Australia's National Broadband Network (NBN) is wasting no time getting its network implementation in order by naming Alcatel-Lucent as one of its key network equipment suppliers.
This deal comes only after NBN struck a multi-billion deal to leverage Australian incumbent Telstra's wireline facilities. Following a nine-month battle between Telstra and the government, NBN came to agreement with the incumbent carrier where the NBN will be able to leverage its copper and cable network facilities (ducts and conduits) to build out its Fiber to the Home network.
NBN Co. has committed an initial $60 million fixed price purchase and has also committed to spend up to $1.5 billion on GPON equipment, aggregation and engineering assistance during the lifetime of the project. In addition, NBN has signed a $13 million contract with Alcatel-Lucent for engineering and testing services during the initial phase of the network build out. Separately, NBN has asked 21 companies to submit tenders for network construction.
Although Alcatel-Lucent is the first network equipment vendor to be named for the NBN project, Andrew Butterworth, Alcatel-Lucent's managing director for Australia, is aware they won't be the last.
Butterworth said that NBN told them that "once we get to the mass rollout, they may draw upon another supplier to support them."
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Tasmania Rocks the NBN world
Communications minister Stephen Conroy has officially opened NBN Tasmania’s Network Operations Centre as the firm forges on towards its July start date.
Located in Derwent Park, Hobart and operated by Opticomm, the NOC will take customer orders, consolidate connections and control network traffic; it has received its first serving of connection orders in preparation for the switch-on of commercial services. The facility will take some of the load off the Mornington proof-of-concept test centre, which was supporting systems while the NOC was constructed.
“Today’s launch is another important step in the delivery of the NBN in Tasmania,” said Conroy. “In just a few short weeks, residents and businesses in the communities of Midway Point, Smithton and Scottsdale will have access to services under the NBN and the Network Operations Centre is a crucial component of this roll out... I’m pleased with the level of interest that has been shown by people in the first three communities and I am aware that the number of people providing legal consent for NBN Tasmania to run optic fibre to their premises has been encouraging.”
“The NOC is critical to the delivery of the NBN in Tasmania, and it has been successfully completed, as necessary, prior to the provisioning and operation of the first services,” added NBN Tasmania
Executive Chairman Doug Campbell. “NBN Tasmania has conducted a comprehensive community engagement program to support the rollout and gain the property-owner consents needed to connect the network to houses as they are passed. We are very pleased with the response from the communities, and look forward to celebrating the activation of the first commercial services in July.”
Located in Derwent Park, Hobart and operated by Opticomm, the NOC will take customer orders, consolidate connections and control network traffic; it has received its first serving of connection orders in preparation for the switch-on of commercial services. The facility will take some of the load off the Mornington proof-of-concept test centre, which was supporting systems while the NOC was constructed.
“Today’s launch is another important step in the delivery of the NBN in Tasmania,” said Conroy. “In just a few short weeks, residents and businesses in the communities of Midway Point, Smithton and Scottsdale will have access to services under the NBN and the Network Operations Centre is a crucial component of this roll out... I’m pleased with the level of interest that has been shown by people in the first three communities and I am aware that the number of people providing legal consent for NBN Tasmania to run optic fibre to their premises has been encouraging.”
“The NOC is critical to the delivery of the NBN in Tasmania, and it has been successfully completed, as necessary, prior to the provisioning and operation of the first services,” added NBN Tasmania
Executive Chairman Doug Campbell. “NBN Tasmania has conducted a comprehensive community engagement program to support the rollout and gain the property-owner consents needed to connect the network to houses as they are passed. We are very pleased with the response from the communities, and look forward to celebrating the activation of the first commercial services in July.”
Thursday, June 24, 2010
They all want some of the action - but can they really do it
Capgemini Australia is pulling out all the stops to grab a potentially vast opportunity it has identified within the NBN: the massive OSS/BSS setup that will underpin the project’s operations as a nationwide telco wholesaler. But while the firm’s new telco VP and Telstra alumnus Christophe Bur is bullish on winning a big slice of NBN IT system integration work – in the backend areas where he believes competitors lack Capgemini’s global weight of specific expertise – his designs on the Australian telco space extend well beyond the national network rollout “We’re very keen to win the NBN OSS/BSS [business]!” Bur told CommsDay. “Our advantage is the intimate knowledge of what a telco is, of how it really works.” Capgemini is set to leverage the accumulated know-how of its 8,000 staff in the telco space globally , plus partnerships with VMWare, Cisco, Microsoft, Oracle and others, to stake its claim.
