Tag: Australia

Article

NBN switched on in Kiama, NSW | The Australian

My comments

This deployment of the National Broadband Network has become the second mainland location for this technology. The first mainland location to have the next-generation Internet was Armidale in NSW.

Kiama is primarily a tourist-attraction country town which attracts many day-trip tourists from Sydney. This then feeds a hospitality-driven economy centred around cafes and restaurants. Other than that, it doesn’t necessarily have a key employer like a corporation or university that could create a significant economy.

Of course, it is worth finding out which areas of these towns are actually wired up for the broadband service, especially if these towns are growing out or becoming major economic centres in their own right, as in the case of Armidale which has the University of New England as a key employer. Here, it could be feasible for certain suburbs or neighbourhoods to have the optical fibre pass every door, rather than the whole town. This is a practice that I have noticed with Australian pay-TV where certain communities had Foxtel cable pass their door while others didn’t.

It is also worth knowing, when one or two towns are established with the technology, it could then allow for infrastructure to be deployed out to neighbouring towns as it is built out, especially if “highway” runs are being constructed and “lit up” in order to connect major economic centres. This may also incite more key employers to set up shop in these towns thus creating an increase in the economy there.

Cynics would describe this effort as being political due to the towns being in marginal electorates and the provision of the National Broadband Network as a vote-catching exercise by the Australian Labor Party. But who knows how this could change if the NBN does change the economies in these towns such as through attraction of new employers.

It will therefore be interesting to see what comes about with the arrival of the NBN through the different towns and whether the fibre-to-the-home next-generation broadband would be a proper winner.

Article

Australian Communications Consumer Action Network – National Broadband Network: Guide for Consumers

My comments

After reading this article, I have made a few comments in a manner that isn’t intended to “dig at” the National Broadband Network and its operations but intended to provide level-headed service information about this next-generation broadband service. This may also be similar to other deployments where an FTTH next-generation broadband service is intended as an upgrade over an existing-technology communications service.

The connection will be delivered free of charge while the fibre-optic system is being rolled out in your area and you will receive notice of this from your service provider or NBN Co as it rolls out in your area.

The cabling will be similar to what is used for the current telephony cabling in that area. For most cities, this will be underground fibre-optic cabling, but for outer-urban areas, regional and rural areas, this will be overhead fibre-optic runs on existing telegraph poles.

Tenants and Multi-Tenancy Units

An issue that may arise with rental premises and multi-tenancy units (apartment blocks, shopping centres, office blocks) is that you may have to seek permission from your landlord, body-corporate or building manager to have the fibre-optic wiring done in the building. Your telecommunications / Internet service provider or the National Broadband Network Company will have procedures and forms in place for liaising with these people

Multi-Tenancy Unit / Multi-Dwelling Unit Buildings

The National Broadband Network will be a full “fibre-to-the-premises” deployment with a fibre-optic run to each unit (apartment, house, shop, office space) in the building. Here, the NBN may have to install extra equipment in the building’s wiring closet which may be in the basement or an auxiliary passageway of the building.

Post-changeover

For most people, the telephony and Internet service that you will benefit from will be similar to what you are getting for your current service. There may be revisions to the Internet service concerning download allowances as you benefit from bigger download bandwidths.

Customer Premises Equipment

The device illustrated in the article may be a proof-of-concept article, prototype or pre-production sample that wouldn’t be supplied to customers as part of the NBN rollout. As well, there may be variations in the device’s functionality for the final-issue device. It is also worth knowing that the information that is provided is for the average “Joe Six-pack” who would be running just one classic phone service and one broadband Internet service.

The customer premises equipment will be an “optical network terminator” (ONT) which is a fibre-optic modem that has handset connections for 2 phone services, and four Ethernet ports with 1 port for each Internet service. There is no knowledge of the port speed available through these ports but they may be Gigabit Ethernet ports.

Because there is no power transmitted through the fibre-optic cable, the exchange won’t provide the required power for “lifeline” telephony service. Instead, the power supply that comes with this box will have a backup battery that works in a similar way to an alarm system’s backup battery. Here you will be able to place and receive calls for a certain amount of time when the power goes down.

Of course, this device will be managed by NBN Co and end up being seen by them as a demarcation point for service responsibility.

Customers who have wireless and satellite services will have different CPE requirements but they will have a similar form of connectivity.

