NBN REPORT: Gamers and subscribers to IPTV services will benefit immediately from the roll out of a new fibre broadband network in Australia, says a new report released today by the federal government.
The report, prepared by KPMG and McKinsey for the federal government, says that in the early years, the focus of the NBN will be on replacing copper infrastructure with fibre to serve current fixed-line demand for voice, Internet, and other broadband applications, over a faster and more open delivery platform. It claims that current Telstra services are slow when compared to similar services in Europe.
The report says that fixed broadband in Australia is delivered mostly by ADSL technology. The combined coverage of superfast broadband, including Telstra’s Melbourne DOCSIS 3.0 cable network and pockets of FTTP or FTTN, is only around 6 percent of premises.
This compares with markets in Europe and North America, where platforms delivering 50 Mbps or more – including FTTP, DOCSIS 3.0 cable and VDSL networks – are being deployed extensively.
The fibre access network will offer a step change in data rates, without the variation or unmanaged contention of ADSL and cable. These increased data rates will be noticeable even for casual web users, and certainly for gamers and other high-bandwidth users.
Longer term, the NBN will transform the end-user experience by enabling faster and richer services and supporting innovative applications and devices. To facilitate this, NBN Co should upgrade its Layer 2 active equipment over time, with reference to international benchmarks and industry standards.
Video delivery should be enabled primarily through bitstream services. RF services should only be offered where they support a multiple-operator platform but are not expected to be commercially attractive to NBN Co.
The NBN will also provide a platform to support the delivery of new e-government applications and other public services such as smart infrastructure over broadband.
In areas without ADSL, users experience lower data rates and variable performance. Despite access to world-class mobile networks, such as Telstra’s NextG HSPA service, there are gaps in coverage, limited choice of service providers, and variations in service performance.
