Following the recent flooding in the region, this cable was severed and meant a loss of internet connectivity for about 700 homes and businesses.

The nbn^® network is generally resilient but, in the face of major flooding, not everything can withstand the volume of water that our infrastructure co-exists with.

Generally, when fibre cables are broken, we can fix them relatively quickly.

In this case, internet connectivity was lost Monday, and our first opportunity to assess the damage was Wednesday afternoon when it was finally safe enough for our people to inspect it.

Due to where the cable is, and the volume of water still in the area, fixing the cable could take several weeks and requires boring a new path under the river.

To the 700 homes and businesses that rely on internet connectivity, this wasn’t an ideal situation.

Following the damage assessment, several options were thrashed out to try to find a way to restore services quickly, so that customers wouldn’t be without internet while the main fibre cable was repaired.

And the solution decided? Run a temporary cable over the river.

Yet, with the water level still high and fast flowing, it wasn’t possible to get boats on the water or machinery near the river’s edge to assist.

So instead, using a drone, a rope was flown across the river. When completed, the fibre optic cable was attached and then winched across the swollen banks. The two separate ends were joined atop temporary poles, and the 700 services were fully restored on Thursday evening.

Emily Peel, Head of nbn Local – Victoria, said this was just one example of where nbn is working as hard and as quickly as possible behind-the-scenes to find solutions to restore connectivity in times of natural or other disasters.

“During difficult times like these, the community will regularly see nbn out and about working hard to restore connectivity because we know how vital it is in helping communities to recover."