The National Broadband Network WAS a great policy. When it was announced in March 2007, I was on a national tour presenting on the importance of FTTH as a national infrastructure. I was quite proud to be one of the people responsible for convincing the Minister to head down the path of a National Broadband Network. However that pride has now turned to shame as we see NBNco's implementation of a great policy turn into a train wreck which is happening in slow motion before our eyes. But like many of the policies of this Labor Government, they have it great on paper, but fail to deliver on their promises.

Boy, a big opening I suppose, but its one I truly believe - The NBN in my opinion is a complete disaster and I believe Mike Quigley and a few senior personnel are entirely responsible for the situation. Don't get me wrong, I have a lot of respect for a number of people within NBNco - I don't need to mention them they know who they are - but most are completely out of their depth in building a Fibre to the Home Access network.

There are so many things wrong with NBNco's FTTH implementation I don't know were to start, and I could be discussing this for weeks. So rather than writing it all in one article, I will over the coming weeks focus onto a single point each week and discuss where in my opinion they have gone wrong and why.

The biggest issue for NBNco is an inherit self belief by some within the organisation - one might say they drink their own bath water - which in my opinion has lead to a high level of arrogance within the organisation.

To give you several examples;

The first is a statement made by Peter Ferris, GM of Design & Planning, at a presentation to industry late last year in Melbourne, during which he claimed the market had been stating how "elegant" the NBN architecture was and that he was so "proud" because it was "his design". The reality is that many in the industry have quite the opposite view - they are just too scared to say it publicly for fear of retribution by NBNco.

I have had many discussions with vendors, construction companies, consulting engineers and similar people who have much more experience than those at NBNco designing fibre based access networks and they have all had the same opinion; they cannot comprehend the over engineering within the network and too many staff at NBNco don't wish to listen to expert advice. NBNco is not building the network to world best practice or a common standard, they are re-inventing just about everything.

Another example was back in April when Director of Greenfields at NBNco, Archie Wilson, stated to the Sydney Morning Herald that some developers "failed to follow the proper process". Sorry to burst your bubble Mr Wilson, but NBNco is providing a government funded infrastructure to developers and in that role NBNco should be first getting to understand how developers work and fit into their needs and processes, not the other way around.

For the past 40+ years, developers have simply gone to the PMG/Telecom/Telstra and got everything done for them; now there has been the biggest reform in telecommunications in Australia and the developers are confused about what to do. This is not the developers fault, in my opinion this is arrogance and mismanagement on the part of NBNco for failing to educate the industry on these massive changes. But then Mr Wilson would not understand how telecommunication construction works in the new housing projects because (it is my understanding) he has no experience in the carrier world, no construction experience nor any greenfield development experience - he came from Cisco's enterprise business, a great choice for this critical position!

Time and again we see examples of NBNco ignoring industry advice particularly from Communications Alliance - the peak industry body for setting telecommunication standards. A good example has been a number of "debates" with NBNco staff in some of the working groups about the provision of express conduits (typically 4 x 100mm ducts) in certain sections of the network built within a new estate. NBNco refuses to follow that recommendation by industry - thus effectively preventing carriers such as Telstra, Optus, Vodafone or others from expanding their network (particularly for Mobile base stations) through these new estates. In the past Telstra and others (like Opticomm) would build spare capacity into the conduct infrastructure for duct sharing. NBNco like it or not you are the new national infrastructure carrier and you are required to provide infrastructure for now and the future for the needs of all carriers not just yourself. Even Telstra was never as arrogant as this even during the "Trujillo Era" - its like a time warp back to the PMG of the 1970's - extremely monopolistic and setting their own standards.

In my next article I will go into the detail of the network design highlighting a number of its "issues" and how the design is grossly over engineered. In my opinion, its for this reason (amoung others) that the construction tenderers did not meet NBNco's price expectations, not because they failed to deliver "fair value". The constructors delivered a price based on what NBNco wished built and how they wanted it built, it was NBNco's poor judgement in estimating the initial network costs and then designing something which was not based on those estimates - again arrogance at its best.

After a series of potentially damaging articles in the media, the chief executive of NBN Co, Mike Quigley, has issued a statement admitting that he had jurisdiction of the region involved in a massive bribery scandal at Alcatel Lucent, while he was a senior executive of the company. In the statement, Mr Quigley indicates that he did not previously know he was responsible for Costa Rica, where the bribery incidents occurred

An article by Stan Beer finally reveals the truth to Quigley's responsibility for Costa Rica during the bribery scandal.

Sounds like a politician making excuses to me.

"I cannot recall. I did not know I was in charge of that."

