iiNet CEO warns of telco-centric NBN

Stuart Corner
Tuesday, 18 August 2009 05:08

Opinion and Analysis

In an integrated RG scenario, remote management access to the ONT/RG would be required by the NSP to fine-tune bandwidth and capabilities for IPTV, video telephony, and other services like security or health and Internet access. The NBN Co will be responsible for managing all aspects relating to the fibre network itself. With both NBN Co and NSP managing the same ONT/RG device (albeit for different purposes) this may complicate fault diagnosis and testing."

The white paper notes that "A multi-NSP environment [as envisioned by iiNet and Ericsson] complicates this further, not least due to operational and billing systems implications as well as security issues. In addition, in this scenario, how will the customer know which NSP to contact for support if various NSP services are misbehaving?"

The alternative is an a non-integrated RG scenario in which each NSP provides and manages a separate RG, independently from the ONT - for example one RG for an IPTV service, another for general Internet access, another for home security. The white paper notes that "A lot of the management problems disappear in the non-integrated RG scenario, but at the cost of additional hardware."

And, it says, there are other complications with the situation where each customer has just one NSP, but there are multiple NSPs serving different customers, and where each ASP therefore needs to partner with different NSPs to reach customers.

"If NBN Co supports only a single NSP per customer, that single NSP will be responsible for assigning the customer IP addresses. ASPs [applications services providers] will have to set up relationships with the NSPs that offer services on the NBN in order to reach customers. If an ASP wishes to partner with more than one NSP, they will have to separately interwork with each individual NSP's IP address space and quality of service (QoS) scheme."

On the other hand, "If the NBN Co allows customers to choose more than one NSP, then IP address complications arise. For example, each NSP will need to define its own IP address space within the same customer's network. This is especially challenging in the case where the RGs are virtualised inside a combined ONT/RG.

And, in Alcatel-Lucent's view the complications of the open access model advocated by Malone compound even further. "In the single NSP case, tariffing and billing is reasonably straightforward. The NSP charges the customer based on costs incurred from NBN Co as well as the applications provided... In a multi-NSP environment, it will be more difficult for the NBN Co to equitably incorporate operations and maintenance costs into its wholesale tariffs so that each customer pays a fair amount for the maintenance of their line, regardless of the number of NSPs they choose."