NBN Co to launch commercial FTTN in Q3 2015

The Federal Government's favoured “multi-technology model”, under which fibre-to-the-node would become the default build for NBN Co where the fibre build hasn't commenced, has finally got a landing date: 2015.

NBN Co's latest product roadmap (PDF here) says commercial fibre-to-the-node services will launch in the third quarter of next year. With that announcement, the network builder also drops the last shovel-full of dirt onto the coffin of the long-abandoned election promise that abandoning universal FTTP would take the network to 70 per cent of premises by 2016.

The initial FTTN product launch will follow industry activity in Q2 of 2015 that will include business readiness testing to make sure the product is ready for launch, and the “onboarding” of the first retail service providers signing on to use the network.

This month, NBN Co will start offering a “sandpit” test environment for VDSL services.

In Q1 of 2015, the network builder will release revised product pricing, in response to industry complaints that its $AU20 per Mbps per month CVC (connectivity virtual circuit) price is too high. The CVC is the aggregation-level pipe that retailers buy to get connectivity to a service area.

Fibre-to-the-basement will get its initial product release in Q1 2015, with retailer onboarding to take place in the same quarter.

The full commercial FTTN rollout date still assumes that the three-way dance between NBN Co, Telstra and the government can achieve a new agreement in time for the launch. &reg