Case study: Adapting infrastructure to meet bushfire risk

While 10 operational NBN infrastructure sites were directly damaged by bushfires during the summer of 2020, technicians were typically able to restore service within days.

One exception was Mallacoota in Victoria, where the infrastructure was catastrophically damaged. NBN Co rapidly performed extensive undergrounding of the fibre optic line, laying 62 km of cable, ducts, pits and Joints.

These efforts not only restored services to over 1,000 premises, they made the network more resilient against future bushfire seasons.

This is a good-practice example for Australia's network operators. All-out undergrounding of cables may be commercially unviable, but selectively targeting key routes and towns that are high risk can provide an affordable solution that improves resilience in the longer term.

Figure 7.2: Telecommunications networks depend on power supply, so when bushfires threaten power lines, communications and other infrastructure can be disrupted