Comms Alliance examines NBN-relevant technical standards

Stuart Corner
Thursday, 18 February 2010 12:15

IT Industry - Strategy

Communications Alliance has released, in draft from, a paper that identifies local and international standards likely to be relevant to the design of the National Broadband Network.

The paper also examines the work programmes of key international standards bodies such as the Broadband Forum, Metro-Ethernet Forum and the Telecommunications Sector of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU-T) and their relevance to the NBN.

Key issues addressed are the competing access technologies for the FTTH network (EPON and GPON); and standards that will assist the NBN to support IPv6 and be secure, robust, environmentally sustainable and future-proof.

The paper says that, going forward, Comms Alliance will focus on GPON as the FTTP access protocol for active wholesale services saying: "The comparison of capabilities ... shows GPON as having richer features, and larger future market share, and NBN Co has identified GPON as the likely preferred PON technology [therefore] the technical working group will focus on GPON as the FTTP access protocol for active wholesale services."

However the paper also notes that wholesaling of dark fibre in the FTTH access network would "allow a wide range of access protocols to be supported over the passive infrastructure, including EPON and GPON."

Another Comms Alliance working party has canvassed the possibility of the NBN Co wholesaling its FTTH network as dark fibre in a selected area, but the NBN Co has given no indication of any plans to pursue this.

The paper includes as appendices lists of international standards and standards setting organisations identified as being relevant to all aspects of the NBN; FTTH, satellite and wireless network, OAM, ethernet QoS etc.

Submissions on the draft are due by 12 March 2010 and Comms Alliance says responses will be published on its website.