NBN Co starts wholesale product development

Stuart Corner
Wednesday, 23 December 2009 07:08

Business IT - Networking

NBN Co has kicked off the process to develop the wholesale products that will underpin the retail services that the NBN will deliver to end users. It has not taken up Comms Alliance's suggestion that it should offer a layer 1 wholesale product.

It has released a consultation paper that provides an outline of its product plans and has invited industry to submit responses. It also plans to hold a series of industry forums in early 2010 in Sydney, Melbourne and other capital cities to "provide industry participants with the latest information on the development of the NBN Co product set...[and] offer an opportunity for all industry players and interested stakeholders to learn more about the operational and product-based aspects of the NBN and offer their direct feedback on these plans."

NBN Co head of industry development, Christy Boyce, said: "NBN Co is committed to fostering strong relationships with our wholesale customers and the industry as a whole. We plan to consult widely with our key stakeholders to ensure the National Broadband Network meets both the needs of Australian broadband users now and well into the future." NBN Co also plans to hold similar consultations with stakeholders on other topics, including the operational requirements for wholesale customers.

The consultation paper sets out the conceptual framework that will underpin the development of NBN Co's proposed wholesale fibre bitstream products. It focuses on the 90 percent of premises that are expected to receive fibre to the premises and does not consider wholesale product offerings over wireless or satellite networks. It does it attempt to outline the full details of NBN Co's proposed wholesale fibre products, nor does it discuss pricing. It says that the price structure will be presented to the industry during the consultation programme.

The paper says that NBN Co will offer its wholesale Layer 2 bitstream product in two forms:
- a Local Ethernet Bitstream (LEB) product that will provide wholesale customers with a Layer-2 access service between the optical network termination (ONT) at an end-user premises and a 'local' PoI, located at the Fibre Access Node for the relevant fibre serving area. This product is likely to be offered in capital cities and regional centres.

- An Aggregated Ethernet Bitstream (AEB) product that is likely to be offered in rural areas where there are no competitive backhaul services below the PoI. The AEB product enables aggregated access to one or more fibre serving areas via an aggregated link. This product will not be available in locations where the LEB product is available.

The wholesale products will support access by multiple retail services providers over a range of customer premises equipment and will include an interface for analogue telephony. The detail of how these elements will be presented to wholesale customers will be discussed in later consultation papers.

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