Bur’s own appointment, fresh from a three-year stint as Telstra’s strategy, planning and operations executive director, is emblematic of the specialised resources the consulting and outsourcing outfit is bringing to bear on Australia.
The NBN has already proven lucrative for other consulting firms like McKinsey and KPMG, who between them produced the A$25 million implementation study. But Capgemini is confident of carving out its own niche. “McKinsey, Deloitte, Ernst and Young are working more on the management consultancy side... it’s a very high level point of view. A company like Capgemini is working on a more operation level – product definitions, customer experience for resellers and end-users, system integration,” said telecom, media and entertainment director Laurent Byé. “The business process will be a key point... and it has to be defined up front. We have a set of about a thousand businesses processes which are already defined, and we believe 30-40% of these are directly applicable to the NBN.”
NBN Co has said that it wants to put as much operational control as possible in the hands of service providers, and is already engaging with industry as it pushes out into largely uncharted waters with OSS/BSS on a national scale. Head of network operations Steve Christian has previously urged telco players themselves to contribute their expertise to the project. However, Bur was sanguine that there would be ample opportunity for professional consultancy in the same area. “I think [NBN Co] understand the magnitude of what they’re facing; given their startup nature, they can’t possibly tackle everything. They’ll need all the help they can get for the best results!” he said. “Having said that, the great expertise they’ve got internally makes them very capable of directing resources to achieve what they want... it’s a good model.”
BROADER OFFENSIVE: Of course, a Coalition victory in the next election could see the NBN in its current form scrapped – and the carefully-guarded status of the ongoing negotiations with Telstra is another unknown factor in the project’s future. But Bur sees huge opportunity in Australian telecoms for Capgemini with or without the national network, with the local market on the brink of an evolutionary change: telco players beginning to consolidate, while the shift to cloud computing continues unabated. “I wouldn’t have joined Capgemini simply on the basis of the NBN!” he said. “There are not many times in this industry where there’s a change of the magnitude of the cloud change – virtualisation, software as a service, and so on. And those are going to happen, no matter what.”
Bur’s own appointment, fresh from a three-year stint as Telstra’s strategy, planning and operations executive director, is emblematic of the specialised resources the consulting and outsourcing outfit is bringing to bear on Australia.
The NBN has already proven lucrative for other consulting firms like McKinsey and KPMG, who between them produced the A$25 million implementation study. But Capgemini is confident of carving out its own niche. “McKinsey, Deloitte, Ernst and Young are working more on the management consultancy side... it’s a very high level point of view. A company like Capgemini is working on a more operation level – product definitions, customer experience for resellers and end-users, system integration,” said telecom, media and entertainment director Laurent Byé. “The business process will be a key point... and it has to be defined up front. We have a set of about a thousand businesses processes which are already defined, and we believe 30-40% of these are directly applicable to the NBN.”
NBN Co has said that it wants to put as much operational control as possible in the hands of service providers, and is already engaging with industry as it pushes out into largely uncharted waters with OSS/BSS on a national scale. Head of network operations Steve Christian has previously urged telco players themselves to contribute their expertise to the project. However, Bur was sanguine that there would be ample opportunity for professional consultancy in the same area. “I think [NBN Co] understand the magnitude of what they’re facing; given their startup nature, they can’t possibly tackle everything. They’ll need all the help they can get for the best results!” he said. “Having said that, the great expertise they’ve got internally makes them very capable of directing resources to achieve what they want... it’s a good model.”
BROADER OFFENSIVE: Of course, a Coalition victory in the next election could see the NBN in its current form scrapped – and the carefully-guarded status of the ongoing negotiations with Telstra is another unknown factor in the project’s future. But Bur sees huge opportunity in Australian telecoms for Capgemini with or without the national network, with the local market on the brink of an evolutionary change: telco players beginning to consolidate, while the shift to cloud computing continues unabated. “I wouldn’t have joined Capgemini simply on the basis of the NBN!” he said. “There are not many times in this industry where there’s a change of the magnitude of the cloud change – virtualisation, software as a service, and so on. And those are going to happen, no matter what.”