Connectivity issues

The home network

Of course, you will have to use an Ethernet-WAN broadband router as your Internet-network edge and there will be the high-end units on the market that will have the Gigabit Ethernet connections on the WAN and LAN Ethernet sockets. For Wi-Fi, these units will need to work with full 802.11n wireless and for HomePlug you would have to use HomePlug AV or HomePlug AV2 setups.

IPTV and IP Telephony

There was nothing mentioned about how one should connect IPTV or IP Telephony equipment; whether via the “edge” router or direct to this ONT box? As well, there wasn’t mention about use of other VoIP hardware like IP telephone to provide the voice telephony service that is normally provided to the telephony ports on this box? This will become more interesting as people consider the use of enhanced IP-telephony technology for their regular telephony services.

Three or more phone services

Similarly, the device doesn’t cater for households with 3 or more classic phone lines such as a business operated from home with the need for a fax service or individuals like elderly relatives residing in the house but wanting the responsibility and dignity of their own phone service under their control. As well, a larger house may be split in to two or more smaller residences and let as such as a way of keeping it viable but may be amalgamated to the larger house for use as a “family house”. Here, there should be support for two or more ONTs in these situations.

This may be rectified through the use of IP telephones that are connected in to the home network and associated with one or more of the phone services; and really shouldn’t be of concern when we move towards full IP telephony.

Modem-to-modem communications

As far as I know, the NBN setup should work with G3 fax, all “human-response dial-out” alarm systems, or most modem-driven monitored-alarm systems connected to the telephony sockets but you will need to check with system provider in the case of your security setup. You may have to scale your fax machine’s throughput to lower “G3” speeds like 14400bps for reliable transmission for reliable operation. I have written further on faxing and monitored alarms in the IP Telephony age in a special article which should be read by customers and industry alike as the National Broadband Network nears.

Small businesses

THe four Ethernet ports may be of benefit to the small-business owner like a cafe operator who wants to run a public wireless hotspot as a separate Internet service. Here, one port can serve a dedicated broadband router like a hotspot gateway for the public Internet service while the other port can serve the business’s “line-of-business” network.

For some other businesses like bars where online vending or amusement machines that are managed by third parties are the order of the day, the separate Ethernet ports can be used to provide an Internet service under the control of the machine’s operator.

Conclusion

This is not simply NBN “spin” but issues that may be of concern whenever an imminent conversion to FTTH technology ins in place for established telecommunications networks.

Articles – The Age

Buy or beware – competitors gear up to do battle with NBN

No NBN price war, despite competition

My Comments

There have been some recent articles about next-generation broadband services appearing in or being planned for particular locales in Australia that compete with the government-backed National Broadband Network.

UK and France offering competitive broadband service

Two countries, namely the UK and France, have established the idea of competitive next-generation broadband after their success with achieving competitive ADSL broadband Internet service. This is because the governments in these countries have worked ahead by establishing a mandatory competitive telecommunications regime including encouragement of local-loop and sub-loop unbundling. They have even ben cited by the European Commission as examples when it comes to broadband-Internet service being competitive and affordable for most people.  

In France, the government have encouraged competitive fibre-to-the-premises service in the form of two methods. The first method is for one or more providers to share infrastructure, especially that which goes “to the door”, while the second method permits a provider or provider coalition to have their own fibre infrastructure “to the door”. That same country also encourages unbundled local-loop ADSL provisioning or “degroupage” in order to see competitive ADSL broadband service.

In the UK, the government is encouraging Unbundled local-loop ADSL provisioning and there are companies who are setting up or planning local next-generation broadband infrastructure in certain cities, towns and villages. These setups, which are based on either fibre-to-the-cabinet with VDSL copper runs or fibre-to-the-premises technoligy, are even being done as a way of giving rural households access to real broadband even though Openreach, the UK company in charge of the wired telecommunications infrastructure, are taking their time to provide this service. As well, Openreach is slowly rolling out a next-generation broadband network that will work on either fibre-to-the-cabinet or fibre-to-the-premises technology.

The Australian next-generation broadband direction

In Australia, regular wireline broadband is provided through one of two methods. Cable-modem broadband is provided by Telstra or Optus in the major capital cities or through TransACT in Canberra or Neighborhood Cable in Geelong, Ballarat or Mildura. These companies own their own cable infrastructure “to the door”. ADSL infrastructure is provided by different retail providers who either resell Telstra ADSL service or through Optus who either may resell Telstra service or use local-loop unbundling. Recently, some other ADSL providers are selling retail ADSL broadband in a “local-loop unbundled” manner with a few offering “naked ADSL” service which doesn’t provide classic landline telephony on the same line.

