Nextgen networks is set to start construction on a fibre link between Darwin and Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory early next month.
The 990 kilometre length of fibre is part of a longer, 1473 kilometre link the company is building from Darwin to Brisbane as part of the Federal Government's $250 million Regional Broadband Blackspots Programme (RBBP) fibre rollout early next month.
Once completed in September next year, the fibre will provide competitive backhaul for Internet service providers in Darwin, where often Telstra is the only option.
According to the company's managing director, Phil Sykes, the link will provide "substantial differences to the previous cost of connectivity from those regional centres back into the major capital cities".
"This is a second fibre being taken into areas that have had a serious lack of competition," Sykes said. "Logic would suggest that there are clear and unambiguous benefits for what has been put in place here."
The Darwin suburb of Casuarina is one of the 14 second release NBN sites on the Australian mainland which will ultimately benefit from the RBBP rollout. NBN Co is expected to start construction in both locations in the second quarter of next year.
However, Sykes said the company was already in "planning exercises" and dialogue with Internet service providers in Darwin to roll out additional DSL infrastructure as an interm measure for broadband access in the town.
"The first stage of this is for the existing ISPs with the existing DSL business models to be able to use this backhaul network to be able to provide faster speeds," he said.
Telstra has continued to roll out fibre throughout the Northern Territory, recently completing an 800 kilometre, $34 million fibre roll out to Arnhem Land. It is believed the telco plans to increase its fibre network throughout the state to take advantage of mining companies' telecommunications requirements as well as extend is HSPA Next G network.
However, the lack of competition in the area has led customers to complain of restrictive pricing.
Nextgen networks' link will also connect at Tennant Creek to its own private 761 kilometre fibre link into South Australia, which would also be available for use by service providers. However, given the pricing requirements of the RBBP rollout, businesses are likely to see different pricing in accessing the Government-funded and private fibre backhaul.
Sykes told Computerworld Australia that the additional competition afforded by the Darwin link could see RBBP rollout expanded beyond the 6000 kilometres originally drafted last year by the Federal Government.
"The reality is the benefits as they become realised might even suggest an expansion of the program because it is bringing comeptition to end users," he said.
Under a rumoured alternative broadband plan from the Coalition, the RBBP rollout would continue, but could be expanded to as much as 15,000 kilometres nationally as part of its reintroduction of the Opel project, should it win Government.
Sykes wouldn't confirm whether the Coalition had been in negotiations with Nextgen Networks about the program and its broadband policy, which is yet to be officially announced, but said the company was "focused on rolling the network out".
"We're much better telecommunications engineers than we are politicians, so we focus on what we can do," he said.
Nextgen Networks won the tender to roll out 6,000 kilometres of fibre nationally under the RBBP in December last year, which also includes links to Geraldton, Broken Hill, Victor Harbor, South West Gippsland, and Longreach/Emerald. Communications minister, Stephen Conroy, announced earlier this month that the 1,100 kilometres of the total fibre had been rolled out to date, though Sykes said the company had moved beyond that figure since then.
The project's shorter links are expected to be completed by March next year, while fibre rollout to Darwin and Broken Hill will be finished sometime in September 2011.
The fibre roll out is expected to benefit the National Broadband Network (NBN) as well as other high-bandwidth projects like Australia and New Zealand's joint bid to host the Square Kilometre Array (SKA).
Media have been invited to attend a Nextgen networks ceremony in Darwin on 12 August marking the start of construction for the 990 kilometre link, to be held at Lyons Cottage, home to the 3200 kilometre Overland Telegraph Line built in the 19th century.