NBN and alarm monitoring

Last year, Federal Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull directed NBN Co to use the most cost-effective technologies to deliver a minimum of 25 Mbps to every premise by 2020. What this means is that a large portion of premises that were to get fibre to the premises will now instead get what is known as the Multi-Technology Mix model.

The Multi-Technology Mix model can be broken up into three key technologies: fibre to the basement (FTTB); fibre to the node (FTTN); hybrid fibre-coaxial (HFC).

Now that contractual terms have been finalised with Telstra and Optus, network connections to the National Broadband Network (NBN) are expected to accelerate. NBN Co has commenced planning, design and construction for FTTB services to 6000 premises in Sydney, Melbourne and the Australian Capital Territory.

43 apartment blocks with 6000 premises in total will be the first to be connected to the NBN through FTTB. NBN Co expects approximately 2000 premises to be ready by the end of March 2015. It comes over a year since NBN Co commenced trials of FTTB technology in Melbourne.

NBN Co has said that the average download speeds for the trial users were 89 Mbps down and 36 Mbps up over the vectored digital subscriber line (VDSL) and will be looking to get FTTB customers connected quickly. NBN Co will likely commence offering commercial FTTN products to retailers in the third quarter of this year, while services on the HFC networks will begin being sold in March 2016.

NBN Co’s new rollout methodology will determine, area by area, which technology is most suitable. NBN Co will look at each of the potential technology choices for that area, the cost for each technology in that area, and estimated revenues and net present value for that area. A survey will be conducted to see what kind of condition the existing copper is in.

The technology implemented in specific areas will be based on what offers the best-value solution for that area. For example, it is unlikely that in an HFC area, NBN Co would use both HFC and FTTN services.

What does this mean for over-the-top services such as security and medical alarms?

Firstly, unlike the fibre network, where everyone received a free battery backup unit from NBN Co in their home, the FTTN and HFC networks will terminate at the existing phone or cable wall socket in the home.

NBN Co will not be installing any internal equipment. Instead, it will be up to retail service providers (RSPs) - for example, phone and internet providers - to supply modems to customers for self-installation, much like ‘naked DSL’ today (though some premium providers may still offer professional installation for clients who prefer it).

It’s not yet known to what extent NBN Co will be putting battery backup out in the FTTN and HFC networks. Unlike the fibre network which was purely passive - simply light travelling over glass cables - the FTTN and HFC networks require many electrically powered devices throughout the copper street network. Although NBN Co will no doubt deploy some batteries in the field to meet its national availability targets, it probably won’t cover every single line in every single circumstance.

As a result, the security industry won’t be able to rely on its equipment being able to make calls over an NBN service during a local power blackout.

Analog telephony products will also no longer be offered - only voice over internet protocol (VoIP) fixed-line phone services will be offered. As VoIP encodes audio into a digital form and then slices the audio into data packets and sends them over the internet, it can’t be assumed that equipment that worked well on the analog copper network will work exactly the same way over a VoIP service.

NBN Co does have a test lab in Melbourne where equipment can be tested free of charge against the various providers’ VoIP services over the NBN fibre network, but with the upcoming FTTN and cable networks, this will add a great many test scenario permutations into the mix.

Additionally, because analog phone services are being discontinued, once a user switches over to the NBN, any existing phone sockets in a home or business will no longer be connected to a phone service.

If a customer wanted to keep their alarm connected to a fixed-line phone service, a registered cabler would need to attend and reconnect their existing phone sockets to the voice port on the new modem.

All these factors combined mean that wireless (3G/4G - bearing in mind Telstra has announced the shutdown of the 2G network in 2016) becomes a very attractive and viable migration path for existing security alarm systems in NBN switchover areas. New security installations would also benefit from using a wireless alarm transmission solution.

This method allows the security system to operate independently of the service provided by the RSP and is not compromised by any changes in their service offering.

3G modules will allow security providers to continue to meet Australian Standards for alarm uptime during blackouts. They are available as add-ons for many alarms, even those that were not originally planned with wireless connectivity in mind. To find out more about the best options for the alarms that you service, speak to your hardware supplier. The service call, hardware and attendant data costs involved with this will be an issue for many in our industry. However, it also provides a good opportunity to engage with your customers with new offerings. For example, security companies providing monitoring services could consider offering customers a new contract by bundling the upfront cost into a 24- or 36-month monitoring contract.

With the decision to roll out a Multi-Technology Mix model, expect to see a marked pick-up in the rollout of the NBN over the coming year.

Important information for cablers

The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) requires any cabler performing specialised cabling work - aerial, underground, optical fibre, structured, co-axial or broadband - to hold the necessary competencies relevant to performing that cabling work. Significant penalties apply.

ASIAL is a cabling registrar accredited by the ACMA to offer cabling registration services under the Telecommunications Act 1997