NBN to be a landmark: Alcatel-Lucent

NBN to be a landmark: Alcatel-Lucent

Summary: The Australian government's push to make the National Broadband Network a mixture of technologies will likely become a landmark that is followed by other countries, according to Alcatel-Lucent CEO Michel Combes.

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TOPICS: NBN, Telcos, Australia
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As the company looks to win some lucrative contracts to provide hundreds of thousands of nodes for the "multi-technology mix" National Broadband Network (NBN), Alcatel-Lucent CEO Michel Combes has said other countries may look to now follow in Australia's footsteps.

Alcatel-Lucent is currently trialling its fibre-to-the-node cabinets and technology with NBN Co in Umina as part of the company's shift to the predominantly fibre-to-the-node rollout. The trial is being conducted under Alcatel-Lucent's existing AU$1.5 billion contract for optical and ethernet equipment signed with NBN Co in 2010 when the plan was fibre to the premises.

NBN Co would likely need to form a new contract with Alcatel-Lucent, or one of its competitors, when the full fibre-to-the-node rollout commences, and NBN Co said in a statement on Thursday that existing premises not covered by HFC or the current fibre deployment would likely get fibre to the node instead of the full fibre to the premises.

Combes said that he was optimistic that the new implementation of the NBN would be successful and other nations may follow the approach taken by the Coalition government in using existing infrastructure for broadband upgrades.

"I am extremely excited by this project because I think it will be successful and it will be a landmark for the rest of the world," he told journalists at Alcatel-Lucent's Technology Symposium in New Jersey on Thursday.

One reason for his optimism is that NBN Co is now led by fellow Vodafone alumnus Bill Morrow, with Combes leaving the Vodafone Europe CEO role in 2013 in a similar circumstance to Morrow to become a turnaround CEO for a struggling Alcatel-Lucent.

"We are family. We have strong connections, and I have a lot of respect. He's not only CEO of NBN Co but he's also a friend," Combes said.

He said that Morrow's role was now to not choose between copper or fibre, but to determine how to use both copper and fibre effectively. He said this meant being a demanding customer for Alcatel-Lucent.

"He is very strong in telecommunications, he knows what it is about. He is a very demanding partner but it is great for us," he said.

Combes said that when Morrow arrived in Australia to turn around Vodafone, the company at that point "was a disaster". He said that Morrow was able to bring the merged Vodafone and Hutchison company together and set in the right plan to bring Vodafone back to growth under new CEO Inaki Berroeta, who Combes first appointed as the CEO of Vodafone Romania.

"I made a bet on Inaki when he went to Romania and he did a super job," he said.

"I think it was a really good choice for Vodafone Australia to get Inaki."

Alcatel-Lucent has played strongly in Australia in fixed technologies, network cores and IP, but Combes admitted that the company had struggled to win any major wireless contracts in Australia, with the major telcos Telstra, Optus, and Vodafone picking Ericsson and Huawei for much of their LTE deployments.

Combes said that the company would look to win contracts for small cells as the telcos look to reduce congestion in their networks in metro areas.

"On wireless we have been less successful in Australia. We believe we can come back with small cells," he said.

He said that in particular, Alcatel-Lucent needed to be looking outside the service provider sector for new customers. 

"The aim of the game is diversification of our customer segments. Service providers, yes, but cable operators, web-scale players, large tech enterprise, and some dedicated segments such as governments, public safety, transportation and utilities," he said.

"On top of that, it is in this region we are starting to have our first success [in] oil and gas."

Josh Taylor travelled to New Jersey as a guest of Alcatel-Lucent.

Topics: NBN, Telcos, Australia

About

Armed with a degree in Computer Science and a Masters in Journalism, Josh keeps a close eye on the telecommunications industry, the National Broadband Network, and all the goings on in government IT.

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7 comments
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  • NO IT WON'T!

    Australia will a laughing stock from the rest of the world, thank Mr. Turnbull and whatever your secret agenda is, because sure as hell his agenda is not Australia.
    bzdata2
  • Alcatel Lucent aren't stupid!

    First they get to sell a few billion in nodes and DSL/VDSL equipment and a microsecond after it's all installed they then get to sell the fibre upgrade which will be necessary when Copper services are overwhelmed.
    It's quite clear that Mr Fraudband has no grasp of mathematics, a 16% quarter on quarter traffic growth is doubling time of 13 months and the last 13 months of traffic growth alone is equal to the total traffic carried in recorded history.
    All of Fraudband revue crew's growth projections will be rendered meaningless by the time of the next election.
    Skype at the moment is only a niche user but over the next few years will become mainstream.
    The greatest failing of Humanity is it's inability to understand the exponential function.
    Kevin Cobley
  • No surprises there

    Alcatel-Lucent get to sell twice as much product to get the job done. No surprises there. They're interested in maximising their bottom line, not providing the most cost effective solution to users (the Australian people), which actually runs counter to their interests.

    It is a little interesting that Josh was flown all the way to New Jersey for this sound bite... Nothing here that couldn't have been done by email or Skype. Barely anything new here at all, really. Oh wait, you don't have NBN fibre, so Skype doesn't work properly, huh? ;-)
    TrevorX
  • An example and model to the world.

    Luckily, for some countries yet to up grade their NBN, they will get to see how inefficient Turdball's Fraudband is.
    Michael Combes is making these favourable comments to please this government and secure future contracts. There are a lot of long, brown tongues around at this point in time.
    Lastofthegoodguys
    • We didn't learn

      We didn't learn from the NZ or UK experience. Will people learn from the NZ, UK and Australian experience?
      Paul Krueger
  • Mates rates ....

    So if I read this correctly the current CEO of A.L is happy because an old mate is running the NBN and they are going to use A.L equipment ......apart from the ethics of this how is this news?
    Wazza11
  • .

    They are quick to how do you say.... "beg"?
    DanielZenno