The Labor Party had started action on the National Broadband Network which is to be a fibre-to-the-premises network covering most metropolitan, regional and rural areas of Australia with wireless and satellite technology to cover the rest. It was also intended to be a replacement for the copper telephone network that is managed by Telstra and there was the idea for Telstra to decommission this copper network and hand it over to the National Broadhand Network authority. This is in a similar manner to how the Openreach entity has come about when it came to provisioning wireline telephone and broadhand service in the UK. Lately, there was a key issue raised about the service being delivered on an “opt-out” arrangement with customers being charged AUD$300 if they don’t have their property connected to the NBN during the actual rollout and want to continue with their classic phone service at their property after the copper network is decommissioned.

TransACT and Neighborhood Cable are offering National Broadband Network their infrastructure at a price that suits them or they will run a competing next-generation broadband service in their operating areas. As well, i3 Group are working with the Brisbane municipal government to set up a fibre-to-the-premises next-generation broadband service in inner-north Brisbane and intend to run it as a competing service if National Broadband Network set up infrastructure there.

At the moment, the main markets to watch when it comes to next-generation broadband are the metropolitan Sydney and Melbourne areas because of them being population centres in Australia. It will be interesting to see whether companies or local governments will set up next-generation broadband infrastructure there in competition to National Broadband Network.

Questions to be answered

One main question that is to be answered is whether it will be feasible for competing infrastructure providers to set up shop alongside the NBN especially in major markets. This includes whether a building landlord or body corporate can have control over the provision of infrastructure for competing service providers.

Another question is whether IP-based broadcasting and voice / video telephony will be controlled on the NBN so as to prevent access to the network by competing IP-based telephony and TV providers. This may be a game changer when it comes to the provision of subscription TV through Australia because it could open up a pathway for retail operators and others to offer competing or complementary multi-channel TV services. It may also affect IP-based telephony providers like Skype or “virtual-network operators” who don’t own their own infrastructure locally but want to provide competing or complementary telephony services.

Conclusion

If there is a desire to see competitive next-generation broadband service in Australia, there will have to be rules and regulations set up to ensure this kind of competition and if the government is serious about this, they should look at what France and the UK are doing to achieve the competitive broadband market there.

Articles

Brisbane plans own fibre network | The Australian

Brisbane strikes out on broadband  | The Age

My Comments

This project, which is instigated by the City of Brisbane, is similar to various British next-generation broadband projects that have been established by i3 Group. The key feature about these projects is that they use publicly-owned sewer mains to lay the fibre-optic cable rather than liaising with the local councils to dig up the roads for this purpose.

The main question is whether the service will be fibre-to-the-premises or fibre-to-the-cabinet which has a copper run to the premises. This also includes whether multi-tenant developments will have full fibre-wiring or copper wiring to each premises in the building.

There is an intention that the service will be a wholesale effort which means that Telstra, Optus and other ISPs can resell the Internet service like they do with ADSL broadband Internet or 3G wireless broadband.

This installation is backed by i3’s private funding and will be in a position to be in competition with National Broadband Network. But there may be a question about whether this will be like the way Box Hill and neighbouring suburbs were provided with mains electricity service by an entity ran by the Box Hill City Council (now City of Whitehorse) rather than the State Electricity Commission before the mains electricity market was reorganised and privatised in the 1990s. This could mean whether i3 have exclusive rights to provide next-generation broadband Internet infrastructure to Brisbane only or can provide in competition with NBN.

As well, another question would be whether the effort will extend to properties in Brisbane’s central activities district or be able to cover most or all of the suburbs in Brisbane.

This may end up with questions about private or municipal efforts to bring next-generation broadband to Australian towns and cities, including efforts to provide proper broadband to regional, rural and remote towns through this country; and whether these competing efforts will be threatened by the National Broadband Network or provide some healthy competition.

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News article

NBN rollout in Tasmania a success, Conroy says – Yahoo!7

My comments

From this article that I had read, I was pleased that Australia had moved on to its first “next-generation broadband” deployment successfully. Most people may scoff at this success being due to a small town where there isn’t many subscribers or the town being in a politically-sensitive neighbourhood in Tasmania.

But I always find that the real test is what happens over the coming years as more people take up the next-generation broadband service and as the service gets used. Issues that will be observed will be whether the use will outgrow the available bandwidth and wither the service is likely to fail over the long term.

