Inside an NBN node at Umina Beach

Analysis: 164k NBN Fibre to the Node premises delayed

Analysis of nbn’s monthly rollout schedule has revealed that the ambitious Fibre to the Node switch-on has been delayed for hundreds of thousands of premises by up to four months.

According to rollout information produced by the company rolling out the National Broadband Network, the ready for service dates for around 164 thousand premises in the NBN Fibre to the Node trial area have been delayed since the company’s estimates in May.

In May, the company estimated that 37,200 FTTN premises will be declared “Ready for Service” in September 2015 with another 35,200 premises added in October.  However, the latest monthly ready for service plan released by the company last week shows a mere 2,100 premises will be declared “Ready for Service” in September.  Delays continue into October, with only 9,600 premises expected to be activated in that month.

In total around 164 thousand premises have been pushed back by up to 4 months.

A full list of areas delayed can be found at the bottom of the post.

NBN's FTTN Expected Ready For Service dates are slipping
Graph: NBN’s FTTN Expected Ready For Service dates are slipping.
(Blue bars show estimates in May, orange bars show estimates in August.)

The raw data:

Table showing the change in the number of FTTN premises expected to be declared “Ready for Service” by nbn from May to August:

RFS Month May Rollout Schedule
(‘000)
Aug Rollout Schedule
(‘000)
Net change
(‘000)
Sep 2015 37.2 2.1 -35.1
Oct 2015 35.2 9.6 -25.6
Nov 2015 30 36.1 6.1
Dec 2015 28.5 39.2 10.7
Jan 2016 26 35.8 9.8
Feb 2016 47.2 53.9 6.7
Mar 2016 0.0 48.5 48.5

Table showing the full list of Service Area Modules (SAMs) where nbn has delayed the Ready for Service dates:

