Telstra sold the copper network to NBN in 2014. And NBN isn't replacing that network at all. They are still using it for FTTC, FTTN and FTTB which will make up the large bulk of the NBN rollout along with HFC which they acquired from Optus.
And it's widely known in the industry that Telstra is positioning itself to potentially buy back the NBN given they recently split the company into two: Retail and Operations.
FTTC and FTTB don't use the much of the copper network at all: the only copper cabling in FTTC is between the end-user's premises and the small underground pit on every block (a very short stretch for vectored VDSL2 signals at 100 Mbit/s duplex). FTTB is fibre optic cabling to an apartment building, so the only copper cabling there is within the building.
(Side note: From my past research, FTTC with vectored VDSL2 seemed like a great cost-effective technology: leveraging a small amount of pre-existing copper cabling to save digging up every garden in Australia to install the final few meters fibre-optic cabling, with the optional upgrade path to full FTTP being allowed to be done at any time into the future, if a households willing to pay for the upgrade.)
Because what NBN is finding is that the last bit of copper is actually responsible for a lot of the problems. And so even though FTTC for example should be seeing significantly better results than FTTN in fact it isn't the case. So much so that NBN is looking at whether to go into people's houses to fix up the wiring.
FTTC is definitely a better option than FTTN especially since with G.Fast you are able to attain 1Gbit/s speeds.
It's at the Network Boundary Point (NBP), which varies from premises to premises.
Free-standing houses that are more than 5-10 years old, it'll probably be the first socket. For newer houses, there's a NBP that's either on the side of the house, or near the edge of the property.
For Strata / Multiple-Dwelling Properties, it may be a Distribution Frame.
Way back in the 90s, before Telecom Australia became Telstra, the ownership of all the internal wiring (defined as anything from the NBP onwards) was transferred to the owner of the premises. This was part of the competition stuff - allowing competitive bids on builds for wiring new premises, business, etc.
Yeah, hence the big cash payout. 2014 is associated with the peak share price by 1-2 years, so they might have been given a big cash infusion, share price jumps, returned it to the shareholders slowly over a couple of years because they specialise in network maintenance which is no longer a competitive advantage.
> They are still using it for FTTC, FTTN and FTTB which will make up the large bulk of the NBN rollout along with HFC which they acquired from Optus.
My parents house was connected to the NBN, their copper landline was disconnected, as was everyone on their street (they had no choice in the matter). And FTTC, FTTN and FTTB all involve ripping a lot of copper out of the ground to be replaced by fiber.