The Coalition in Australia is committed to completing a national broadband solution – National Broadband Network (NBN), albeit with a number of changes. The Coalition has stated that it is committed to the NBN being a wholesale-only, open-access vehicle.
Incorporate a broader mix of technologies for NBN
While the current NBN plan would see 93% of the country receive a fibre-to-the-home solution, the Coalition has voiced its support for a greater mix of technologies being used to deliver broadband. We would expect that FTTH would largely be contained to homes already completed, existing premises under construction where sunk costs dictate completion is economic, areas where remediation costs for the copper are extremely high, and for new Greenfield sites. We expect that wireless and satellite connections would largely be constrained to a similar percentage of premises to the existing NBN (7%). FTTN [Fibre-to-the-node/building] would be the primary connection type for all homes not covered by wireless or fibre to the home, and possibly also to HFC areas.
The Coalition estimates that the cost of rolling out FTTN to a typical household would be around one-third the cost of FTTH, based on experiences in international markets. FTTN connections could be designed to be upgradeable to FTTH in time, should the demand for FTTH speeds warrant it.
First, greater use of FTTN rather than FTTH would allow a faster rollout of a national broadband network, albeit one with lower theoretical speeds.
Second, completing a staged rollout to FTTN first allows time to better establish the network speeds that will be required to capture the social benefits of higher-speed broadband, and ensures that the network hasn’t been over-capitalised if the social benefits of the NBN can mostly be captured using FTTN speeds.
Third, the structure of the build might, in time, allow for private sector solutions to upgrade the speeds to FTTH, or equivalent speeds using rival technologies.
Fourth, despite a higher total spend to deliver a FTTH network via a FTTN path, the NPV could be lower due to the timing of the associated spend.
Does Indian Coalition led by Advocate turned Politician Mr. Kapil Sibal has any vision in implementing such a project ? We don’t think as the Government stood witness to the Largest Telecom Spectrum Scam in the World and the recent Great Indian Loot of BSNL worth $5Bn.