SAM Identifier May Rollout Schedule Aug Rollout Schedule Approx. # of premises Indicative localities
2BLT-03 Sep-2015 20-Nov-2015 2200 Tingira Heights, Windale, Mount Hutton
2BLT-07 Sep-2015 06-Nov-2015 3000 Floraville, Belmont North
2BLT-08 Sep-2015 02-Oct-2015 2200 Belmont
2BLT-01 Sep-2015 20-Nov-2015 2400 Warners Bay
2BLT-02 Sep-2015 20-Nov-2015 3200 Warners Bay, Mount Hutton
2GRK-01 Sep-2015 16-Oct-2015 4300 Kanwal, Tuggerawong, Wadalba, Wyongah, Hamlyn Terrace
2GRK-02 Sep-2015 23-Oct-2015 3100 Hamlyn Terrace, Warnervale, Woongarrah, Charmhaven
2GRK-03 Sep-2015 06-Nov-2015 3700 Gorokan, Lake Haven, Charmhaven
2GRK-04 Sep-2015 13-Nov-2015 4000 Gorokan, Lake Haven, Toukley, Canton Beach
2GRK-05 Sep-2015 13-Nov-2015 4000 Canton Beach, Norah Head, Noraville, Toukley, Budgewoi Peninsula
2GRK-06 Sep-2015 13-Nov-2015 3000 Kanwal, Warnervale, Hamlyn Terrace
2BLT-06 Oct-2015 27-Nov-2015 2500 Valentine, Croudace Bay
2BLT-04 Oct-2015 27-Nov-2015 2600 Windale, Jewells
2BLT-05 Oct-2015 27-Nov-2015 2900 Floraville, Valentine, Eleebana
4BBE-02 Oct-2015 Dec-2015 3100 Kalkie, Rubyanna, Bundaberg East
4BBE-08 Oct-2015 Dec-2015 2000 Bundaberg South, Bundaberg Central
4BBE-09 Oct-2015 Dec-2015 3500 Kensington, Norville, Svensson Heights, Bundaberg West
2BLT-10 Oct-2015 06-Nov-2015 2600 Blacksmiths, Marks Point, Pelican, Belmont South
4BBE-03 Oct-2015 Dec-2015 2500 Walkervale, Norville
4BBE-04 Oct-2015 Dec-2015 3100 Thabeban, Walkervale, Avenell Heights
4BBE-05 Oct-2015 Dec-2015 3300 Avenell Heights, Bundaberg South, Kepnock, Ashfield
4BBE-06 Oct-2015 Dec-2015 2900 Millbank, Svensson Heights, Bundaberg West
4BBE-01 Oct-2015 Dec-2015 1000 Bundaberg Central
4BBE-07 Oct-2015 Dec-2015 3200 Gooburrum, Bundaberg North
2BLR-01 Nov-2015 Dec-2015 1600 Cameron Park
2BLR-02 Nov-2015 Dec-2015 2700 Cameron Park, Edgeworth, Holmesville, Killingworth, Barnsley
2BLR-03 Nov-2015 Dec-2015 3600 Booragul, Marmong Point, Speers Point, Teralba, Boolaroo
2BLR-04 Nov-2015 Dec-2015 2700 Boolaroo, Speers Point, Argenton
4GYM-01 Nov-2015 Mar-2016 2300 Gympie
2BLR-05 Nov-2015 Dec-2015 2800 Edgeworth, Argenton
2BLR-06 Nov-2015 Dec-2015 1200 Seahampton, West Wallsend, Minmi
2MRS-02 Nov-2015 Mar-2016 3800 Bonnells Bay, Brightwaters, Mirrabooka, Morisset Park, Silverwater, Sunshine, Windermere Park, Yarrawonga Park, Balcolyn
2MRS-03 Nov-2015 Mar-2016 3100 Morisset, Cooranbong
4GYM-02 Nov-2015 Mar-2016 3400 Southside, Jones Hill
2MRS-01 Nov-2015 Mar-2016 2800 Dora Creek, Morisset, Bonnells Bay
2WOY-01 Dec-2015 Feb-2016 500 Umina Beach
2WOY-03 Dec-2015 Feb-2016 3100 Umina Beach, Ettalong Beach
2HAM-10 Dec-2015 Jan-2016 1800 Hamilton, Broadmeadow
2WOY-04 Dec-2015 Feb-2016 2900 Booker Bay, Daleys Point, Ettalong Beach, St Huberts Island, Blackwall
2HAM-01 Dec-2015 Jan-2016 3100 Kooragang, Tighes Hill, Carrington
2WOY-05 Dec-2015 Feb-2016 2100 Woy Woy, Blackwall
2WOY-06 Dec-2015 Feb-2016 2600 Umina Beach
2HAM-13 Dec-2015 Jan-2016 1400 Hamilton East, Newcastle West, Wickham, Hamilton
2HAM-14 Dec-2015 Jan-2016 1600 Newcastle West, The Junction, Hamilton East
2WOY-08 Dec-2015 Feb-2016 3100 Kincumber, Yattalunga, Green Point
2HAM-02 Dec-2015 Jan-2016 4100 Newcastle West, Newcastle
2HAM-05 Dec-2015 Jan-2016 2200 Cooks Hill, Newcastle West, The Hill, Bar Beach
2WOY-02 Jan-2016 Feb-2016 2600 Pearl Beach, Umina Beach, Patonga
2WOY-10 Jan-2016 Feb-2016 1700 Killcare, Killcare Heights, Pretty Beach, Wagstaffe, Box Head
2WOY-11 Jan-2016 Feb-2016 2100 Empire Bay, Bensville
2WOY-12 Jan-2016 Feb-2016 3000 Saratoga, Davistown
2WOY-13 Jan-2016 Feb-2016 1900 Woy Woy, Koolewong
4BRI-01 Feb-2016 Mar-2016 2900 Woorim, Bongaree
4BRI-02 Feb-2016 Mar-2016 3300 Bongaree
4WRN-01 Feb-2016 Mar-2016 1700 Brendale
4BRI-03 Feb-2016 Mar-2016 2700 Bellara, Banksia Beach
4BRI-04 Feb-2016 Mar-2016 2800 Welsby, White Patch, Banksia Beach
4WRN-04 Feb-2016 Mar-2016 2500 Lawnton
4WRN-05 Feb-2016 Mar-2016 3500 Joyner, Lawnton, Warner, Bray Park
4WRN-07 Feb-2016 Mar-2016 1500 Warner, Brendale
4WRN-06 Feb-2016 Mar-2016 2900 Joyner, Warner, Cashmere
Fibre pit hauling

