Australia's high-speed, state-of--art broadband network is under attack from thousands of birds. birds doing the damage are Australia's ubiquitous and colourful cockatoos. They have taken liking for chewing broadband cables that criss-cross Australian towns and cities. They are causing hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage to cables. The National Broadband Network (NBN) company that maintains fibre-optic cables reports that they need to spend around $60,000 each time they are called out to fix the cables. birds' handiwork is also causing great frustration to Internet users across the country. Internet users have reported Internet outages and painfully slow speeds.
Cockatoos are type of parrot which normally eats fruit, nuts, wood and bark. spokeswoman from NBN said she was at loss as to why birds had become partial to chewing cables. She guessed that it was colourful plastic that encased power lines and broadband cables. She told reporters: "They are constantly sharpening their beaks and as result will attack and tear apart anything they come across. Unfortunately, they've developed liking to our cables." She joked: "You wouldn’t think it was possible, but these birds are unstoppable when in swarm. I guess that's Australia for you; if spiders and snakes don't get you, the cockatoos will."