So if he did not know he was responsible for Costa Rica he must have been derelict in his responsibilities as an Executive of a Publicly listed company. He cannot have it both ways. If I was the Minister I would be calling for his resignation for deception.

Media Release: The Joint Committee on the National Broadband Network will inquire into the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Fibre Deployment) Bill 2011. The Bill will amend the Telecommunications Act 1997 (Cwlth) to ensure the installation of infrastructure for fibre to the premises as part of the rollout of the National Broadband Network (NBN) and enable NBN Co. to be the fibre provider of last resort in new developments, including broad acre estates, urban infill and urban renewal projects within its fibre footprint. This will provide developers with the option to use NBN Co. to install fibre infrastructure for new developments.
http://www.aph.gov.au/house/committee/jcnbn/docs/tlafdbill.pdf

http://www.aph.gov.au/house/committee/jcnbn/bill/media/media01.pdf

Other provisions of the Bill include:

• Enabling Telstra to have a transitional role for providing services for infill developments of less than 100 premises that do not yet have fibre.
• Giving developers the option to use telecommunications providers other than Telstra for installing services for infill developments of less than 100 premises that do not yet have fibre.
• Putting in place the optical fibre line requirement to ensure that fibre is provided for new developments in the long term if required, and the fibre-ready facility requirement to allow the ready deployment of fixed telecommunications lines to a premises.
• Prohibiting constitutional corporations from selling or leasing land or buildings situated in new developments unless fibre-ready facilities have been installed
• Attaching penalties to the sale or lease of land or buildings where fibre-ready facilities have not been installed.
• Exclusion from the fibre ready facility and fibre-ready installation requirements of new developments where urban utilities are not installed (are outside the fibre footprint).
• Ministerial authority to exempt by legislative instrument, projects, individual lots, units or conduct otherwise subject to the provisions of the Bill.
• A regime for carriers to secure access to fixed-line facilities which are owned by non-carriers, to ensure the fibre rollout using these facilities.
• Empowering the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to be the default arbitrator for the access regime for carriers including setting the code of conditions for and determining the feasibility of third party access to the regime.
• Empowering the Australian Communications and Media Authority to make technical standards for customer premises equipment and cabling for use with the NBN and other superfast telecommunications networks.

Submissions to the inquiry are invited and should reach the Secretariat no later than 20 May 2011. The Bill and its Explanatory Memorandum are available on the committee’s website at: www.aph.gov.au/jcnbn/telbill

The Indian Government has followed Australia, Singapore and New Zealand in deciding to build a National Broadband Network which will connect 160 million Indian households with high-speed Internet connections by 2014 - wow thats fast!

According to IT & Telecom Minister Sibal "The framework for the National Broadband Plan (NBP) will be finalised by the end of this fiscal (March 31)".

Back in January Sibal -- while announcing his 100-day agenda after assuming stewardship of the Telecom Ministry -- had said the ministry will take concrete steps towards finalisation of the NBP, including the strategy for implementation and roll-out of optical fibre networks.

Well its been a long time between posts! Its become very difficult for me to write as much as I used to on this subject considering my involvement with FTTH rollout in Australia and in particular the stage 1 rollout of NBNco in Tasmania - for which I have a leading roll.

But its time that I started up again in posting information on about what is happening around Australia, although perhaps with a little different approach that before.

Perhaps one of the biggest debates which continues to occur in Australia is whether the deployment of a predominately wired National Broadband Network is the right choice.

FTTH continues to expand dramatically around the world, with many countries in our region also jumping on the bandwagon of FTTH being a critical infrastructure. I recently came across an article about another country starting an FTTH rollout - Kenya!

Kenyan broadband provider Jamii Telecom Ltd (JTL) has announced that it has signed a US$14.3m deal with equipment manufacturer ZTE to connect 100,000 homes to its fibre-optic network, making it the first carrier in the country to connect residential subscribers directly to fibre.

According to the release the fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) rollout will take place in Nairobi, with the following districts earmarked for connectivity: Karen, Lavington, Parklands, Kilimani, Kileleshwa, Lang'ata, South B, Nyayo Estate Embakasi, Gigiri and Runda.

This is the fifth African country to announce or start rollouts in the past few years, following in the foot steps of Rwanda, South Africa, Alegria and Mauritius.

In countries such as these, one would have thought that wireless was the best solution for them; quick to deploy, covers large areas at minimal cost, delivers reasonable bandwidth - although not as fast as FTTH. So its interesting that these countries have elected to go down the fixed infrastructure path.

PRESS RELEASE - (Las Vegas)

The first six months of 2010 show a continuous global growth of all-fiber networks, with Asia still the leading region on FTTH/B but the United States and Russia continuing to expand their fiber coverage. Eastern European countries are implementing an increasing number of fiber networks and becoming drivers of the European market."