83k premises dropped from July NBN rollout plan

The devil is in the detail – July’s quarterly construction plan shows 83k premises removed from the nbn rollout plan.

Analysis of the 18 month rollout plan released in July by nbn has shown that around 83,500 premises previously listed as being in the 18 month plan had been removed.

The areas removed were slated for a Fibre to the Node rollout to commence during 2016 and include the areas of and surrounding:

New South Wales

  • Cessnock/Bellbird
  • Darlington Point

Queensland

  • Brassall
  • Currumbin
  • Helidon
  • Magnetic Island
  • Samford
  • Gold Coast/Tweed Heads
  • Mount Crosby
  • Sunshine Coast/Noosa
  • Pittsworth
  • Robina

South Australia

  • Flinders

Tasmania

  • Queenstown
  • Rosebery
  • Zeehan

(for more information, see full table at the end of the post)

At the start of July, the company responsible for building the National Broadband Network announced in a media release that an additional 200,000 premises were added to the nbn rollout.

From initial calculations, this figure was derived from the total number of premises that were added to the rollout plan and does not take into account the number of premises removed from the plan.

If true, this means that the net increase in number of premises expected to commence construction within 18 months would be around 40% less than announced (from 200,000 to around 120,000 premises) in the July press release.

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Inside an NBN node at Umina Beach

Poor NBN FTTN/B design may lead to decades of congestion

“With a measly 2Gbps backhaul per node you can forget about 4K Netflix. FTTN is going to be no different to the current Telstra RIMs”

(analysis) Customers on the shiny new NBN FTTN and FTTB networks may find themselves left with slow and congested speeds for decades because of short-sighted network design decisions made by the company.

Analysis of the latest Network Design Rules for the NBN, dated 30th June 2015, reveals that customers may only be able to reach a committed information rate (CIR) of roughly 5Mbps on a fully loaded node – far short of the 25 mbps that popular internet streaming service Netflix says is required for 4K video streaming and also falls short of the Vertigan panel’s recommendation that 50% of Australians will only need 15 Mbps by 2023.

The calculation:

nbn™, the company responsible for building the NBN, currently deploys 4 Point-to-Point fibres from the Fibre Access Node (similar to an “exchange”) to the NBN node where the DSLAM equipment is located.  However, it also goes on to say that only 2 of the 4 fibres will be used for connectivity, with the other 2 reserved for “future growth or migration activities”.

NBN's Network Design Document explains 4 fibres will be allocated per NBN node with only 2 in service.
NBN’s Network Design Document explains 4 fibres will be allocated per NBN node with only 2 in service.

Each of the fibres will deliver a 1Gbps ethernet connection back to the NBN Access Aggregation Switch (AAS), totaling to an effective 2Gbps ethernet connection between the node and the Fibre Access Node – or 4Gbps if all 4 allocated fibres are used.

nbn™ introduces an Access Aggregation Switch (AAS) to combine traffic from multiple nodes to the POI
nbn™ introduces an Access Aggregation Switch (AAS) to combine traffic from multiple nodes to the POI

Also according to the document, depending on the DSLAM configuration, each of nbn™’s FTTN and FTTB nodes are capable of connecting up to 384 premises.

