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