NBN Co wants Telstra on construction team

James Riley
Wednesday, 14 July 2010 18:42

IT Policy - Government Tech Policy

The NBN Company has named its first construction partners for the roll-out of fibre to the five so-called "first release" sites on the mainland, and have included Telstra in the mix as a preferred contractor.

The company awarded contracts to for three of the first release sites; Silcar will conduct the Armidale roll-out, Transfield Services will handle the Minnamurra/Kiama Downs on the NSW south coast, and the South Australian power company ETSA Utilities will roll-out in semi-rural Wilunga.

In the fourth site, Ergon Energy will construct the passive optical fibre network in Townsville.

But it is the fifth site, in the densely populated Melbourne suburb of Brunswick that is creating most interest, with discussions on-going with Telstra over potential design and construction solutions that might be possible using existing Telstra infrastructure.

The first release sites announced in March were selected to let NBN Co test the rollout in areas of different terrain, housing type and density, demographics, climate, existing infrastructure.

Telstra infrastructure will be a critical issue in metropolitan roll-out areas, and the company hopes to come to an agreement with Telstra even prior to its finalising a deal with Government over the closure of its copper network.

NBN Co head of construction Patrick Flannagan said intellectual property developed through the first release roll-outs would be used to build efficient methodologies for the many repetitive tasks that make up the construction phase. The IP will belong to the NBN Co and the construction partner.

"This is really about trialing different methods of deployment and design architecture and as we move forward into the main RFP for the construction," Flannagan told iTWire.

"But these are the first five companies chosen after a fairly rigorous RFP process based on our designs. We chose the companies that we could learn the most from and who could get the job done," he said.

The selection of the construction contractors followed the detailed design of each site allowing NBN Co to source an aerial and an underground solution for each one.

NBN Co chief executive Mr Quigley said the sites would have "a mix of underground and aerial deployment" depending on the availability of existing underground ducts or overhead power poles to access premises.

The construction of the passive optical network is the first of three phases of work outlined by NBN Co.

The second stage will see NBN Co deploy some of the active network equipment in the Fibre Access Nodes. This is the equipment that allows NBN Co to "light up" the fibre in readiness for service delivery.

Stage three will involve work with retail service providers, giving them access to the network and, via the network, to end-users so retail service providers can test their retail services.