Table of NBN Copper DSLAM options
Table of NBN Copper DSLAM options

Taking all of the above into consideration, in a worse case scenario on a  fully-loaded node at peak hour, customers may only reach 5 Mbps if all traffic was distributed evenly:

Number of DSLAM ports Fibres used for uplink Entire node’s effective uplink (Mbps) Committed Information Rate (CIR, Mbps)
48 2 2000 41.7
192 2 2000 10.4
384 2 2000 5.2

Network design wreaks havoc for binge watching season

If a mere 21% of all premises connected to a node starts streaming a 4K stream on Netflix, the node will exceed its capacity.

As many saw with the launch of popular internet TV streaming service Netflix in Australia, telecommunications companies failed to predict the demand of the service leading to heavy network congestion across Australia’s major ISPs.

For some of Netflix’s popular productions like House of Cards and Orange is the New Black, the company releases all the episodes of in their series at once.  This results in a brand new network usage “profile” that Australian ISPs and network providers like NBN have seen little of before… where customers continuously watch (binge) and subsequently stream content for hours on end.

If a mere 21% of all premises connected to a node starts streaming a 4K stream on Netflix (21% of 384 at 25 Mbps), the node will exceed its capacity.  This will leave zero bandwidth for the remaining 75% of customers potentially connected to the node.

While it can be expected that NBN’s QoS (quality of service) management will balance the load to prevent a small number of customers hogging the entire link, all customers across the board will suffer from congestion issues because of it.

With the increasing prevalence of Internet TV in Australia, the limited design of the NBN FTTN and FTTB networks will have lasting implications on what Australians will be able to do with their Internet connection.


 

FTTP upgrade path, uncertain

nbn™ has also indicated that they will only deploy 12 fibres up to an NBN node, making it difficult to upgrade an NBN FTTN or FTTB node area to fibre without significant downtime or extensive civil works.

nbn™ is introducing the star topology for the MTM rollout to save money
nbn™ to rollout 12-core fibre to each node, rather than the existing 36 to save money

Assuming a fully loaded 384 port NBN node is to be upgraded from FTTN to FTTP, with 4 fibres already allocated to the FTTN DSLAM for connectivity back to the Fibre Access Node, 8 fibres are remaining to potentially deliver fibre services all the way to the customer’s premises.

However, the 8 fibres will only be capable of delivering GPON services (the FTTP technology that the NBN currently uses) to a maximum of 256 premises (each fibre can be split into 32 premises, 8 × 32 = 256).

Without causing massive disruption to all customers connected to the current node, it may not be possible to transition to FTTP on high-capacity nodes other than by rolling out the network from scratch again.

This means that even if nbn™ decides to upgrade the network, they will likely continue using copper-based technologies for the years ahead to avoid large capital costs again.

(edit) further reading: You can read nbn’s side of the story in their blog post here.

NBN Fibre to the Node Trial at Umina Beach

nbn™ releases MTM network design rules

Following the adoption of the Multi-Technology Mix, the company responsible for building the network – nbn™, has released an updated version of the Network Design Rules document which dictates how the NBN is designed across all technologies.

In the document, dated 30th June and released today to the public, the company outlines changes to the network planning process for the MTM.  Below are some highlights:

NBN removes protected fibre paths

With the implementation of the MTM, the company has done away with the original “ring topology” in the distribution fibre network, which was designed for fault tolerance allowing at least two paths for data to flow to and from the end user in the case of damage to the fibre network.

nbn™ states that a “star DFN topology” will be used instead, citing cost efficiencies in construction:

The Star DFN topology is the default for the Fixed Access build (post-Multi Technology Mix) to achieve cost efficiencies in construction.

nbn™ is introducing the star topology for the MTM rollout to save money
nbn™ is introducing the star topology for the MTM rollout to save money
NBN has now phased out the fault tolerant "Ring Topology" DFN  used in the existing GPON FTTP network
NBN has now phased out the fault tolerant “Ring Topology” DFN used in the existing GPON FTTP network

In addition to the shift to the star topology, by default, only a 12-fibre core sheath will be used to connect an NBN node in a NBN Copper Access environment. This may limit the company’s ability to swap out copper nodes for a passive fibre rollout in the future.

