Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Minister for Communications) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for her question. I just want to draw her attention to the fact that in Bassendean, in particular, the honourable member will find that a major reason—not the major reason—for very poor internet connectivity is that many premises there are on what are called 'pair gain systems'. If the honourable member will bear with me: the way a pair gain system operates is that a given number of copper pairs, copper lines—wires—go to a device called a RIM and then more pairs come out the other side. The ratio may be four to one, so you might have 100 going in and 400 going out. It was used by the telcos—by Telstra, obviously—in order to service new estates. That is what has been described as a 'broadband blocker'. The honourable member will find that that is the major problem. It is not issues about poor joints and so forth in the copper.

Ms MacTiernan interjecting—

If the honourable member wants an answer, she should just let me go on. I am aware of the issue and I am answering the question. When you have fibre to the node, if you imagine that point where the RIM sits, which is where the 400 lines go out and only 100 are coming in, you take the fibre to that RIM and you install a node there. From that point those people who are on what had been a pair gain system go from having little or no broadband to having terrific broadband, because the fibre effectively brings the exchange to their doorstep because of that fibre connection.

There are many people who will get fibre to the premises. If they have very good ADSL or if they are in an area like the member for Chifley's, where they had good HFC and that was overbuilt, they may not, depending on the applications they use, actually notice a huge difference. They may not notice any difference at all. People on pair gain systems will see a transformative difference. So I just say to the honourable member that, on my advice, that is the major factor there.

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