Telstra has just signed a $1.6 Billion contract with NBN to Plan, Design, Construction and Construction Management services in capital cities. This is part of the NBN’s Multi Technology Mix and will allow NBN to access Telstra’s existing infrastructure in those areas.
Last year the two parties signed a Memorandum of Understanding and Letter of intent indicated this was on the cards, but now the price tag and timeline has been confirmed. The works on expanding the HFC footprint in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Gold Coast, Perth and Adelaide is slated to be completed by 2020.
Telstra’s CEO Andrew Penn says
We have a very strong relationship with nbn and I am pleased that we reached an agreement and can support nbn in building out the nbn network in the existing Telstra HFC footprint”.
Telstra has a long and proud history in network construction and we believe we will bring great expertise to this important part of the nbn network. We are already mobilising our workforce to ensure we support nbn in their roll out schedule.
We look forward to working with nbn on this significant program of work, helping to bring the nbn network to millions of homes and businesses.
Late last year, Telstra also received two contracts as one of the network service and assurance providers to NBN. Telstra was also engaged to work with NBN on a 1000-node trial including FTTN design and construction which they say has been successful.
The HFC Network has traditionally delivered 100Mbps under the right conditions, but with an upgraded standard, DOCSIS 3.1 it is possible to achieve Gigabit speeds over cable broadband networks. nbn say they plan to launch DOCSIS 3.1 services in 2017.
