[AusNOG] NBN and CVC

[Matthew Moyle-Croft]

Hi,
So, feel free to shoot me here.  But curious for response either here or privately.  I don’t live in Australia but I still do care deeply about broadband in Oz having something to do with it for quite a few years.

The big issue with NBN at the moment appears to be congestion related to the amount of CVC being purchased by ISPs.  The congestion is artificial because CVCs are bought, as I still understand it, in fixed amounts. (ie. we haven’t moved on from TW ADSL wholesale arrangements).

Is buying the CVC in fixed amounts the right model?  What if it moved to a “transit” like p95 kind of model?  I get that there is some level of risk for the ISP that CVC cost could jump up a lot, but presumably it would be related to customer growth at a POI.  It might also allow connecting to new POIs where you have less customers.  I can see some guardrails around this - ie. a maximum amount maybe per POI? 

At least if you were smart about this it’d allow ISPs to avoid congestion as customer bases are growing as more houses are onboarded.

Given the nature of users I don’t think a p95 number could be gamed particularly, but it would ease some of the peaks a bit. 

Thoughts?

MMC