The NBN has come a long way since its inception in 2012, and while some of the issues that caused it to fail have been addressed, the overall trajectory is still uncertain.
With many Australians still wary of the new NBN rollout, it is perhaps unsurprising that a number of industry groups have issued a joint statement on the rollout, warning of a number and threats to the rollout.
But while the NBN has progressed a great deal since it was announced, there is still a long ways to go before the project is completed.
Here are 10 things you need to know about the NBN.
1.
The NBN is not yet finished, and is far from ready to be implemented.
NBN Co is the company tasked with delivering the project, but there is a long road ahead.
NBNCo’s head of communications, Rob Marr, has been speaking publicly about the rollout for more than a year now, and the public has not been able to fully digest what his comments mean.
In fact, the rollout is far more complex than it looks, with many features being still being refined.
In an article published in the Australian Financial Magazine, NBNCo chief executive Mike Quigley admitted that the rollout could take up to 10 years.
But that is far longer than NBN Co has ever previously acknowledged.
While the organisation is well on track to meet its targets, there are still significant challenges ahead.
In May 2017, NBN Co confirmed that it was still working on the fibre to the node (FTTN) network.
It’s been reported that NBN Co’s chief technology officer and principal architect, Ian Ritchie, is now working at another company, with the company’s chief operating officer and CEO also working at the same company.
Ritchie was the first to announce that fibre to copper would be coming to the network in the United States in 2021.
The rollout is expected to take around two years to complete, with fibre to node (FttN) and fibre to glass (FTG) networks to follow.
As of mid-2018, NBN Corporation had reported that around 95 per cent of the country’s network is already installed.
This means that around 3.3 million Australians have now connected to the NBN and NBN Co will soon be fully operational.
The next major milestone for NBNCo will be the rollout of FTTN networks to every territory and metropolitan area.
FttN is the most cost-effective technology for high-speed networks, but the cost of FttNs has been increasing rapidly due to a lack of infrastructure.
The average FttNode cost is now around $3,000 per node, compared to the average cost of fibre for NBN Co. However, this is still much cheaper than the $45,000 average cost for fibre to premises.
This has led to some NBN Co executives believing that Ftt nodes will be able to deliver higher speeds at a lower cost.
The cost of these nodes will also depend on the type of network that the node is used on.
FTTN networks are more efficient because they are used for more connections and can be used for longer distances, whereas fibre to Ftt node (also known as Ftt2) is more efficient.
The Ftt3 nodes will cost NBN Co around $8,000 each, compared with the $40,000 for Ftt1 nodes.
NBN Corp has not yet revealed the final cost of the FttP nodes, but it has previously said that they will be cheaper to operate than Ftt0.3.
In early 2018, NBN Corp announced that the company was planning to start deploying the first Ftt POTS network in 2021, with Ftt4 being added later.
This network will provide fibre to every home and business in Australia.
2.
There is still no agreement on how much money NBN Co would be required to fund the rollout and how many people it would cover.
In the 2016 National Broadband Network Report, NBNCO estimated that the NBNCo would need around $60 billion to cover its costs.
The report did note that the project was likely to be funded by the private sector, with some estimates indicating that around $80 billion was required.
However NBNCo has indicated that it will continue to cover the costs through an agreement with Telstra.
This will allow NBN Co to cover future infrastructure upgrades and upgrade the copper network in perpetuity.
NBN’s director of communications Rob Marrs has previously stated that NBNCo was planning on covering the cost through its own money.
However it is unclear whether Telstra would continue to pay for the infrastructure, or whether NBNCo could continue to receive the cost from Telstra and cover the cost by itself.
NBN has also said that the agreement would allow it to continue to provide the same level of services as it does now.
However this is not necessarily the case, as Telstra is not legally required to pay any of NBNCo ‘s costs.
3.
There are currently around 4,000 people working on NBNCo and NBNCo says that
