$3mil Telstra Upgrade
Illawarra Mercury
Saturday March 27, 2004
ILLAWARRA and South Coast residents connected to the Kangaroo Valley, High Range, Moss Vale, Berry, Meroo Meadow and Sussex Inlet telephone exchanges are expected to benefit from a major service upgrade.
Telstra announced this week it had recently completed a $3 million upgrade to its network.
It involved the installation of 23km of optical fibre, 22km of new cable, the replacement of 2.4km of copper cable and the installation of new equipment in a $1.6 million upgrade to increase capacity in Kangaroo Valley.
The new lines and distribution system were designed to improve voice line quality, provide greater service reliability, provide access to new products - such as Big Pond ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) - and reduce fault incidents in the lightning-prone area.
At High Range 5km of optical fibre and more than 7km of new copper cable were installed.
Network software was also upgraded to provide ISDN.
A new pipe for underground cabling was expected to improve service reliability at Moss Vale, and infrastructure upgrades were also expected to improve telephone services at Meroo Meadow, Berry and Sussex Inlet.
Telstra Country Wide area general manager Mark McKenzie said service teams had helped identify priority improvements as part of Telstra's commitment to improving rural and regional telecommunications services.
He said Telstra was making improvements to 54 rural and regional exchanges in response to the Telecommunications Services (Estens) Inquiry.
© 2004 Illawarra Mercury
