Aust govt expands NGN rollout

Liam Tung | August 02, 2010

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Australia’s government has expanded its planned National Broadband Network (NBN), promising to service an additional 300,000 households with the 100 Mbps fiber network.

The enlarged rollout covers 93% of the population, up from 90% previously, with the remaining 7% of households in remote areas due to be serviced with wireless or satellite offering speeds of up to 12 Mbps.

The announcement comes at the height of a national election campaign, with the current Labor government due to face voters in a poll on August 21.

However, the conservative opposition party has threatened to cancel the rollout should it win government.

A recent report by Akamai on global internet speeds placed Australia at 50^th, stating the country offered average download speeds of 2.6 Mbps.

Consultancies KPMG and McKinsey, which conducted an A$25 million (€17.4 million) study on behalf of the government, released in May, had recommended the extended fiber rollout.

The next-gen network, which estimated to cost as much as A$43 billion, will be rolled out by a new state-owned telco, NBN Co.

The company last month awarded Alcatel-Lucent an initial A$70 million contract for GPON gear.

Source:

Liam Tung