INTERVIEW: Australia’s ambitious and controversial national broadband network project has accelerated rapidly over the past year and now reaches 1.2 million premises – up from 300,000 when the current government took power in 2013.

NBN Co, the state-owned fixed wholesale provider, uses a combination of satellite in the most remote areas, as well as fixed-wireless, fibre and cable in other areas. It opted to use mobile technology to provide last-mile replacement in rural areas with low population density, said Paul Fletcher (pictured), Australian MP and parliamentary secretary to the minister of communications, who spoke earlier this month at Mobile World Congress Shanghai.

NBN uses TD-LTE technology to reach 270,000 premises, with almost 50,000 active end-users and 1,000 new users connecting to the network each week. Its target is to reach 600,000 premises in 2018.

Fixed-wireless users are offered a theoretical peak downlink speed of 25Mb/s and an uplink rate of 5MB/s with a data allowance of 250GB for less than AUD70 ($54) per month, which Fletcher said is a better service than the majority of city dwellers. The average usage is about 70GB a month.

The TD-LTE service, offered via the country’s retail service providers, is now a global fixed-wireless leader, according to a report from Ovum commissioned by Ericsson. The report found in terms of speed, data allowance and price the service was the best compared to the performance of 21 overseas wireless broadband providers.

Ovum said that NBN’s wholesale pricing allows the country’s retail operators to offer the lowest pricing per gigabyte per month in the world on a comparable network.

Fletcher said he thinks this demonstrates the high quality of the fixed-wireless offering.

NBN is currently conducting trials of a new service with a 50Mb/s downlink speed and 20Mb/s uplink speed due to be launched commercially in Q4.

City vs rural coverage
To manage expectations between people in metropolitan, regional and remote areas, he explained that it has been important to be clear about the government’s commitment in different parts of the country.

The government has a substantial subsidy going into the fixed-wireless and satellite networks, which covers the capital for the networks and the operating losses allocated across the users of the networks, he said, noting that broadband has become an intensely political issue.

The capital subsidy across its fixed-wireless and satellite networks is AUD7,000 ($1,100) per end-user. It has committed to minimum peak speeds, which he said are materially lower than in cities.

While there has been much commentary within the industry about the impact of this funding in terms of competitive issues between operators, he told Mobile World Live that the regional and remote networks – the fixed-wireless and satellite – have been less controversial “in the sense that it’s pretty uncontentious, because in these areas private business will find it difficult to justify investment in networks at the same level as in more density populated areas”.

The government’s mobile black-spot programme, he said, is another example of its efforts to subsidise operators’ investments in rural low population density areas and reduce the break-even point for a particular base station for an operator.

Road to 5G
Looking ahead to the upgrade path for NBN’s rural use case for TD-LTE, Fletcher said 5G will be important in leveraging its investment in base stations to get higher speeds. “This is the benefit that is most tangible and easiest to explain to end-users.”

He noted that while there is a series of technical requirements before 5G can be introduced as a commercial service, there is also the work in identifying and allocating spectrum.

He expects the Internet of Things (IoT) to be extremely important and will transform many industries, such as the country’s important mining and agriculture sectors.

“We’re already seeing global vendors setting up research centres in Australia, and Rio Tinto remotely controls mine operations 1,500km away from Perth. While there is a lot of implemented work already, as you improve the connectivity and reduce prices and ubiquity of sensors, there is enormous scope to leverage IoT.”

NBN’s goal is to reach 12.2 million premises by 2020 with a minimum peak speed of 25Mb/s. The current government decided to make use of the country’s existing cable assets, which it plans to acquire. The previous government had planned to scrap the cable network, which reaches about 30 per cent of the population.