The latest ranking, announced at the 2010 FTTH Conference & Expo in Las Vegas, includes 24 economies worldwide that have at least one percent of their households connected to FTTH/B . Looking at the G-20 states, the picture remains unchanged compared to the last survey at the end of 2009, with seven of the G-20 states appearing in ranking: South Korea, Japan, the United States, China, Russia, Italy and France. South Korea remains the global leader in FTTH/B market penetration with more than 50 percent of broadband subscribers connected to all-fiber networks, while Japan has more than 35 percent of households actively using FTTH/B connections. Meanwhile, a number of Eastern European economies, notably Lithuania, Slovenia, Estonia and Bulgaria, continue to show strong market penetration for FTTH as deployments expand in those countries.

Download a chart of the G-20 FTTH Global Ranking.
Download a chart of the FTTH Global Ranking for All Economies.

NOTE: The FTTH Global Ranking is based on the FTTH Councils' definition of FTTH/B: it includes both Fiber to the Home (FTTH), where the fibre connection reaches direct to the household, and Fiber to the Building (FTTB), where fiber terminates inside the boundary of a multi-tenant building. The Ranking covers all countries with at least 200,000 households where the penetration of FTTH/B has reached 1% of the total number of homes.

"While North America's largest FTTH provider, Verizon, is nearing its goals on its massive buildout, it appears that more than 750 smaller telecoms across North America, including a growing number in Canada, are picking up the slack and setting the stage for continued expansion of all-fiber networks," said Joe Savage, President of the FTTH Council North America. "The industry buzz here is that every company delivering telecommunications services to household subscribers needs to be thinking how they are going to upgrade to end-to-end fiber, so we anticipate further robust growth over the next few years."

"With Bulgaria and Romania joining the Global Ranking, the Eastern European countries are leading the drive for fiber in Europe", comments Chris Holden, President of the FTTH Council Europe, "if we include Russia, today the majority of FTTH/B connections are in Eastern Europe. Looking at the G-20 states, Germany, UK and Spain are still missing in the ranking. However, over the last six months there have been promising announcements and plans which should help to accelerate fiber in Europe combined with much more positive messaging from the Commission in its European Digital Agenda."

"More APAC countries are adopting this technology in various degrees and are coming on board the FTTH technology curve. This could be initiated by governments or service providers themselves. They now have a much better understanding of the various jigsaw ecosystem components that is needed for a successful deployment", concludes Y.K. Loke, President of the FTTH Council Asia Pacific. "Another interesting new development is property developers' involvement in high rise buildings (especially in MDUs and MTUs) and industrial and technology parks. Some countries are even exploring the possibility of FTTV (Fiber to the Village). There is the debate of Urban versus Rural deployment. Thus the theme of our forthcoming APAC Conference in India entitled - Fiber bridging the socio-economic divide."

The next update of the FTTH Global Ranking will be presented at the FTTH Council Europe's annual conference in Milan, on 9&10 February 2011.

About the FTTH Council North America:
Now in its eighth year, the Fiber-to-the-Home Council is a non-profit organization established to help its members plan, market, implement and manage FTTH solutions. Council membership includes municipalities, utilities, developers, and traditional and non-traditional service providers, creating a cohesive group to share knowledge and build industry consensus on key issues surrounding fiber to the home. Communities and organizations interested in exploring FTTH options may find information on the FTTH Council web site at http://www.ftthcouncil.org/.

About The FTTH Council Europe:
The FTTH Council Europe is an industry organisation with a mission to accelerate the availability of fibre-based, ultra-high-speed access networks to consumers and businesses. The Council promotes this technology because it will deliver a flow of new services that enhances the quality of life, contributes to a better environment and increased competitiveness. The FTTH Council Europe consists of more than 130 member companies. Its members include leading telecommunications companies and many world leaders in the telecommunications industry. http://www.ftthcouncil.eu/

About the FTTH Council Asia-Pacific:
The FTTH Council Asia-Pacific is a non-profit organization established in 2005. The organization is building on the success of its sister organizations in the US and Europe to educate the industry and the general public on the opportunities and benefits of FTTH solutions. FTTH Council Asia-Pacific members represent all areas of broadband industries, including telecommunications, computing, networking, system integration, engineering and content-provider companies, as well as traditional telecommunications service providers, utilities and municipalities.
http://www.ftthcouncilap.org/

For more information contact:FTTH Council Asia-Pacific
Secretariat
info@ftthcouncilap.org

FTTH Council North America
David St. John
+1-315 849 3800media@ftthcouncil.org

FTTH Council Europe
Nadia Babaali
+33-6 20 88 72 38
nadia.babaali@ftthcouncil.eu