FTTN and FTTB won’t have an NTD, HFC will

The company’s updated network design rules also provides insights into the CPE (Customer Premises Equipment) for the new technologies being introduced into the network.

For customers on the Fibre to the Node (FTTN) or Fibre to the Basement (FTTB) networks, nbn™ will not provide the VDSL2 modem required to connect to the network:

A VDSL2 modem (provided by the Access Seeker or end user). This is on the customer side of the nbn™ network boundary and is not discussed further in this document.

However, NBN Co will provide an NTD for customers in the HFC footprint.

The HFC NTD terminates the incoming physical coax cable at the end-user premises and provides one User to Network Interface (UNI). The HFC NTD will have the following:

  • 1 x coax interface
  • 1 x UNI-Data interfaces

The HFC NTD has not yet been finalised and will be the subject of an RFP.

Unlike the NBN Fibre, NBN Fixed Wireless and NBN Satellite footprints, the HFC NTD is expected to only feature one data port and no voice ports.

NBN copper nodes to include 48, 192 and 384 variants

nbn™ has listed that DSLAMs with 48, 192 and 384 ports will be used in the FTTN and FTTB network, with “further DSLAM sizes, are currently under investigation”.

Table of NBN Copper DSLAM options
Table of NBN Copper DSLAM options

The company says they will prioritise interconnecting their network with the existing copper plant “directly into the pillar” where possible, or alternatively, inject the VDSL2 signals into existing or new downstream and upstream joints.

Each DSLAM will also be served by 4 point-to-point fibres, with at least 2 spares for migration and expansion purposes.  Each fibre is configured to aggregate 1GE of traffic back to the newly introduced Access Aggregation Switch located at the Fibre Access Node site, typically housed at an existing Telstra exchange.

nbn™ introduces an Access Aggregation Switch (AAS) to combine traffic from multiple nodes to the POI
nbn™ introduces an Access Aggregation Switch (AAS) to combine traffic from multiple nodes to the POI

NBN Co’s updated Network Design Document can be found here.

 

nbn™ logo (large)

nbn™’s blog struggles with balance

Bias or truth? nbn™’s official blog just can’t stop attacking the former Government’s Fibre to the Premises policy. Does this fall foul of the GBE guidelines?

Along with last year’s flashy redesign of the then “NBN Co” website, the company introduced a “blog” section to their revamped site.  Whether you liked it or not, at that point the NBN rollout had transitioned to the Multi-Technology Mix strategy. However, it became evident quite quickly that this site is being used to trash the former Labor Government’s NBN policy while parading the current Government’s policy of the “Multi-Technology Mix” rollout.

I’ve completed an analysis of all 127 blog articles posted on the nbn™ blog, as at the morning of 24th June 2015.  The results are not surprising (see the table at the bottom for my full results):

Clear evidence of bias

Not an FTTN party pooper

For example, nbn™’s blog is all too happy to spruik British Telecom’s (BT) headline up-to speed of 76Mbps download.  The figure pops up numerous times in nbn™ blog posts, including here and here.  But when it was revealed that 74% of households could not reach the headline 76Mbps speed at all, nbn™ was silent.  One might say, it’s bad to push a negative impression of its rollout own rollout strategy to the community.  But then, why would nbn™ be more than happy to trash the Fibre to the Premises technology on its blog, given it accounts for almost a quarter of the MTM rollout.

FTTP? Neverrr!

Likewise, even when there’s positive news about a particular FTTP rollout, the company blog always takes a negative spin about the topic on hand.  For example, when Singapore announced nationwide 1Gbps speeds over FTTP – nbn™ immediately went on the negative focusing on the issues of the aggressive competition in Singapore.  Keep in mind, these issues will never affect Australia as no incumbent telco has the money to roll out such a network across such a vast landmass… which is why the NBN existed in the first place.

