[AusNOG] NBNCo releases its response to industry consultation

[Paul Brooks]

On 26/03/2010 1:41 AM, Bevan Slattery wrote:

[good stuff removed]
> As for using multiple standards depending on sites, that's where things
> get interesting.  They need to standardise things as best they can.
> That's actually why the Governments legislation forcing FttP on all new
> developments is a poor policy decision.  As I personally told the
> Minister personally last year, I believe they should have mandated that
> all new development install 'community conduit' or NBN conduit and all
> residential lead-ins' should be either 32mm or 50mm in size and simply
> leave it at that.  That way Telstra can rollout their copper and should
> NBN Co get overbuild seamlessly and cost effectively to those
> communities.
>    
Bevan - have a closer look at the legislation, which includes the 
concept of 'fibre ready' infrastructure being required.
The standards as to conduit size etc are still to be set, but 
essentially what you describe is part of the proposed legislation - most 
new developments (subject to subordinate legislation that hasn't been 
enacted yet, ministerial determnation, etc) will be required to have 
'fibre ready' pit-n-pipe (or something equivalent), and developments 
above certain thresholds will then be required to install fibre as well.

> I firmly believe that most of the FttP the Government will force 
> developers to install will actually be pulled out should NBN proceed.
> It will be much more cost effective from a 50 year maintenance
> perspective to have a single fibre platform for NBN rather than trying
> to manage legacy vendor product connecting homes.  Furthermore, it will
> create monopoly islands in the meantime and perhaps even more concerning
> is that you should expect a flock of "less reputable" organisations
> entering this space to offer cheap and nasty FttP solutions.

I disagree - there is sufficient momentum in greenfields FTTP providers 
at the moment, plus moves to produce detailed guidelines for
developers and builders that are likely to be used in tender 
requirements documents, that the forthcoming greenfields developments
should be as robust (or better) and more consistent as the current ones. 
I see the greenfields FTTP operators will keep going, as little mini 
NBN-like infrastructure owners/operators within their development 
patches, while NBN Co cables up the brownfields suburbs surrounding 
them. NBN Co has said publicly they don't intend to spend money 
overbuilding private infrastructure that is already providing a viable 
and equivalent solution to that whcih NBN Co itself would build, and we 
have seen the outcomes of that in their backhaul arrangements in the 
wholesale services papers - I see no reason why they would be 
inconsistent in the access space.

Now, that assumes the solution provided by the FTTP greenfields 
operators is equivalent - 100Mbps+ access capable, and open access 
wholesale - or NBN Co may have to overbuild. Many of the existing 
operators are already open-access, only a handful are not - so some 
existing operators may need to change business model.

In any case, even if NBN Co were to take over the running of such 
networks, they are unlikely to have to rip out the fibre. Replace some 
terminal ONT/OLT equipment perhaps for consistency of operations, but 
not rip out the fibre - glass is glass, its only the end equipment that 
needs to be upgraded from time to time - isn't that what we keep telling 
people? :-)

Paul.