© Proeye Communications & Security Systems 2017

There   is   much   debate,   controversy,   and   mis-information   about   the   national   broadband   network   (NBN)   build   which   impacts   on   every   Australian   in   terms   of truly   appreciating   the   benefits   and   issues   the   build   will   impose   on   its   nation.   We   also   want   to   help   educate   consumers,   our   industry   and   the   general   public about some of the benefits and issues of the NBN build. Before reading the discussion below, click on the following link to get a quick overview of FTTH.  http://youtu.be/Goh16JIEJkw  Below lists discussion points to help better understand the NBN build, the technology discussions, and issues. Q1. Will the NBN cost 43 Billion dollars? Q2. Why do we NBN? Q3. Why can’t the NBN be built using wireless technologies? Q4. Fibre versus wireless? Q5. What about new wireless technologies claiming to be equivalent or a replacement to fibre? Q6. What is the capacity of fibre? Q7.  What are the benefits of fibre? Q8. The NBN build should be technology agnostic? Q9. Fiber to the Node (FTTN) technology should be used as part of the NBN build? Q10. Can I choose my own UPS  and NTD? Youtube video Myth busting the NBN Infinera’s Photonic Integrated Circuits   Q1. Will the NBN cost 43 Billion dollars? Originally, information available on the NBN Co Ltd web site, the Australian government commited $43 billion, although debate about NBN build costs keep on changing. The current Government of the Day want to be technology agnostic, in reality what they are saying is that they want to use existing legacy technology such as HFC and traditional telephone lines depsite their limitations to deliver somewhat faster broadband to the home, at what they say is more affordable!   Q2. Why do we need a NBN? This is a real concern, because the current Government has not established a clear vision as to why we need the NBN. Instead it has ceased Fiber to the premise build based on its cost benefit analysis that focused on reducing Capital Expenditure (Capex) not Operating Expenditure (Opex).  See submission 71 to the Senate Select Committee on the NBN by Mr Paul Budde. To give you an insight why we need an NBN, some of the things that the previous Government envisioned with the support of State and Local Governments, Industry, institutions, and its citizens prompted the following: Enable super-fast broadband, based on access speeds 25 megabits per second (Mbps) or greater to facilitate: Note: The current Government FTTN replacement of FTTP has a guaranteed speed of FTTN - 12 Mbps versus FTTP- 100 Mbps (which was 8.3 times faster).  • The enabling of multiple applications, bandwidth intensive and latency sensitive. • Better video conferencing, telemedicine or eHealth, and a range technological developments connecting people and professionals together and improving liveability and accessibility. The Senate Select Committee on the National Broadband  received a number of submissions regarding the NBN.  Click here to view the submissions. Q3. Why can’t the NBN be built using wireless technologies? It would be gross miss-use of our finite spectrum resource that can be used more effectively and efficiently by using fibre.  There isn’t much usable radio spectrum available across the country to reasonably service the population at the speeds offered by NBN build. By using only the spectrum resource would also result in higher contention ratios, which means that more users will be competing for access using the same frequency spectrum which will cause slower access speeds. To achieve super-fast broadband and beyond access speeds would require industry to give up most of the utilised radio spectrum for a national company to use it to deliver broadband.   Fibre is still required to provide back-haul to all the wireless base stations anyway to achieve maximum spectrum efficiencies. More base stations would be required to serve end-users. There is already much controversy about the deployment of base stations, which is a major concern to the community. Femtocell technology also another feasible option is a mini mobile phone base station installed in the premise. However the most efficient way to deliver data to the Femtocell would be through cabling being either copper or fibre in Australia. Q4. Fibre versus wireless? Fibre is a complimentary technology to wireless. In general, cabling technologies should not be viewed as an opposition technology to wireless, as the two have inherent benefits and limitations. Cabling technologies such as fibre provides the much needed capacity, which is used to deliver data to mobile phone base stations, is used as back-haul across the country and provides connectivity to overseas countries. The length of fibre cables can span over great distances, with the use of repeating equipment in excess of 50 Km distances (for example Xtera submarine fibre cabling). Wireless technologies were used to connect Tasmania to mainland Australia after failing attempts in using copper cabling technologies. Recent fibre deployments from mainland Australia to Tasmania in 2006 has provided the much needed capacity to Tasmanians to obtain decent broadband speeds in order to adequately engage with the rest of Australia and the world. Wireless technologies have inherent benefits in providing portability and mobility to end-users. High access speeds and throughput is achieved by re- using the same frequency band over and over again geographically, which is enabled by using fibre back-haul. In the premise wireless and cabling technologies work in unison in delivering data and digital services to the end user through a range of different technologies such as broadband over power line (BPL), Ethernet, WiFi, Bluetooth, Zigbee, and Ultra-wideband. Wireless access generally provides the last hop in the service delivery chain for certain services and devices enabling portability in the premise. Telstra uses fibre back-haul to improve service delivery, quality of experience, and to reduce infrastructure cost across the country. From personal experience, prior to Telstra using fibre in their networks, telephone calls from Melbourne to Perth had echo issues and increased sound delays.  