University Hill in Victoria is a new 400 house residential, commercial and retail precinct which is believed to be the first of its type in Australia to have 100Mbps fibre to the premises (FTTP) connectivity available to each building.
According to University Hill’s network developers NEC and OptiComm, NEC’s Gigabit Passive Optical Network (GPON) technology will be used to deliver up to 100Mbps, which is a first for Australia.
The “open access” GPON technology may be used for the federal government’s NBN network.
University Hill residents will have access to fast Internet and standard telephone services over IP with simultaneous delivery of high and standard definition free-to-air and pay TV, all delivered to the home over the single optical fibre connection.
Residents will be able to select from a range of ten ISPs, telephony providers and TV services.
University Hill will use FTTP in most cases, with very high speed digital subscriber line 2 (VDSL2) connections available in multi-tenanted buildings.
GPON can serve up to 128 homes or businesses over a single optical fibre.
Executive general manager of NEC Australia, John Norton, said University Hill is a good example of what all homes in Australia will have access to as a result of the NBN.
“Residents can enjoy reliable, secure and super-fast Internet connectivity to consume movies, music and gaming as well as any number of additional high speed applications like e-health and video calling,” Norton said.
University Hill resident Bill Hristovski said: “It’s great. We’re big users of the Internet so having such a quick and reliable service means we can download movies in about eight minutes – I’m looking forward to spending a lot of time on iTunes.”
OptiComm general manager Phil Smith said for new fibre to the home network deployments are to truly comply with the government’s NBN, they have to be open access.
“No one provider should have a monopoly on services for any particular area or on any particular network. This will ensure that all Australian’s have the same access to fair and affordable broadband services,” Norton said.
NEC and OptiComm expect to connect about 250,000 additional homes to fibre over the next five years.
GPON technology is developed in Australia at NEC’s telecommunications R&D facility.