NBN architecture draft paper released for public comment

Communications Alliance, the peak body for the Australian communications industry, recently released a vision of the network architecture required to deliver a broad range of network, application and content services to end users in its paper ‘NBN Reference Architecture: High Level Architecture Options for the NBN’.

The document is a key outcome of the Communications Alliance NBN Project and has been developed by its NBN Reference Model working group.

The paper defines the:

• End-to-end broadband network architecture framework;
• Range of potential passive and active NBN wholesale interconnect scenarios; and
• Relationship between customer equipment and retail and wholesale service providers.

Communications Alliance welcomes feedback on the proposed options from all stakeholders including network operators and service providers, governments, regulators, user groups and new applications providers such as utilities, health, education and entertainment industry players. The public comment period closes 6 November.

Communications Alliance CEO Anne Hurley said: “This paper is the first of many outcomes from our NBN Project. We hope it will inspire further discussion and debate about the optimal NBN architecture framework before critical decisions are made. We expect it will also provide a starting point for further engagement with a range of stakeholders.”

Following the three-week public comment period, the NBN Reference Model working group will consider all responses to NBN Reference Architecture, identify areas for further investigation and develop a revised industry position. Responses will also be published on the Communications Alliance website.

The draft paper can be downloaded from: http://commsalliance.com.au/Documents/public-comment.

The reference architecture for the NBN is a key input into all of Communications Alliance’s working groups, which are: NBN Reference Model, Wholesale Services, Early Stage Deployments, End User Premises, Operational, Technical and End User Migration.

In November, the Wholesale Services working group will release a discussion paper focused primarily on the Layer 2 ethernet wholesale service definition.