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NBN Fibre to the Node Trial at Umina Beach

It’s official: MTM takes over

Today, nbn™ updated their rollout map to include new areas where build preparation commenced last month.  As predicted on jxeeno blog last month, this month marks a milestone in the company’s implementation of the Multi-Technology Mix rollout methodology with all 152 of the new Serving Area Modules added set to MTM.

None of the areas added this month will use purely Fibre to the Premises – however, it is expected parts of some Serving Area Modules may use FTTP where economically feasible as part of the company’s established MTM deployment principles.  The majority of premises in the listed areas are expected to get a Fibre to the Node or Fibre to the Basement connection.  A further breakdown of technology-by-area or premises is not available on the company’s public website.

This comes as the company revealed that customers in the FTTN footprint will only be guaranteed 12/1 mbps during the transition period while ADSL services still exist on the copper network.

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The end of an era: FTTP rollout comes to an end

Multi-Technology Mix replaces the full Fibre to the Premises rollout

It’s been known for some time that the Fibre to the Premises rollout will come to a head. As expected after the introduction of the Multi-Technology Mix (MTM) rollout strategy as directed by the Government’s Statement of Expectations to nbn™, the FTTP rollout era is expected to end next month in June. According to the 18 month rollout plan released to service providers in March, there will be no more FSAMs (Fibre Serving Area Modules) expected to commence build beyond June 2015 encompassing a “pure” Fibre to the Premises rollout.

The past two months (March and April) saw a consecutive lows of 4 FSAMs entering into build preparation phase. The 19,900 lucky premises over the past two months are one of the final groups of communities to get the full FTTP rollout. Provided that nbn™ doesn’t remove them from the map again, these areas are expected to commence build within the next 2 months.

One final rollout region, somewhere in the Wollongong Fixed-Line Serving Area, is expected to be the final FSAM to enter into the build preparation phase this month and appear on the rollout map in June. From there on in, it is expected that nbn™ will transition to the MTM, dropping the word “Fibre” from “Fibre Serving Area Module”, releasing Service Area Modules (SAMs) that will encompass multiple technologies in a single module.

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NBN Premises Switch options

NBN Co releases new Technology Choice Policy

NBN Co is set to give consumers more choice over the technology being rolled out. They have released their new Technology Choice Policy which will allow individuals or whole areas to switch from NBN Co’s designated technology under the Multi-Technology Mix model to an alternative technology type at a cost to the consumer.

This is a much anticipated component of the revised rollout policy after NBN Co’s switch to the Multi-Technology Mix — allowing consumers to purchase a “fibre-on-demand” product. However, there are no details or estimates on the expected cost of upgrade build.

As part of the application and network design process, NBN Co will charge individuals $600 (ex GST), and at least $1,000 (ex GST) for a quote to network switch over a large area. According to the NBN Co website, the final costs for each the different technology upgrade “can range from a few thousand dollars to tens of thousands of dollars” for an individual premises switch and “can range from tens of thousands of dollars to several millions of dollars” for a switch of an entire service area.

While absent from the actual policy document, NBN Co’s Chief Customer Officer John Simon indicated to ZDNet’s Josh Taylor that the fee for the application will be refunded if the extension goes ahead.

NBN Premises Switch options
Pricing details show the application and design costs for the Technology Choice Policy

At launch, NBN Co will allow applications to switch an entire area from FTTB, FTTN, Fixed Wireless or Satellite to a full fibre network (FTTP). Starting April, individuals be able to make an application to switch from FTTB to FTTP; and following from that, the switch from FTTN to FTTP will be available in July 2015.

However, the possibility of a HFC to FTTP upgrade is still being considered and developed by NBN Co.

 

The new policy, released this week on Friday*, replaces the existing Network Extension Program which enabled individuals or communities who were slated for Fixed Wireless or Satellite to upgrade to Fibre to the Premises or Fixed Wireless (respectively).

