The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) won't oppose NBN's move to acquire Optus' hybrid fibre-coaxial network and the revised agreement covering the migration of the telco's HFC customers to the National Broadband Network.
Under the original all-fibre NBN vision, Optus' HFC network, along with Telstra's, would have been decommissioned.
However, HFC is now one of the major technologies that will be used for the fixed line NBN rollout, along with fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP), fibre-to-the-node (FTTN) and fibre-to-the-building (FTTB).
NBN's acquisition of the Optus HFC assets would be unlikely to substantially lessen competition, the ACCC found.
The ACCC announced in July its draft decision to allow the revised arrangements between NBN and Optus.
In June the ACCC also signed off on Telstra’s revised migration plan, clearing another hurdle for the rollout of the 'multi-technology mix’ NBN. NBN Co has plans to upgrade the Telstra and Optus HFC infrastructure. It will roll out support for the DOCSIS 3.1 standard, which supports download speeds of up to 10Gbps over HFC.
The use of HFC, along with FTTN, is intended to cut the final cost of the NBN rollout. However, NBN revealed earlier this month the network build is set to cost billions more than originally anticipated.