Aerial cables could halve the cost of NBN: Ericsson

Stephen Withers
Wednesday, 19 August 2009 12:49

Business IT - Networking

Attaching NBN fibre to power poles instead of putting it in underground ducts would reduce the cost of the rollout by one third to a half, according to an Ericsson guru on NBN matters.

'Posts, poles and permits' represent the bulk of the costs of a network deployment, according to Colin Goodwin, strategic marketing manager at Ericsson Australia, and "aerial is always cheaper."

Goodwin, who also serves as NBN technical project team leader for the Communications Alliance, was speaking at a media briefing on NBN-related issues at Ericsson's Melbourne offices this afternoon.

The biggest cost involved in the NBN is actually running the fibre to homes and business premises. Aerial cabling is typically half to two-thirds of the cost of going underground, he said, though this figure can vary considerably.

Running underground cables in rocky areas can be as much as 100 times more expensive than stringing them between power poles. Conversely, shallow trenching can be almost as affordable as aerial cabling in areas where that technique is a viable option.

Tony Malligeorgos, vice president, marketing and business development at Ericsson Australia and New Zealand, pointed out at the briefing that aerial optical fibre cables can be installed at the same level or above power lines, and that they are thinner than the electricity cables and the HFC cables installed by Telstra and Optus.

These factors combine to make them less visually intrusive than HFC. He suggested that if a street was cabled with optical fibre overnight, most residents wouldn't notice that anything had changed.

The supposed loss of visual amenity was a major reason for some local councils opposing the HFC rollout in their areas, but according to Malligeorgos the visual aspect of NBN aerial fibre should be a non-issue.

During the briefing, Goodwin and Malligeorgos demonstrated some of the applications that the NBN would enable such as IPTV and internet integration and carrier grade VoIP telephony using some of the fibre networking equipment the company hopes to supply for the NBN plus a VPN tunnel connecting to services based in Sweden.