James Riley
Tuesday, 02 March 2010 15:42
IT Policy -
Regulation
Page 1 of 2
A densely populated suburb in Melbourne, a Queensland coastal town and an outlying semi-rural residential area near Adelaide are among five sites around the nation selected as test-beds for the roll-out of mainland fibre for the National Broadband Network.
NBN Company chief executive Mike Quigley and Communications Minister Stephen Conroy jointly announced the five "First Release" sites to be used as test-bed operations for the $43 billion NBN roll-out.
The five sites, with about 3,000 premises in each, would be used to test network design and construction methods. The sites will also get access to the first mainland super high-speed broadband retail services over the fibre network as the NBN Co and retail service providers test the network.
The sites were selected to test the impact on the rollout of different terrain, housing type and density, demographics, climate, existing infrastructure and other local factors, Quigley said.
"The first release sites will provide critical information about the practical application of our designs, construction methods and technology in the real world," he said. "This will allow us to validate our network design and the total end-to-end systems in a live environment, following full testing in our integration labs."
"We have selected a suburban area where we need to connect semi-detached houses, detached houses and apartment blocks. We have also selected a smaller rural town with more dispersed housing, and three other sites representing a mix of major regional, smaller regional and differing climate and geography," Quigley said.
