NBN Co sets out 'big picture' of FTTH network design

Stuart Corner
Thursday, 25 March 2010 16:29

Business IT - Networking

The NBN Co has released a report setting out its decisions on a number of key options for the FTTH component of the national broadband network.

Its intent to deliver only layer 2 services has been confirmed (layer one dark fibre will not be an option); so has its intent to include an analogue phone port in the customer premises equipment, and to make battery backup for this a user or retail service provider requestable option.

The option of point-to-point dedicated fibre connections for business and other high traffic users is in, but the option of including an RF overlay to deliver broadcast and pay TV traffic is out in favour of IP multicast.

NBN Co issued in December a consultation paper on the wholesale bitstream products it proposed offering over the FTTH network inviting industry responses. It has now published its 'high level' decisions based on these response and is promising to flesh these out with further publications in the near future.

While the report quotes extensively from the submissions received, NBN Co has not made the submissions public so it is not possible to determine whether the options chosen reflect the general consensus of the respondents.

The NBN Co's main product delivered to wholesale service providers for on sale to retailers will be a local ethernet bitstream product, that is ethernet connectivity from an NBN Co point of interconnect to an end user customer's premises. NBN Co expects that about 85 percent of premises served by its FTTH network will use this product.

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