Newly appointed Minister for Communications Mitch Fifield has reiterated the government’s “technology agnostic” approach to the NBN rollout amid suggestions a greater fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) rollout could now be on the cards.In an interview on the ABC’s RN Drive, Fifield stated that as an organisation, the NBN is “continually learning” and “continually adapting” when asked about the government’s NBN plans.
With Malcolm Turnbull having been elevated to prime minister, there has been speculation over the potential impact of the change of leadership on the NBN rollout.
Ovum government technology principal analyst Al Blake last week noted that with Turnbull now leading the government it “may allow for an NBN recalibration”.
“Given the political realities, it would be impossible to go back to the original Labor plan – but we may see the proportion technologies slide further towards FTTP, which would mean world-call broadband performance for a greater percentage of Australians,” Blake commented.
Fifield told RN Drive the government is “not fixated with any particular technology to rollout the NBN”.
“In a sense, we’re technology agnostic, and what that means is that over time, there’s the capacity for an evolution in terms of where the balance of technological solutions lies,” Fifield stated.
“I’m not indicating anything by that other than to say that we’re technology agnostic and where the business leads, is where the business will go in terms of the solutions that it provides to the community.”
NBN earlier this week launched its fibre-to-the-node (FTTN) product, aiming to have 500,000 FTTN premises ready for service by mid-2016 and 3.7 million by mid-2018, at which time it states more than 1.6 million homes are expected to be connected to the NBN network by FTTN.