Monday, June 7, 2010
Stop laying Fibre - Not
US-based developer and manufacturer of outdoor wireless solutions, Exalt, can't understand why carriers in countries like New Zealand are so fixated by laying fibre cables.
The company's solutions are used by mobile operators wanting to back-haul their cell tower data as well as business customers connecting buildings across a city. They are also used as outdoor situations where long distance links are needed for mines in Australia.
Exalt claims that new wireless solutions can have lower latency than fibre, carry up to 2Gbps and cost as low as 5% of the cost per mile of laying fibre cables.
The company's solutions are used by mobile operators wanting to back-haul their cell tower data as well as business customers connecting buildings across a city. They are also used as outdoor situations where long distance links are needed for mines in Australia.
Exalt claims that new wireless solutions can have lower latency than fibre, carry up to 2Gbps and cost as low as 5% of the cost per mile of laying fibre cables.
Saturday, June 5, 2010
Where would we be - ADSL2+, VDSL2
The good people at Bell Labs and other research and development powerhouses continue to come up with ways to make those copper speeds faster. Currently ADSL2+ will provide maximum speeds of 24Mbps (with the emphasis on maximum). Meanwhile VDSL2 services, which Telecom has been trialling for a year and will launch in mid- August. Crockett says on day one 15% of all telephone lines will be able to receive VDSL2 services, by the end of the year it will be 35%, and by the end of 2011 when cabinetisation is finished it will be 60% of all lines.
The catch of course is that you have to be located within 1km of an exchange or cabinet to get the speeds, which Crockett says are a minimum of 15Mbps down and 5Mbps up.
Digital divides
So broadband speeds would get faster, probably keeping pace with customer demand – as new applications came onto the market, broadband services would improve to cater to the increasing demand for bandwidth.
But it’s fair to say there would be a digital divide – not just between those living in the city and those on the farm but between those living in the same neighbourhood. It could become like zoning for high achieving state schools, those on one side of the street would get 50Mbps, those on the other 24Mbps.
Meanwhile, on the margins, there would spring up boutique fibre networks, maybe a bit like what happened with the North Shore Education Access Loop. Where Vector received a $4.5 million government subsidy to connect 45 schools at a concessionary rate but was able to charge businesses market prices to connect to the same fast fibre pipe.
The catch of course is that you have to be located within 1km of an exchange or cabinet to get the speeds, which Crockett says are a minimum of 15Mbps down and 5Mbps up.
Digital divides
So broadband speeds would get faster, probably keeping pace with customer demand – as new applications came onto the market, broadband services would improve to cater to the increasing demand for bandwidth.
But it’s fair to say there would be a digital divide – not just between those living in the city and those on the farm but between those living in the same neighbourhood. It could become like zoning for high achieving state schools, those on one side of the street would get 50Mbps, those on the other 24Mbps.
Meanwhile, on the margins, there would spring up boutique fibre networks, maybe a bit like what happened with the North Shore Education Access Loop. Where Vector received a $4.5 million government subsidy to connect 45 schools at a concessionary rate but was able to charge businesses market prices to connect to the same fast fibre pipe.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Where would we be - FTTN and LLU
There would still be a national fibre network – in the form of Fibre to the Node, or cabinetisation, because the roll out is part of Telecom’s operational separation undertakings. There were some ISPs that were outraged when cabinetisation was announced, notably Orcon and Vodafone who claimed it would dampen their investment in Local Loop Unbundling.
Telecom Wholesale CEO Matt Crockett sights their reaction as one of three lowlights in his career at Telecom (see full interview in upcoming June TR). “When we confirmed our cabinet plans, our senior customers got taken by surprise, which surprised us because we’d shared a huge amount of information around where cabinets were going because we knew it would have an impact around their LLU investment.”
LLU investment has continued, with Vodafone and Orcon being joined by TelstraClear, Compass and CallPlus in providing unbundled services. It might seem as if it’s proceeding at a snail’s pace but according to the latest Commerce Commission audit, the growth in unbundled lines after 18 months appears to be better than international experience.
