As the NBN plan was announced, the second largest broadband provider claimed it amounts to a cartel between Optus, Telstra and the government.
In a blog posted on Sunday, Internode’s MD, Simon Hackett said he supports the government’s original 14 points of interconnection model, despite opposition being voiced from the competition regulator, the ACCC, who recommended an increase in the number of connection points, claiming the current number would reducing competition in backhaul markets.
The parties who contested the number to the ACCC included backhaul providers AAPT, Nextgen Networks, Optus, PIPE Networks, Telstra and the Competitive Carriers Coalition (CCC).
Carriers like Optus, VHA and TPG also back a ‘low consolidation’ approach, calling for the establishment of up to 400 or 500 points of connection to the fibre network.
Hackett’s opposition to the low density POI model is based on a belief that it “means that all smaller players will be forced to buy access from their own (generally) capital city based networks, through to each of those 200 POIs, from one of the few players with that existing fibre backbone structure in place.”
“Because there will be very few of the big players, the access pricing to access the NBN POI’s will tend toward cartel behaviour,” he claims.
Following the NBN launch plan yesterday, the number of POI is now set to jump eight times its original number, to 120 points nationally.
108-130 POIs will be established in mainland cities and 81 POIs in regional Australia and six in Tasmania, according to the plan announced yesterday.
