reset via the nbn API.
>>
>> So, you might be with Telstra, and your neighbours with Aussie Broadband,
>> TPG and Optus and any one of them can essentially cause your service to
>> drop momentarily if they contact their RSP who initiates the DPU reset as
>> part of the troubleshooting.
>>
>> We've found that the DPU's often suffer the same fate as the old ADSL
>> copper services when the pit fills up with water, the DPU goes off to la-la
>> land (who would have thunk power and water didn't mix!) or the copper
>> between the DPU and the customer gets corroded and needs to be cleaned up
>> or replaced.
>>
>> I've not heard of power issues causing the DPU to have issues. It sounds
>> like the DPU is perhaps losing its config when there's a power interruption
>> (we've certainly seen that with the Telstra EA MRV OS904 NTU's over the
>> years).
>>
>> If you're interested how it all comes together, nbn publish their design
>> docs -
>> https://www.nbnco.com.au/content/dam/nbn/documents/sell/sau/network-design-rules-20210630.pdf
>>
>> Cheers
>> Greg
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Greg Lipschitz  |  Founder & CEO  |  Summit Internet
>> *glipschitz at summitinternet.com.au* <glipschitz at summitinternet.com.au>
>> *summitinternet.com.au* <http://summitinternet.com.au>
>> *1300 049 749* <1300%20049%20749>
>> *Unit 2, 31-39 Norcal Road, Nunawading VIC 3131*
>> <https://www.google.com/maps?cid=12522583051503623677&_ga=2.149009334.1057584350.1554770858-1081443428.1554770858>
>> [image: Summit Internet] <http://summitinternet.com.au>
>> ------------------------------
>> *From:* AusNOG <ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net> on behalf of Chris
>> Chaundy <chris.chaundy at gmail.com>
>> *Sent:* 03 January 2022 09:26
>> *To:* ausnog at ausnog.net <ausnog at lists.ausnog.net>
>> *Subject:* [AusNOG] NBN FTTC services and power hits
>>
>> Is there anyone from NBNco on this list willing to discuss this with me?
>>
>> It seems that every time there is a power hit in our locality (which with
>> Ausnet is pretty regularly), the FTTC services die and don’t come back
>> until you log a fault through the provider (in my case, Telstra) and then
>> wait for them to go through the hoops of dealing with NBNco.
>>
>> This has happened four times in the last couple of months (thankfully I
>> have 4G backup).  There must be some aggregator kit that has no power
>> backup or cannot recover from power outages - pretty crap really. :-|
>>
>> Sorry if this is a little OT for the list but I’d be interested if other
>> FTTC areas see the same problem.
>>
>> Sent from my iPhone
>> _______________________________________________
>> AusNOG mailing list
>> AusNOG at lists.ausnog.net
>>
>> https://aus01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Flists.ausnog.net%2Fmailman%2Flistinfo%2Fausnog&data=04%7C01%7Cglipschitz%40summitinternet.com.au%7C7d3675defb8a4be9a6ab08d9ce3ef1a0%7C0838a12f226e43dfa6e4bb63d2643a7e%7C1%7C0%7C637767592012923616%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=eaYK8fpeVKh%2FCKcTW5KgKBQOB32TYug2Q5GLkCN7xLo%3D&reserved=0
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> AusNOG mailing list
>> AusNOG at lists.ausnog.net
>> http://lists.ausnog.net/mailman/listinfo/ausnog
>>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.ausnog.net/pipermail/ausnog/attachments/20220104/eef6494a/attachment.htm>