Q5. What about new wireless technologies claiming to be equivalent or a replacement to fibre? There will be many claims from certain entities suggesting that their latest wireless solution will be a better fit than fibre to the premise. These wireless solutions will achieve spectrum efficiencies by using technologies such as multi-input and multiple out (MIMO) radio transmission technologies, beam forming technologies, spatial multiplexing, single frequency duplexing, and combinations of these technologies. Some claim technologies such as DIDO  will be the answer that the NBN should be built on. Simply the wireless technologies will improve on spectrum use, but maximum efficiencies will be realised when fibre back-haul is used to connect to these devices. However in certain regional areas or places where fibre is not feasible or practical to install, those wireless technologies would be a practicable alternative.    Q6. What is the capacity of fibre? The capacity of fibre is currently limited by the electronics at each end. Unlike the capacity of copper which is arguably reached, emerging copper transmission technologies are not achieving anything comparable to the speeds achieved with fibre.  Throughput across copper is also affected by the inherent interference issues and attenuation properties suffered by the physical electrical properties of copper. Some claim that copper is comparable to fibre, but in their demonstrations they use multi-core cabling systems or bundles of data cables which is not a true comparison of the speed achieved across a single fibre core. The fastest speed achievable across cable commercially is measured in Gigabits per second. Current fibre transmission technologies are reaching 26 Terrabits per second which is limited by the electronics at each end, demonstrated by Karlsruhe Institute of Technology- Germany. Those speeds achieved across fibre are way ahead of copper. Q7.  What are the benefits of fibre? Fibre unlike copper is electrically inert. Fibre cabling is generally not affected by local interfering electrical or radio emissions or lightening. The capacity of fibre is currently limited by the electronics at either end, allowing fibre infrastructure to be continually re-utilised with new and emerging utlra high speed optical transmission technologies of the future. When photonic circuits replace electronic circuits, greater speeds will be achieved again. Fibre to the premise infrastructure as currently being rolled out by the NBN Co will future proof the delivery of current and future digital services for many years, and it is the electronics at each end which will be generally subject to updates to increase capacity. Unlike the recent hybrid fibre coax systems (HFC), which have only achieved an approximate 20 years life span, it has reached capacity, is electrically prone to many elements including lightening, it excludes many suburbs in highly populated areas, and has been excluded from new developments since the year 2000. For example, the Botanica Park estate developed in Melbourne’s Northern suburb 1999-2000 were excluded from the HFC roll-out. A large utilised portion of the radio frequency spectrum can be sampled and transmitted across across fibre. Generally from 0 to 1 Terrahertz covers the majority of spectrum utilised for most radio communications excluding optical transmission above 1 Terraherz.  By applying the Nyquist-Shannon sampling theorem, a 1 Terrahertz radio spectrum ranging from 0 to 1 Terrahertz is sampled at a rate of 2 Terrahertz. By using 8 bit quantisation, will generate 16 Terrabits of data per second, add a transmission protocol to the data stream, and the radio spectrum is now sampled and transmitted across fibre. Currently this is arguably impossible with copper! Q8. The NBN build should be technology agnostic? Being technology agnostic can implicate that any technology should be used to build the NBN. In other words, it is a fancy way of saying the NBN should be built with many underlying technologies and the network provider should be agnostic to the technologies deployed as part of the network. There are major benefits and pitfalls in a technology agnostic NBN. The benefits allow competing industries to apply current and developing technologies to be used as part of the NBN build. Therefore current infrastructure such as copper cabling and wireless systems be utilised. The pitfalls will emerge from the communities whom will be left with poorer communications technologies delivering slower broadband speeds than fiber serviced areas. The current telecommunications systems today is built on a mix of technologies with a large portion of Australians unable to benefit from decent broadband speeds, or restricted to one service provider. There are many providers today supplying different technologies delivering telecommunications services via Wireless, Satellite, Coaxial, and twisted pair copper cabling. Unfortunately current twisted pair cabling doesn’t provide broadband speeds meeting consumer demand in many local inner city suburbs and towns. The HFC broadband speeds also vary, with users dissatisfied with their internet cable performance, due to the low access speeds and high contention ratios. The current Government uses the phrase, ‘technology agnostic NBN’to support its agenda using legacy infrastructure to build a Fibre to node model and use existing HFC networks. There has been no publicised research by this Government to identify any new