Optus has said it welcomes a decision by NBN to roll out fibre to the distribution point (FTTdp) in areas covered by the telco’s hybrid fibre-coaxial (HFC) network.
NBN today revealed it would not proceed with using Optus HFC infrastructure, outside of one area in Queensland. NBN has indicated that it will be more cost effective and faster to roll out FTTdp instead of bringing the Optus HFC assets up to scratch for the National Broadband Network. NBN will still employ Telstra’s HFC assets for the network rollout.
“FTTdp provides design flexibility for rollouts in HFC network areas, and should minimise customer disruption in areas where the current Optus and Telstra HFC networks overlap,” Optus’ vice president of corporate and regulatory affairs, David Epstein, said in a statement.
“It is also is a sensible design solution for areas unable to be serviced by fibre to the node technology.”
NBN has said that under its revised plans, up to 700,000 premises will receive FTTdp connections. Initially it had estimated around 300,000 households would be connect via FTTdp, mostly in non-metro areas.
“FTTdp is another addition to NBN’s multi-technology mix and we hope it ensures this important national project can be delivered quickly and efficiently,” Epstein said.