[AusNOG] NBN Legislation

[Dmitri Kalintsev]

Bevan,

I think that the intentions are good, but I'm far from sure that all of the
potential consequences have been thought through very well, and yes, I do
feel that this decreases certainty in the market and has potential to delay
investments in infrastructure, with all what comes with it.

On the other hand, one of the "good"s I see is the creation of the drive to
universally available baseline L2 service capabilities, which certainly
isn't the case today - all Ethernet services in the market today are
different in subtle ways (and it is for good reasons, no doubt!), which
often causes headaches to a pretty wide range of people - from customers
themselves to SP's sales, product, marketing, engineering and ops. (I am
talking about business connectivity services, not residential).

Decidedly, different SPs are affected differently - if your business does
not rely on sourcing site connectivity from partner SPs or NOs, then this
proposed legislation is more pain then gain for you, but if it does - then
you're in an interesting pickle. In such case, a major part of you business
value prop could be at the mercy of your connectivity suppliers. For
example, my current employer has had a few of these encounters, when in one
case a rug has been pulled from under its feet by one major connectivity
supplier discontinuing a particular product and in another two different
ones altering their service specifications to the point of making them um,
less useful. Yes, these suppliers act in the best interest of their
respective businesses, which is totally understood. Doesn't help me, though.

I do agree that solving this via a government regulation may not be the most
optimal or friendly way.

Then there's the question of the regulated price, in which there are also
good things, for example a set cost reference for architecture and
engineering - you know what the service will have to be sold for, which
gives you a good idea of what you can spend on building it.

Again, I'm not saying what the balance will be - more "good" or more "bad" -
can't say at this time, as my head isn't as big as it needs to be to be able
to wrap around all of the potential issues (and I seem to have misplaced my
crystal ball at some point in time to boot). I'm just saying that there
*are* some positive sides to this proposal, too.

Answering to Mark re: lower grade service - I got an impression that the
regulated feature set is not a "lowest" you could ever offer. I thought it
would be mandatory that you will need to *be able* to offer, which may
somewhat limit but does not stop you completely from offering cheaper
options. Say, you could install a DSLAM or OLT which is *capable* of
providing a mandated feature set when paired with a particular modem or ONT,
but you could also provide a cheaper, less capable option with simpler
modem/ONT (or maybe a non-L2 service) and potentially feature license(s) for
your DSLAM/OLT/whatever else may be needed.

-- Dmitri

On Sat, Nov 27, 2010 at 11:38 AM, Bevan Slattery
<Bevan.Slattery at nextdc.com>wrote:

>
> From: Dmitri Kalintsev [mailto:dek735 at gmail.com]
> > My reading of this says that the intent appears to be to ensure that:
> > Regarding Bevan's example with fibre in the basement - if my
> interpretation is correct,
> > then you're free to add a switch and provide a service, as long as in
> doing so you're
> > *also* establishing an ability to provide a "new world-compliant" service
> to a potential
> > wholesale purchaser, wishing to serve somebody (else?) in the same
> building with a
> > "universal bitstream L2 service" which he then would be able to buy from
> you at the>
> > regulated price.
>
> Hi Dmitri,
>
> You don't see a problem with this?
>
> [b]
>
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