or developing technologies that use some other medium, that could be deployed, or looked at more efficient ways to deliver broadband to the home. Q9. Should Fiber to the Node (FTTN) technology should be used as part of the NBN build? FTTN is an interim technology, or patch-up, it is energy inefficient and bandwidth limited. FTTN is based on deploying fiber closer to the premise and delivering broadband using DSL technologies over legacy copper telephone cable that is already deployed at the home. From a technical perspective: • DSL technologies such as G.Fast can only deliver up to 500Mbps in a laboratory environment. • DSL transmissions cause interference to radiocommunications services. • A number of DSL signals are switched off to reduce interference to radiocommunications services such as Emergency Services, Aircraft communications and other end users. Therefore maximum DSL cannot be achieved in a real world environment. • NBN only grantee 12Mbps over FTTN. Fiber to the Premise (FTTP) • Is an and to and carrier optical fiber cable network, it is cheaper and broadband speeds over the fiber has not been reached yet. • FTTP technology doesn’t have any impact on the radio spectrum, it doesn’t cause interference to the radiocommunications, it is electrically inert and not affected by weather. • Optical Cable is smaller, lighter cheaper. • Capex is arguably a little higher, however Opex is much lower. • FTTP should be classed as a Green Broadband Delivery Technology versus HFC and FTTN. • Copper cable is most affected by weather, conducts electricity and usually damaged by lightning, and plenty evidence of the poor state of copper cabling used to deliver DSL!       Q10. Can I choose my own UPS  and NTU? No. Currently users have no choice. NBN Co supply three defined solutions to cater for fibre, wireless, and satellite. NBN Co Fibre access service, Wireless access service, and satellite access service model. There are concerns about the one size fits all network termination device (NTD) and un-interruptible power supply (UPS) solutions for the entire rollout of NBN Co’s FTTP build. NBN Co is only providing the current NTD and UPS solution for its part of the NBN build, which may be placing limitations and barriers to the many retail service provider (RSP) industries whom require increased performance for the services they supply to the end-user. According to the ASIAL report, the security industry raised real concerns with the original UPS performance only providing up to five hours of reserve power to the two phone ports, which is not a fit for purpose solution during a mains power failure. Further developments in alarm monitoring technologies utilise IP- based monitoring of security systems which there is no battery backup service currently provisioned by the current NTD. Therefore wireless redundancy paths are absolutely essential. The NTD should be  provisioned to supply backup power to the data ports as well. Recent reports indicates the UPS battery backup may supply up to 8 hours reserve power, according to an itWIRE report, but is that enough? ASS2201.1 2007 requires up to 16 hours in certain establishments. Security monitoring is only one aspect, with other industries servicing the elderly, or home out patients require better performance from the UPS with longer reserve power times. The NBN Co could allow manufacturers to supply third party products such as UPS’s and NTD’s with the current NBN Co models offered as the minimum requirement for the end user. Third party manufacturers can build the UPS and NTD devices as enhancements whilst meeting minimum performance specifications established by NBN Co. Additional features required can be added to the third party NTD’s and UPS’s utilised by the RSP’s supplying services to the end-user. For example, a UPS with 24 hour battery reserve and solar power integration may be a solution for certain establishments including rural and remote  areas. Multiport NTD’s serving certain business or multi dwelling establishments requiring either more than two analogue telephone adapter (ATA) ports, or more than the four data ports may be a better option in place of accessing and installing NBN Co’s current equipment solution. Further developments may allow RSP’s to supply NTD’s with 3G, LTE, and WiMax redundancy paths for voice and data communications. Further development may allow for third party NTU’s equipped with other radio technologies such as Zigbee to communicate with in-premise devices and utility devices such as smart meters for water, gas and electricity. Currently it is difficult for utilities to connect to the NBN Co NTD due to the expense and difficulty in installing cabling infrastructure required to connect the utility meter to the NTD. A Zigbee wireless interface integrated in the NTD may become a viable option in the future allowing future deployments of smart meters to connect.    The proposed concept of allowing third party devices to be purchased and professionally installed by the user on the network side is not new idea. The current public switched telephone network (PSTN) system we have today demonstrates third party purchased and installed devices by the end user and have been accepted by the carriage service provider, which includes NTD’s, and point of entry boxes with integrated ADSL splitters. Traditionally the carriage service provider managed the phone network end-to-end which included the line and telephone handset in the premise. Now the majority of telecommunications cabling in the home to an established demarcation point defined as the network boundary is defined as customer cabling. Both the customer cabling and equipment defined as customer equipment in the users home is increasingly the responsibility of the home owner to manage.              

P eter Ferris, NBN Co - Lecture to university students - Myth-busting the NBN