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National Broadband Network (NBN) Update
David Ives - AVTEC - 5 December 2010
There have been a number of NBN developments of interest to CEDIA members in recent months. Here is a summary of the main points:
The recent focus politically has been on the business case or cost-benefit analysis to justify the expenditure on the NBN (the business case looks at the commercial justifications for the expenditure whereas the cost-benefit analysis also considers non-commercial community benefits).
The legislation for the Structural Separation of Telstra has been passed, setting the scene for the new competitive environment in which the NBN will provide the core network infrastructure to be used by a wide range of retail service providers (RSP).
The Government has released an edited version of the NBN Business Plan which outlines the high-level plans for the network. The business plan summary is an edited version of the full business plan with commercial-in-confidence material redacted. The Business Plan sets out the key objectives and priorities for NBN Co for the three years from 1 July 2010 to 30 June 2013 and gives the best indication so far about the timing of the roll-out.
Coverage
The business plan summary shows the planned coverage of the NBN (fibre coverage is shown in red, wireless coverage in grey and satellite coverage is indicated by hexagons):
Source: NBN Co
First Release and Second Release Sites
NBN Co is currently building the First Release Sites which were announced earlier in the year. It is anticipated that, following the evaluation of the lessons learned from the First Release Sites, a series of ‘Second Release Sites’ already announced (14 new sites on the Australian mainland in addition to five first release sites), will be used to refine construction methodologies and systems.
Source: NBN Co
Key Dates
The business plan identifies a number of key milestones in the lead-up to the roll-out of commercial services, starting in August 2012:
• December 2010 - completion of Telstra negotiations
• February 2011 - start of construction of Second Release Sites
• April 2011 - ability to connect one RSP in trial areas with free services
• June 2011 - completion of Telstra agreements and legislation
• June 2011 - start of volume construction of Second Release Sites
• June 2011 - Satellite First Release Sites using existing satellites
• September 2011 - ability to connect multiple RSPs to 6% of properties passed
• November 2011 - start of construction of wireless network
• August 2012 - start of fully automated commercial service
• 2015 - launch of NBN satellites.
Product Definition and Pricing
The NBN will offer Uniform Wholesale National Pricing across fibre, wireless, and satellite technologies across a range of products:
• technology-agnostic Ethernet Bitstream framework
• 12 Mbps downstream and 1 Mbps upstream entry-level offer across all three access technologies at the same price
• an initial fibre product suite with committed speed options of up to 100 Mbps and peak speed options of up to 1 Gbps.
NBN Co anticipates being able to reduce real prices for all products and nominal prices for all products, except for the basic service offering.
A number of product drops are planned:
1. High speed Broadband and Telephony
2. Emerging Entertainment Capability
3. High Speed Business
4. High Speed Enterprise
5. Enhanced Reliability for Mission Critical Sites
Product Drop One: High Speed Broadband & Telephony
Product Drop one provides a core set of Fibre Access Service features offering high-speed internet with access speeds of up to 100 Megabits per second and telephony capability.
Product Drop Two: Emerging Entertainment Capability
Product drop two enables RSPs to build a triple play offering, by adding the capability to distribute their content (eg television channels) simultaneously to two or more end-users as a single stream. This multicast technique can achieve significant bandwidth savings when delivering the same content to many end users. NBN Co expect to see retail market innovation based on these features, particularly around the delivery of a triple play offering high speed internet, telephony and television channels for real time viewing.
Product Drop Three: High Speed Business Services
Product drop three provides the ability to connect multiple business locations, so that they interact seamlessly and provide secure, high speed and reliable access to various business applications including video collaboration and conferencing.
Product Drop Four: High Speed Enterprise Services
Product drop four delivers very high speed up to 1 Gigabit per second for high-end enterprise services including point-to-point links and transparent VLAN.
Product Drop Five: Enhanced Reliability for Mission Critical Sites
Product drop five delivers the final features to complete the initial Fibre Access Service feature set including access diversity for end-users.
Telstra Agreement
The agreement between NBN Co and Telstra covers the following issues:
• progressive disconnection of copper services and decommissioning of Telstra fixed line copper and HFC networks as the NBN fibre network is rolled out
• utilisation of existing Telstra exchange space
• utilisation of a significant portion of Telstra’s existing ducts and conduits
• access to dark fibre and managed services for backhaul.
The Telstra agreement will allow significant cost savings during the construction of the network through the elimination of overbuild of infrastructure.
National Broadband Network (NBN) Update
David Ives - AVTEC - 5 December 2010
Date
Sunday 05 Dec 2010 - Tuesday 13 Dec 2011
