BuddeBlog

At the BuddeComm Roundtable, on March 6th, with the Hon Stephen Conroy, the Australian Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy the industry presented its FttH vision on the Government’s plans for a National Broadband Network.

The aim of the industry’s report is to establish the critical parameters for the tender document that will be issued within the next two months for a National Broadband Network (at stake is a $4.7 billion government subsidy). The Minister is very interested in international participation as well as national proposals.

Underlying all of the recommendations in this report is a fundamental message and recognition that broadband is more than just faster Internet connections. Real broadband is about provisioning ubiquitous levels of connectivity that provide a catalyst for further developing a wide range of other industries. These include health, education and other utilities in addition to telecommunications.

The FttP group has identified the following 17 recommendations for the special attention of the Minister:

Ubiquity – Establish an advanced, scalable, and long-term sustainable broadband network infrastructure that has national coverage and is accessible to all Australians.

Open Access Network Environment
Open Access Networks – Promote a strong commitment towards ‘Open Access Networks’, with a clear enabling set of rules attached to it. These rules will provide access seekers with equal opportunities to deliver content and services as well as to be provide them with equal access to the network at identified demarcation points.

Fair Access Pricing – Ensure fair access pricing caps are in place for uncontested markets.

Consumer Flexibility – Establish necessary legislative and regulatory structures that support a long term capability to maximise consumer choice of service providers.

Competition and innovation – Promote competition and a culture of innovation between service providers who access the open network environment.

Appropriate Governance – Establish appropriate changes to telecommunications and competition legislation to support an Open Access Network environment. Appoint an independent body, such as the ACCC, to oversee this legislation. Whilst changes are sought, the resulting environment should be one of minimal regulation. Once balanced NBN markets have been established, competitive market forces and industry self-regulation should be the main method of achieving outcomes for network deployments and network operations in that market.

Network Layer Approach – Arrange the current ‘broadband’ industry into two independent ‘access’ and ‘applications’ sectors. Establish the necessary legislative and regulatory framework that will support each sector’s requirements.

Industry Benefits
Multi-Industry Benefits – Formally recognise that the NBN offers multiple industry opportunities and is far more significant for Australia than just a faster means to access the Internet. Through appropriate government policy, new NBN applications can play a pivotal role in addressing e-education, e-health, climate change, communication, smart utility grids, and entertainment services as well as high bandwidth Internet access.

Technology
Realistic Time Frames – Establish realistic timeframes for the implementation of a comprehensive FttP plan. The concern here is a need to ensure successful outcomes. A well executed plan will involve timely policy making, detailed and considered planning and a delivery timeframe that recognises the commercial needs of bidders. 

Technology Neutral – Recognise that the technology choice for a NBN should come down to an evaluation of which solution will deliver Australians the most scalable and long-term sustainable answer. Whilst the NBN is ultimately expected to deliver FttP to many parts of Australia, this solution may have to initially involve some hybrid technology components.
 
Stepping Stones - Recognise that in order to reach the end vision of a national FttP solution, that a staged approach to an infrastructure build may have to be undertaken in some areas. An FttP solution will be a 5-10 year process and may therefore require a number of stepping stones to achieve. Accordingly, the industry accepts FttN as a necessary step but not as a goal in itself. A staged approach towards an agreed end goal of FttP, should result in avoiding an overbuilds of infrastructure, promote more realistic investments and avoid endless regulatory debate along the way.

Clear Technical Specifications – Require NBN bidders to provide clear technical and standards driven specifications of their proposed services. The specifications should be sufficient for potential access seekers to assess the capability of the NBN, engineer and plan migration to the NBN, and to develop new and innovative services that utilise high speed connectivity speeds offered by FttP technology. The services should also adhere to strict privacy and security standards.

Promote Shared Industry Plans – Require NBN bidders to indicate and co-ordinate their plans for investment with other bidders. When building a national infrastructure, cooperation is essential either voluntarily or via legislation. As a country, Australia can’t afford to waste resources through overbuilding where it is not economically viable (as is the case for most of regional Australia). For example, the Wholesale Industry Group has promoted industry cooperation by working together with the Government to map the locations of existing infrastructure to highlight the gaps that will need funding and to indicated where the interconnect points between the various networks could or should be (meet-me-points).

A Holistic Approach – Develop a holistic approach to the NBN that also includes social, industrial and commercial requirements in addition to technical and financial considerations. The industry would prefer the government to set affordability goals, coverage targets and time frames for initiatives such as e-health, e-education and smart grids, so that the industry can develop appropriate infrastructure plans to support them. In addition, the Government should build upon initiatives like these and link together various other related governments plans in a whole-of-government approach. (eg. national smart grids for the utilities, $100 million for e-learning infrastructure, e-health infrastructure etc.).

Leveraging Government Investment
Alignment with Other Programs – Ensure a seamless integration with the National Regional Backbone project (OPEL).
Leverage Investment – Leverage as many government resources and initiatives as possible to attract investment in a national broadband network infrastructure. By developing a visionary government strategy to co-ordinate a range of related government initiatives under one umbrella (such as OPEL, NBN, health, education and smart grids) it will be possible to maximise the effectiveness of the proposed investment of $4.7 billion of government funding.

Education
Industry Education – Ensure industry training programs on NBN technologies are established that will address the current shortfall in skills available in the marketplace. The winning bidder should also promote the benefits and uses of an advanced broadband network infrastructure to all Australians.

At the meeting the following working groups were established to take the report further from here.

• Open Access issues for the tender document. (Access Seekers)
• Smart Grid Australia especially aimed at lobbying politicians and bureaucrats involved in environmental issues such as climate change, energy savings, CO2 emissions, etc
• Greenfield FttP (Develop a model that guarantees FttP in all Greenfield housing developments)
• Applications (incl. e-health, e-learning, digital media) especially aimed at lobbying politicians and bureaucrats outside the ICT industry.
• Migration between old and new telco environments (brownfield issues, backhaul)

See also:

• Australia - Competition Issues – 2008
• Australia - Labor Government Policies – 2008
• Australia - Operational Separation of Telstra
• Australia - Broadband - DSLAMs and ADSL2+
• Australia - National FttX Strategy – 2008
• Australia - Regional - The OPEL Network
• Australia - Utilities Broadband - Smart Grids Moving into 2008

This entry was posted on Monday, March 10th, 2008 at 2:31 pm and is filed under BuddeBlog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.