In January, NBN Co will start industry consultation on a fibre-on-demand product.
The company, after getting its hands on Telstra’s and Optus’ cable TV infrastructure as part of its multi-technology network, is set to begin customer pilot in the fourth quarter of next year. Commercial offerings are set for the first quarter of 2016.
A new National Broadband Network (NBN) deal with the government was entered into and signed by Telstra last Sunday, with the amount ($11 billion dollars) being the same as its previous deal with Labor. Telstra will progressively sell its copper and Hybrid Fibre Coaxial (HFC) network to NBN Co as part of the deal.
Optus’ HFC network will also be acquired by NBN Co, its value supposedly equivalent to the $800 million dollar-2011 deal.  Originally, HFC networks were utilised for cable TV distribution.
This marks the first time the NBN product roadmap featured the HFC network.
NBN Co, in its corporate plan, outlined one scenario wherein HFC accounted for around 27 percent of the whole rollout.
Chief Customer Officer of NBN Co, John Simon, said the incorporation of the existing networks in parts of the country representing the fastest and most cost effective way to deliver the NBN was made possible by the recently revised definitive agreements between NBN Co and Telstra.
The new multi-technology model under the Coalition has NBN Co targeting 1.9 million homes by mid-2016 – made possible largely thanks to the planned FTTB (fibre-to-the-basement) rollouts to 20 multi-dwelling units monthly in the near term.
The current plan does not yet include the HFC networks of Telstra and Optus, meaning the number of connections could increase by this date.
On Sunday, Mr. Morrow announced to Fairfax Media the capability of the HFC network to provide the 25 Mbps minimum download speed requirement in the rollout.
Industry consultation on a fibre-on-demand product will be entered into by NBN Co in January. It is also around this time that retail service providers will begin receiving information about the fibre-to-the-basement rollout – with March 2015 set as the initial product release schedule.
“We are continuing our FTTB pilot in inner-city Melbourne with around 45 end users currently experiencing average download peak speeds of 89 Mbps and average upload speeds of 36 Megabits per second,” Mr Simon said.
By the third quarter of 2015, NBN Co’s fibre-to-the-node products are anticipated for release commercially in selected areas.
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