(Interestingly, Telecom’s rival in the UFB process Axia NetMedia, claims that the fibre Telecom has is about 5% of what is needed because 80% of the cost of deploying fibre is to the premise).
Telecom Wholesale CEO Matt Crockett sights their reaction as one of three lowlights in his career at Telecom (see full interview in upcoming June TR). “When we confirmed our cabinet plans, our senior customers got taken by surprise, which surprised us because we’d shared a huge amount of information around where cabinets were going because we knew it would have an impact around their LLU investment.”
LLU investment has continued, with Vodafone and Orcon being joined by TelstraClear, Compass and CallPlus in providing unbundled services. It might seem as if it’s proceeding at a snail’s pace but according to the latest Commerce Commission audit, the growth in unbundled lines after 18 months appears to be better than international experience.
(Interestingly, Telecom’s rival in the UFB process Axia NetMedia, claims that the fibre Telecom has is about 5% of what is needed because 80% of the cost of deploying fibre is to the premise).
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Telecom New Zealand could be split into two listed companies
Telecom New Zealand could be split into two listed companies giving shareholders exposure to the fortunes of both Telecom's retail business and its fibre business, chief executive Paul Reynolds has suggested this morning at an investor briefing in Sydney.
Reynolds introduced a de-merger as a new alternative to achieve the structural separation Telecom believes is inevitably required if it is to participate in the government's $1.35 billion ultra-fast broadband project.
Speculation on how Telecom would split itself has centred so far on the partial or total sale of Telecom's Chorus unit, either in a trade sale or by being nationalised.
A fourth option for Telecom is non-participation in the UFB project and to go it alone and compete with the new operator, Reynolds said, although such a business would be weighed down by what he described as having gone from one of the least regulated to the "the most heavily regulated" telecommunications market in the world.
Reynolds said a partial sale of Chorus was "unlikely to deliver sufficient value", given the current political and regulatory climate, which has radically weakened Telecom's market position and future outlook as telecommunications infrastructure moves from Telecom's copper-dominated network to very high-speed fibre.
A full sale of Chorus was a possibility, "but we think it might cost a bit more," Reynolds said. "It requires a significant lift in the value of the demerged business."
The advantages of a de-merger option might be to attract a better regulatory outcome for both businesses while allowing shareholders a bet on which of the two was the better long term proposition.
"Which of these businesses will be more successful?" said Reynolds.
"Who knows? Shareholders would remain invested in both and de-risked from some of the uncertainty in the future."
Telecom shares were trading 0.5 per cent higher this morning at $1.91, having found support in the last day as the country's largest listed stock and contributor to the NZX50 Index plumbed historic lows in the uncertainty created by the conversion of regulatory issues and the UFB project.
Reynolds introduced a de-merger as a new alternative to achieve the structural separation Telecom believes is inevitably required if it is to participate in the government's $1.35 billion ultra-fast broadband project.
Speculation on how Telecom would split itself has centred so far on the partial or total sale of Telecom's Chorus unit, either in a trade sale or by being nationalised.
A fourth option for Telecom is non-participation in the UFB project and to go it alone and compete with the new operator, Reynolds said, although such a business would be weighed down by what he described as having gone from one of the least regulated to the "the most heavily regulated" telecommunications market in the world.
Reynolds said a partial sale of Chorus was "unlikely to deliver sufficient value", given the current political and regulatory climate, which has radically weakened Telecom's market position and future outlook as telecommunications infrastructure moves from Telecom's copper-dominated network to very high-speed fibre.
A full sale of Chorus was a possibility, "but we think it might cost a bit more," Reynolds said. "It requires a significant lift in the value of the demerged business."
The advantages of a de-merger option might be to attract a better regulatory outcome for both businesses while allowing shareholders a bet on which of the two was the better long term proposition.
"Which of these businesses will be more successful?" said Reynolds.
"Who knows? Shareholders would remain invested in both and de-risked from some of the uncertainty in the future."
Telecom shares were trading 0.5 per cent higher this morning at $1.91, having found support in the last day as the country's largest listed stock and contributor to the NZX50 Index plumbed historic lows in the uncertainty created by the conversion of regulatory issues and the UFB project.
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