Mahesh Sharma and Mitchell Bingemann | April 09, 2009

THE first sign of the Government’s $43 billion national broadband network appearing in your street is likely to be another wire placed in the tangle of cables carried by suburban telegraph poles.
The federal Government will use poles and underground pipes near homes to roll out the fibre backbone that will underpin the new national broadband network.

As part of the Government’s plans to build the network over the next eight years, fibre-optic cable will connect 90 per cent of the country to the internet at speeds of 100 megabits per second.

The Communications Minister, Stephen Conroy, also announced two satellites would be launched to supply wireless technology to the 10per cent of the population who live in towns of fewer than 1000 people.

The Government’s fibre-to-the-home broadband network could be implemented by running a fibre-optic cable from a telephone exchange directly to each house. This would bring the fastest speeds and be the most expensive solution.

A second option would be to run fibre-optic cable from an exchange to a passive hub, where it is split and redirected to each home. Although this method is cheaper, bandwidth and speeds would be lower because capacity is shared.

Existing Foxtel or Optus fibre-optic cables that run down many streets could be used to deliver the broadband, if the existing copper wires, which branch from the cable into homes, were replaced with fibre optic branches. However, splicing multiple branches from a single fibre-optic cable to homes would reduce bandwidth and speeds.

A discussion paper released by the Government on Tuesday offers little detail on how it intends to wire up the country with fibre optics to the home.

The paper says telcos will be given access to the poles, ducts and pipes of other utilities to install infrastructure. Importantly, the Government will allow fibre to be rolled out overhead on existing poles.

In many streets in capital cities this is likely to mean a third wire hanging alongside the two existing cables used by Foxtel and Optus.

Telco access to information about the location and availability of poles, ducts and pipes will also be improved.

But there is no detail as to exactly where the cable will be laid underground and what areas will need to be dug up in order to achieve this. Additionally, there are no descriptions of how the cable will hang from poles.

The Government also plans to make it mandatory for NBN infrastructure to be installed in greenfield estates instead of the current practice of using copper.

Senator Conroy was tight-lipped about exactly how the NBN would be rolled out and a spokesperson said these plans would be formulated over the next nine months.

There are signs the main approach will be using overhead cables, based on the plans for the $500 million Tasmanian rollout, the Government’s first cab off the NBN rank.

According to the Tasmanian Government, the rollout — which is also being performed by state-owned electricity company Aurora — will deliver 70 per cent of the fibre via overhead means while the remaining 30 per cent will be delivered underground.