[Chapter-delegates] Structural separation in Australia

[Tony Hill]

Paul has been very helpful in responding with this information about the Australian NBN project.  But there is a small challenge with terminology that is currently affecting the debate in Australia and people can get confused.  We need to recognise that there are two concepts that are different here but sometimes called by the same name.  They are NBN and NBNCo.

NBN stands for the national broadband network.  This is the high speed broadband network that government is seeking to have built.  It will serve 100% of the Australian population, but in different ways.  For at least 93% of Australia's population there will be new fibre links to each premises.  For the other 7% there will be either fixed wireless or satellite solutions depending on how remote the location is.  The whole of the NBN currently is being designed to deliver services by layer 2.

NBNCo stands for the government owned company that is charged with building the NBN. In general terms, it is limited to providing ONLY wholesale services into the telecommunications market.  NBNCo will provide its services to other companies, which it calls retail service providers (RSPs).  In general terms, those RSPs have the responsibility for designing and delivering any services delivered over the NBN, including what protocols or layer 3 services will be involved.

In my view, government policy has not dealt properly with the layer 3 issues.  I think there is a general assumption that the competitive market will deal with those issues.  But at the moment, there is no policy guarantee that layer 3 services will be delivered by the Internet Protocol or any version of the Internet Protocol, eg IPv6.  Also, there is no policy guarantee of the nature of services that will be provided, eg will the service be delivered by an open access Internet as we currently know it, or will the services be delivered by some sort of walled garden architecture (maybe still by IP).

The latest announcement by the Australian Government about the rules for structural separation of our major telecommunications company, are a step in the right direction for achieving a competitive market, but only one step.  Australia has been wrestling with issues around the competitive market since policy moved in that direction in the early 1990s.  We still have to see how all this will play out.

regards, Tony Hill




On 02/06/2011, at 4:07 PM, Paul Brooks wrote:

> On 2/06/2011 10:25 AM, Joly MacFie wrote:
>> Thanks. Interesting.
>> 
>> I'm sorry. I'm always getting my models mixed up, I meant levels 2 and 3 as in
>> http://www.isoc-au.org.au/Submissions/NBNCo_Feb2010FINAL.pdf
>> 
> 
> Ah - layer-2 (Ethernet) vs Layer-3 (IP) as the preference for NBN wholesale tail circuits.
> 
> Yes, that has been resolved - the NBN is purely Ethernet (layer-2), providing Ethernet
> VLAN bitstream links between end-user premises and the interconnect with service
> providers. All IP processing, IP address assignment, routing etc is done by the
> service provider outside the NBN.
> 
> 
> Paul.
> 
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