NBN Co signs $635m in equipment deals
The National Broadband Network Company (NBN Co) has today announced the signing of $635 million worth of equipment contracts to span the next five years.
The contracts cover the provision of equipment to be used when a customer orders a service from their retail service provider, such as internal fibre distribution hubs for offices and apartment blocks, internal components, wall outlets, patch leads and the housing for street-to-premise fibre connections.
The company has signed six companies for the kit: Australian owned and operated Madison Technologies and Warren & Brown; three international companies Corning Cable Systems, TE Connectivity and 3M; and a partnership between Australian company Optimal and US company OFS.
Corning has the largest slice of the equipment contracts, receiving $310 million for internal fibre distribution hubs, fibre distribution terminals (FDTs), internal service drop cable, internal multi-fibre cable, network termination unit patch leads, and premises cabling.
The Optimal and OFS partnership will take $110 million for premises cabling, while TE Connectivity will earn $105 million for premise connection devices (PCDs), FDTs and fibre collector distributors.
The smaller contracts have been awarded to Australian companies Warren & Brown and Madison — $60 million for fibre wall outlets and $30 million for PCDs, respectively. International company 3M will undertake retrofitting cable pathways for $20 million.
NBN Co estimated that $150 million worth of the $635 million in equipment would be locally produced.
"We have worked to domestically source as much equipment for the NBN as possible. However, we needed to balance costs against the preference for Australian made to arrive at a cost-effective result," NBN Co CEO Mike Quigley said in a statement.
"We have now put in place most of the equipment supply arrangements that we need for the roll-out initially, but plan to go to the market as the roll-out ramps up to source additional suppliers for a range of our equipment needs."