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Thursday, 26 May 2011
Page: 4937

Broadband

(Question No. 290)

Mr Fletcher asked the Minister representing the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, in writing, on 21 March 2011:

In respect of potential street cabinets and fibre splitters to be constructed by NBN Co Limited as part of its network rollout

(a) will the architecture of the National Broadband Network require external street cabinets to be installed to house fibre splitters;

(b) what is the typical number of households to be served from an individual fibre splitter; and

(c) how many street cabinets containing fibre splitters will be required to be installed around Australia.

Mr Albanese: The Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy has provided the following answer to the honourable member's question:

(a) Yes, the architecture of the National Broadband Network will require installation of external street cabinets referred to as Fibre Distribution Hubs.

(b) The number of end users to be served from an individual fibre splitter is consistent with Gigabit Passive Optical Network (GPON) capability. NBN Co has developed engineering rules that result in a GPON being shared by a maximum of 32 end users. NBN Co expects the practical average across the fibre footprint to be around 28 end users per GPON. Refer to Question HQIW178 (a).

(c) NBN Co Limited anticipates that 55,000 external street cabinets or Fibre Distribution Hubs will be required to be installed around Australia.