Opticomm wants peer relationship with NBN Co

Since you're not going to have a monopoly anyhow …

Fibre infrastructure provider Opticomm is hoping the federal government will help it push NBN Co into standardising its retail service provider interfaces.

Th company, which specialises in building fibre networks in greenfields housing developments, recently upgraded its core network, anticipating customer growth in the wake of the government's revised national broadband network strategy.

The company now wants an interconnect arrangement with NBN Co that would differ from the standard retail service provider interface. While NBN Co's mission is to offer services on a uniform basis to all retailers, Opticomm wants to pass traffic essentially as a peer of NBN Co.

This would mean that instead of having to cut deals with retail ISPs on its own behalf, companies with an RSP relationship to NBN Co would be automatically reach into housing estates using Opticomm-built fibre.

According to Communications Day, Opticomm wants communications minister Malcolm Turnbull to direct NBN Co to offer a standard business-to-business (B2B) arrangement. That would presumably include interfaces for traffic-passing, ordering, provisioning and billing.

Opticomm's chief regulatory officer Phil Smith told the newsletter his company is hoping that NBN Co could be directed to standardise its business interface, in preparation to opening that interface up to the industry at large.

The news comes as reports emerge that a specialist cale drilling company is the first direct casualty of the government's move away from an all-fibre national broadband network.

At the end of January, Techdrill, which had fibre trenching contracts in NSW and Queensland, appointed administrators. Techdrill was working under contract to NBN contractor Downer EDI.

However, a lack of work under its NBN contracts, combined with a downturn in its other markets – mining and engineering services – turned out to be too much for the company, the Sydney Morning Herald reports. ®