Aussie fibre provider Nextgen Networks has unveiled a wholesale product suite for ISPs “of all types” to access the National Broadband Network (NBN).
The suite, ‘NBN Connect’, is aimed at both small and large ISPs and combines Nextgen’s national fibre network and its points of presence (PoP) in a number of Australia’s data centres with direct connection to NBN Co’s fibre, wireless and satellite access.
Nextgen managing director, Phil Sykes, told said that the suite is providing a range of services under the NBN Connect banner, to meet the differing needs of Retail Service Providers (RSP).
“Our objective is to help RSPs get started and then ramp up their businesses across NBNCo access; fibre, wireless and satellite," Sykes said.
“At one end of the scale our more comprehensive NBN Connect product provides a wholesale Virtual ISP Service to small and medium consumer and business service providers. In this configuration, Nextgen acquires and manages NBN fibre/wireless/satellite 'tails' from NBN Co, connects those tails to our national fibre network and adds internet connectivity plus operational management to provide an end to end managed wholesale connection to the RSP's customers throughout the NBNCo's access network footprint."
“Larger ISPs with substantial existing customer bases will in most cases want a direct relationship with NBNCo for supply of access tails but will still need to reach NBN Co's 121 PoIs,” he said.
“Recognising this need, NBN Connect provides high capacity national connectivity to NBN Co PoIs either via QoS [Quality of Service], private networking or in its simplest form, high capacity transmission links to PoIs.”
According to Sykes, the suite will assist with providing wholesale services from the from the PoIs to end customers' sites as well as national networking between each PoI, the latter of which NBN Co does not offer.
“For large ISPs, Nextgen is offering PoI networking. However, we feel that even large ISPs may want to initially use the Nextgen's NBN Connect bundled access to enter and grow critical mass in new geographic markets.”
The telco’s contract with Townsville-based service provider Internet Solutions is the first Australian carrier contract signed with a RSP under the NBN Co’s ‘demand aggregation’ model. It will provide NBN fibre access to customers in the first release NBN trial regions in July.
Nextgen is "aggregating demand" of RSPs who want to reach their customers in geographic regions serviced by NBN Co access, Sykes said.
“Nextgen believes that there is significant potential for a large number of service providers to develop in an NBN environment. These service providers will range from the existing large ISPs through to niche market and geographic players and all shapes and sizes in between.”
While not designed specifically for those ISPs without carrier licences, Sykes said the many new service provider classes emerging including content service providers, Cloud computing, application service providers, and systems integrators, which are looking to enter the market, played a role in the development of the suite.
Internet Solutions managing director, Roger King, said the NBN would have a significant impact on the Australian service provider landscape, stimulating the development of a new business model far beyond simple internet access to the home.
“Commencing with the Townsville NBN trials that start in July, we can now see a strong future in delivering high speed broadband services to our local customers,” Kind said in a statement.
“Content, applications, storage and infrastructure services on demand will flourish, presented by existing and new service providers to a range of business and consumer market segments,” he said.
Nextgen was finalised in April as one of 12 RSPs to sign agreements with NBN Co to provide access on the network to the five mainland NBN test sites, comprising Brunswick, Townsville, Willunga, and Armidale and premises in neighbouring Minnamurra and Kiama areas.
The first mainland site to go live, Armidale, was switched on in late April, with various users on the Whirlpool forum reporting access, as well as a University of New England IT service support staff member reporting a connection to the network on the same day to iiNet (ASX:IIN).
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