NBN signs Defence Force deal
Australia's National Broadband Network (NBN) company will be building out network access to 400 army, navy, and air force sites across the country under a deal signed with the Australian Defence Force (ADF), it has announced.
Like its nationwide rollout, NBN will be using a mix of fibre-to-the-premises (FttP), fibre-to-the-node (FttN), fibre-to-the-building (FttB), fixed-wireless, and satellite technologies to connect the sites, with NBN saying it began construction on the project in September.
"We are using a variety of NBN technologies at these sites, allowing us to meet the unique challenges of our vast country and also the site specifics of each base," NBN chief network deployment officer Kathrine Dyer said on Friday.
"Once these works are completed, it's our hope that communication between our military personnel and their families is vastly better."
Sites already being worked on by NBN are the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) Base Tindal and the ADF's main base of Larrakeyah Barracks, incorporating the HMAS Coonawarra, in the Northern Territory, with 20 more to be built by the end of 2017.
Under the deal, NBN will be providing its access network to "non-operational on-base structures and facilities", which are currently stuck on DSL and PSTN connections.
"Another big winner from this program will be the on-base commercial assets such as cafeterias and shops, which will see the benefits of fast connectivity for conducting business," NBN added.
Once complete in 2020, the NBN will connect all Australian premises with 25Mbps minimum speeds, with 1.9 million premises to be served by FttP, 4.6 million with FttN or FttB, 1 million with fibre to the curb (FttC), 3.1 million with hybrid fibre-coaxial (HFC), 600,000 with fixed-wireless, and 400,000 with satellite, according to NBN's Corporate Plan 2018-21.
NBN has not detailed the technology mix breakdown under its new Defence project, however.
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