The structurally separated infrastructure company can be used for the delivery of a range of commercial and public ICT services on a trans-sectoral basis. Wholesale services need to be made available in such a way as to enable the NBN to facilitate this trans-sectoral approach, whereby these ‘sectors’ can independently buy and deliver services to create their own retail services.
This should be carried out, not in a telecoms-centric manner, but in a truly trans-sector context. The infrastructure company is not a telco company. There is a significant risk that if the network gets designed based on a telecommunications concept; then we will not get the services that customers want.
The infrastructure company should facilitate not only telcos, but a broad range of access seekers. The needs of these other sectors will also have to be facilitated by the infrastructure company. These sectors are not well-represented in the discussions taking place. From a social and economic policy perspective, it is essential that these sectors receive special attention in the debate.
Specific (trans-sector) requirements will also need to be facilitated within a new regulatory environment. A broader participation of sectors in the NBN will have far-reaching consequences for issues such as regulations, privacy, security, Universal Service Obligations (USOs) etc.
A national FttP network will provide a multiple access facility within each premise that allows for the independent delivery of these trans-sector services. In this respect it is also critical to discuss the Optical Network Termination (ONT) point. It would not be acceptable if, for example, every service provider was expected to drill through buildings to get access to outside ONT points.
For this purpose it is important that the infrastructure company is seen as a regulated basic national infrastructure provider and not as a telecommunications company. Its tariffs should be subject to regulatory approval.
This company should be permanently enjoined against providing telecommunications services or information services to retail customers. It may self-provision these services for its own administrative use, or for incidental purposes, but should not engage in direct competition with its customers.
From a government policy point of view, the company should be able to provide wholesale services (only) that will allow for the creation of a range of independent services, including:
- Telecommunications retail services (voice, data, video) – customers can include telecommunications carriers, Internet Service Providers (ISPs), mobile operators, and non-carrier companies including information service providers, broadcasters, cable/pay television service providers, digital media companies, etc;
- Sensor-based networks providing end-to-end connectivity for utilities (smart grids), Machine-to-Machine (M2M) networks, monitoring networks, etc;
- Infrastructure facilities that allow for the establishment of e-health, tele-education and e-government services;
- Corporate and other government networks as well as large system integrators.
It is also important to note that applications will come and go, and they will continually improve, but the NBN infrastructure at its most fundamental level should be sustainable, lasting near-forever, and incurring only routine, periodic improvements along the way.
The company should impose no restrictions on the sharing or resale of its facilities.
The underlying NBN government policy should be aimed at facilitating both public and commercial arrangements, which can be developed by the wholesale customers of the infrastructure company through a model facilitating maximum choice, competition and innovation, at both a wholesale and a retail level.
The end result of this should be that any access seeker will have, in principle, the opportunity either to buy basic infrastructure to develop their own services, directly from the infrastructure company, or to buy from wholesale providers who might offer ‘value-added’ infrastructure services.