In most of the situations were a new technology becomes available, the people who are “first off the block” to take it on are the “early-adopters” who are well-educated, have a good income and have a strong interest in new technologies. They tend to make more use of the Internet and at this time, their heavy use will move off the main broadband infrastructure and most people who use the regular ADSL or cable services in that area will then start to notice better quality-of-service.

It will also be interesting to notice what will happen when the next towns get lit up for the National Broadband Network and also whether the householders in the towns will prepare their home networks for this next-generation service. I have written a good article on this site about preparing for next-generation broadband.

Similarly, it will be interesting to know whether subscribers in these towns will have their landline telephony moved to IP technology and will watch regular TV via the National Broadband Network. As well, it would be interesting to know whether the arrival of the National Broadband Network at these small towns will increase economic growth in these towns, whether through creating a business hub or “Silicon Valley” in these areas.

Articles

Regional internet service to fore | The Australian

Broadband the hot issue in Australian election | FierceCable

My comments

I have been following the issue of rural broadband-Internet delivery and next-generation broadband in this site and have observed certain ways that this issue has been tackled. In Europe, especially the UK and France where service-provider competition is enforced by national governments, there has been plenty of locally-driven initiatives to get decent-level broadband in to rural and regional areas. Some of these initiatives have been instigated by independent private companies, sometimes with the help of local or regional governments. I have even cited some examples of Vtesse Broadhand who have instigated action to “wire-up” some UK villages like Birch Green, Broughton and Hatt to decent-standard broadband, even to next-generation setups with FTTC fibre-optic with VDSL2 copper run to the customer’s door. In Hautes-Pyrénées and Finistère, France, there is an example of local government being involved with providing broadband to a community.

In Australia, the Federal election had yielded a hung Parliament and provided room for three independent MPs who are based in rural areas alongside a Greens MP to determine the next Federal Government. The Australian Labor Party wanted to establish a National Broadband Network which would provide fibre-to-the-premises next-generation broadband to most areas and satellite broadband to a few rural and remote areas. On the other hand, the Liberal and National Party coalition wanted to run with a fibre-optic backhaul and a mix of cable-Internet, DSL and wireless technologies as a way of pushing out broadband Internet to more communities. The broadband blueprint will end up as a deal-maker as far as the rural independent MPs are concerned because of country people needing to gain real broadband speed in their areas.

If the low-cost copper-based technology is to be seen as the preferred solution, the deal-makers need to look at a few issues like handling decaying wiring infrastructure, the possibility of sub-loop DSL setups or “cluster-specific” DSL-enabled telephone exchanges and the the use of sub-loop VDSL2 for providing next-generation broadband speeds. As well, the plan will also have to support an environment that can change at any moment, whether due to an increased population density; or due to a high-value centre of employment appearing in the area.

What I hope for is that this election can be a real wake-up call to raising the standard of rural broadband access and the ability to put country areas on an equal footing with urban areas as I have said in this statement article.

News articles

AAPT launches no limit broadband plan | The Australian

No cap on downloads as AAPT’s truly unlimited internet sets new standard

From the horse’s mouth

AAPT Plan Information Page – AAPT Entertainment Bundle with 24/7 Unlimited Broadband

AAPT Press Release

My comments on this scenario

Anyone who has used broadband Internet in Australia would be aware that all of the services have a usage limit and if you go past this limit, you would either have your Internet service throttled to a very low bandwidth rate or pay for the extra bandwidth used. Some service providers have modified these plans to allow for peak / off-peak limits with separate metering and a higher limit for off-peak hours. This idea is also being investigated in the US by cable companies, especially Comcast, as a way of shaping Internet traffic, mainly to keep IP-based independent video traffic off their networks.

Now AAPT have offered a $A99.95 residential broadband plan that is in the same vein as US or European Internet service plans i.e. it has no usage limits. This has now become an attempt to “one-up” everybody else in the Australian market. This firm had introduced plans with off-peak hours that were limit-free but this has become the most bold act that any major Australian ISP had offered.

This has happened even though Telstra and Optus had recently revised their plans to permit larger usage allowances due to the increased bandwidth available for international Internet traffic to Australia. Other issues that may have encouraged this include use of IP-based entertainment services like Internet radio and IPTV / video-on-demand; as well as the up-and-coming National Broadband Network.

It will be interesting to see what happens further with this deal – whether AAPT rolls it out on to other residential and/or small-business plans and whether other major-league ISPs will roll out “limit-free-all-day” plans and whether these will be offered across the board.