Some years ago, our Commonwealth Government, with a blaze of publicity , took the decision to install underground fibre optic cable across the nation to speed up our capacity to access the internet.

Presently, the connection to the net is via the copper cabling used for the telephone service, that is, unless you live in remote parts of Australia where satellite connection is the norm.

As the fibre optic cabling installation costs continued to rise the decision was taken to undertake what is known as,’Cable to the Node.’

It seems that ‘the node’s a location amongst a collection of dwellings where the fibre optic cable will terminate. The dwellings will then be connected to the node via the existing copper cable network.

Many people are have a whinge about their  perceived slowness of the installation of the cables.

However, my current experience with the NBN operatives is the complete opposite.

I’m totally amazed at the speed with which they work, their friendliness and the information they have provided to me.

As an example, yesterday morning( Friday 8th April in the Land of Aus) I saw a group of NBN workers taking measurements along our boundary, making small identifying marks on the grass and leaving the odd witches orange hat. In response to my inquiry I was informed that they were checking for the location of pipes, electricity cables and the like prior to installation of cable.

I immediately imagined a whopping great trench across our front grass, disturbance to our underground irrigation system and great piles of dirt left after backfilling had been completed.

Not so the boss man told me.They intended to bore from their main access points to a spot on our property, a distance of over 200 yards.

I thought it would take forever. How wrong was I. The boring began some time after 3pm or so and within the hour the work was finished. No mess, no fuss.

Shortly after, the cabling was passed through, the heavy machinery was driven away and I assumed the day’s work was done.

Wrong again, just after dark I noticed a workman busy at the trench.

Just after 7pm I answered a knock at the door and there was thew workman to inform me that he had backfilled the trench so our yard didn’t look unsightly and with a smile said the crew would return on Monday to finish the installation.

If every household has my experience with an NBN crew, they certainly will have nothing to whinge about.

Here are a few images made with the iPhone:The trench with the steel feeder pipe in place.

Part of the heavy equipment.

The mighty boring machine.

Creating the trench.

Inserting the cable.

Through she goes.

Waiting for next Monday.

The NBN boring rig is amongst the machinery you can glimpse in the far background. Nothing was disturbed across our frontage as the machine did its work.

Hoo roo for now