Report on Melbourne Consumer Consultation
Meeting, 25 March 2009
National Broadband Network: What Will it Mean For You?
Wednesday 25 March 2009
Level 46, 55 Collins Street, Melbourne
Welcome and Introduction
Tony Hill, President of the Internet Society of Australia (ISOC-AU) welcomed
participants to this meeting and said that this discussion is supported by the
Australian Government through the Consumer Representation Grants program of the
Department of Communications, Broadband and the Digital Economy.
The focus of this meeting is the Government's policy on the provision of a
National Broadband Network (NBN). The discussion will begin with a review the
development of the Government's policy on an NBN, and the policy of ISOC-AU on
this issue. It will then look particularly at what the NBN will look like, and
how it might provide existing and new services in a competitive framework.
The meeting will then be open for audience questions and discussion.
National Broadband Network - Tony Hill, President ISOC-AU
Download the presentation (ppt, 0.2Mb)
Tony reviewed the Government's election promise of 2007 that committed a Labor
government to provide a broadband network delivering 12 Mb/s to 98% of the
Australian population, that would be fibre to the node (capable of upscaling)
delivered over 5 years, built in partnership with the private sector, with a
Government commitment of $4.7 billion expenditure on the NBN.
The steps leading up to today are:
- 11/03/08 - Panel of Experts Announced
- 11/04/08 - Request for Proposals (RFP) for National Broadband Network (NBN)
announced - due date 25/7/08
- 11/04/08 - Government call for submissions on regulatory issues associated with
NBN - due 25/6/08
- 22/05/08 - Parties to RFP to be given 12 weeks to consider network information
from the date the information available
- 02/07/08 - New Date for RFP submission 26/11/08
- 26/11/06 - Receipt of submissions (not named) announced. Submitters: Telstra,
Acacia, Optus/Terria, Axia, TransACT, Tasmanian Government.
Submissions to Expert Panel and ACCC for consideration
- 15/12/08 - Government confirmation that Telstra was excluded from further
consideration in the RFP process
- 22/01/09 - Final Report of Panel of Experts received by the Government
ISOC-AU made a submission on the regulatory issues associated with the NBN
calling for an NBN that:
- Is high quality and speed, that supports symmetric applications, with full
capacity for implementation of IPv6
- Is accessible to all Australians wherever they live/work
- Meets communications needs of people with disabilities
- Is affordable
- Retains existing consumer protections
- Is provided in a competitive environment that will give Internet users
genuine choice of service and service provider, and provide the market forces
to encourage improvements in services and pricing
Components of the Government's NBN Policy - Dr Paul Brooks, Principal, Layer 10, and Director, ISOC-AU
Download the presentation (pdf, 3.9Mb)
The talk focussed on three components of the Government's NBN policy:
- Fibre to the Node/Premises (FTTX)
- The delivery of 12 Mb/s
- Wholesale equal access for service providers
FTTX
There are three essential elements to a network: the optical fibre trunk
network that runs from a local exchange to the node; a node - an electronic
device that distributes services from the fibre trunk to various subscriber
connections (including the PSTN and XDSL); and the twisted copper pair radiating
out from the node in a 'star' pattern.
One of the key factors in various FTTX proposals is the length of the twisted
copper pair - the longer the distance from the node to the premises, the less
capacity will be delivered to the premises.
Variations of FTTX can be:
- FTTP - a direct fibre link to a node device on the premises (business or
residential)
- FTTC - Fibre to the curb - where the node is within a few hundred metres of
the premises and housed in small enclosures attached to power poles on streets
- FTTN - Fibre to the Cabinet/Node - where the node is up to 2 kms from the
premises and the cabinet is much larger. (This is most often what is meant by
FTTN)
NBN Capacity
The pledge of 12 Mb/s dates back to November 2005, with Telstra's announcement
that it would provide FTTN to 5 capital cities. The maximum copper loop length
that will support that capacity is 1.5 km from an exchange/RIM. Under
Telstra's plan, there would be 20,000 nodes serving 2.7 million subscribers.
The maximum length of copper from a node/RIM to the premises that would still
support VDSL (approximately 12 Mb/s, is about 1.5 kms.
Summing up on whether FTTN or FTTP is better, FTTN should be seen as a stepping
stone, with FTTP as the final goal.
NBN and Consumers
The NBN should be seen as a network linking customers and services, allowing
customers to access services from multiple service providers. NBN can be seen
as a bottleneck gate keeper.
The outstanding issues surrounding NBN are:
For service providers:
- Where in the network can they plug in
- What are the interface standards
- How can competing service providers innovate in the services they provide
- Will a customer be able to connect to multiple service providers simultaneously
For customers:
- What about CPE to access services
- What about the interoperability of equipment/services
- The reliability of critical services
- Operational issues
- Security of the services
Issues for industry:
- There is now two tier regulation - infrastructure regulation for carriers and
regulation of CSPs for the provision of retail services
- With NBN, there is a third layer - application service providers, including
telephony that does not come under the current regulatory structure
For customers who want a 'one stop shop' solution:
- Who will take responsibility for troubleshooting a problem?
- Who wears the cost of a TIO investigation?
- Currently, VoIP providers do not have to join the TIO
Consumer Discussion
The issues raised in discussion following the presentation were:
- Whether there needed to be more than one network to ensure customer choice -
with the response that only one network is necessary - but must be designed to
ensure access to various service providers which allows them to differentiate
their products/services at different prices - resulting in real customer choice
- Concerns that the NBN might lead to lock-in to a single provider - one audience
member has been told that currently she can only be serviced by Telstra and
nobody else, leading to discussion about whether the NBN would exacerbate or
rectify subscribers' choice of service provider through the wholesale
connection requirement.
- Whether wireless/3G would be able to supply the connectivity requirements of
the NBN instead of a cable. Discussion identified that radio technologies are
fundamentally limited by the spectrum bandwidth to set limits on the capacity
of a single channel and the number of simultaneous channels - to achieve 98%
coverage for all the residences in an urban area in the footprint of a mobile
tower to the bandwidth required could require base station footprints so small
that we would have a mobile phone tower at the end of every street and
intersection.
- Issues about cut over from FTTN to FTTP - how can it be done and is it
preferable to go directly to FTTP, or use FTTN as a stepping stone
- The need for competitive backhaul - depending on the winner of the RPF whether
this will be achieved
- Further discussion on the regulatory structure for telecommunications in an NBN
world, including how to deal with the applications layer
- Need for the user view in NBN discussions
- Queries on what services will be available in an NBN world
- What difference will the NBN make in speeds available/that people are willing
to pay for
Holly Raiche
Executive Director
Internet Society of Australia