Clarification: Policy was intended to be released on Friday by NBN Co, but was made available on its website on Thursday night. Because NBN Co did intend to release it on Friday, the date when this policy was “released” will still say “Friday” in this post

 

NBN Co's transit network

NBN Co reveals 18 month rollout plan

NBN Co released their new multi-technology “rollout plan” for a forward looking plan of the next 18 months. In their limited rollout plan release, which bares little resemblance or detail previously seen in NBN rollout plans, the company lists the area and the technology planned for use in their 18 month forward plan.

The plan lists on a suburb level, the number of premises NBN Co plans to pass within the next 18 months. It also lists the possible technology types (Fibre to the Premises, Multi-Technology Mix, or Wireless) but does not indicate which (nor how many) premises are covered by which technology.

In usual NBN Co style, the file was published in a stupidly inaccessible format (PDF) — see my complaints here. The official response I got for this format was “to ensure the integrity of our data”… but by exporting the spreadsheet as a PDF, it means the integrity of the data is highly compromised given anyone who wants to do something useful with the data would need to go through a massive amount of conversion needed to get it in a usable format. Given the statement of expectation’s requirement for NBN Co to be transparent, publishing PDF files is clearly just a deterrent for the public to analyse information.

Anyway, I spent a good hour or so putting the data back into an Excel spreadsheet for easier consumption. You can find that here.

Now that I put it all back into an Excel spreadsheet, I was able to do a quick analysis of the technology breakdown (sorta):

Technology Breakdown

Technology Premises
FTTP Only 161,000
MTM Only 1,383,900
Either FTTP/MTM 243,000
Fixed-line Total 1,787,900
Fixed Wireless 126,600
Total 1,914,500

Also — almost seemly as an afterthought, NBN Co reveals at the bottom of their press release that their rollout plan includes 19% underserved areas vs a nation-wide figure of 16%.

Fibre rollout may be one-third less than Strategic Review

(analysis) NBN Co may rollout as little as 16% fibre to the premises under new principles released by the company. Their new guidelines reveal that within the fixed-line footprint, only new developments with over 100 premises or areas where fibre rollout are in advanced stages will likely receive Fibre to the Premises (FTTP). Remaining premises will be served by a mix of HFC and Fibre to the Node or Basement in the fixed-line footprint. This is despite the NBN Co Strategic Review initiated by the incoming Coalition government released 11 months ago suggested that at least 24% of premises in Australia will get FTTP.

Calculations conducted using myNBN.info’s extensive statistics reveal that only around 70 Fixed-line Service Areas (comparable to cities, see tables below) around the whole of Australia are “completed” or “in advanced stages” of the rollout (at least 50% of the rollout modules have at least begun build preparation). This accounts for roughly 1 million premises, or 8% at the end of the rollout in 2020. In addition, NBN Co expects another approximately 1 million premises in new developments (known as greenfields areas) with over 100 premises, accounting for a further 8%1. The total of 16% is roughly one third less than the original 24% suggested in the Strategic Review, or approximately 1 million premises around Australia.

The Government’s statement of expectations mandates the company to provide at least 25 mbps download speeds to all Australian premises with at least 90% of premises in the fixed-line footprint able to get 50 mbps or faster download speeds. NBN Co will only consider installing fibre in areas, not individual premises, where NBN Co finds the existing copper infrastructure to be incapable of delivering speeds required by the mandate. NBN Co is also investigating the possibility for installing fibre in limited “high-profit” areas as well as providing an end-user co-funded “fibre on demand” model.

The figure for greenfields fibre rollout may decrease further as the Government considers new rules that encourage property developers to use alternative fibre providers such as Opticomm.

In previous testimony, NBN Co’s CEO Bill Morrow had indicated that the Fibre to the Premises rollout mix may in fact be higher than that modelled in the Strategic Review:

Bill Morrow: In fact, the number that I recall is a bit higher than that in the early stage of the modelling that we are working on right now.

However, it appears that the modelling has reversed in terms of the number of FTTP premises. In less than 11 months, the multi-technology modelling conducted by NBN Co in their strategic review appears to have been proven to be inaccurate.

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