HISTORY was made in Redland Bay on Friday when NBN Co rolled out the second fibre optic cable in Queensland in Cliftonville Place.
NBN trucks rolled into Redland Bay on Friday as work on the national broadband network started in the area constructing fibre-to-the-node bozes in Redland Bay, Carbrook and Mount Cotton.
Residents were told to expect to NBN contractors digging trenches, installing new pits and constructing fibre-to-the-node cabinets with the service starting to Redlands next year.
They were also told to expect huge improvements in download speeds of at least 25megabits per second and uploads of about 5 megabits per second.
NBNCo project manager for south east Queensland Dinesh Raman said the Redland Bay service area, at Cliftonville Place, was the second in the state to get the fibre nodes. The other was at Ningi, Beechmere.
He said the service area would be Carbrook to the south, Mount Cotton to the west and along Double Jump Road at Redland Bay and told residents to expect huge improvements in download and upload speeds.
“This node, which will service about 195 homes in the near vicinity, will significantly improve the broadband speeds,” he said.
“There will be three lots of about 20 nodes in this area servicing about 2000 people in each lot.”
Mr Raman said the fibre would then carry the information to Slacks Creek, where retail service providers picked up and relayed the information to their customers.
The cable network will many family members will be able to log on to the internet at the same time.
Bowman MP Andrew Laming said after the work download speeds for residents would be at least 25megabits per second and upload speeds would be as fast as five megabits per second.
Mr Laming said the next stage of the rollout would involve connecting copper wiring to the network and cables channelling data to the Telstra exchange on Gordon Road at Redland Bay before it was sent to the main Telstra exchange at Slacks Creek.
“Using multi-mix technology, including fibre-to-the-node in Redland Bay, Carbrook and Mount Cotton, and the HFC network in other parts of Redlands, we’re delivering faster internet six to eight years sooner, and at about $30 billion less cost, than Labor’s fibre-to-the-premises alternative,” he said.
“Putting network equipment in the street reduces the distance data needs to travel over copper, allowing very-high broadband speeds to be achieved for users.”
Capalaba web designer Damien Buckley said the NBN was a “botched mess” and claims of $30billion savings were false and Labor’s costings exaggerated.
He said the rollout at Mount and Redland Bay was a Labor government plan which earmarked the area for the higher standard Fibre To The Premises.
”Fibre to the node will not deliver very fast broadband due to its reliance on copper for the last mile,” Mr Buckely said.
“In fact, at 46Mbps most Fibre to the Node connections will be significantly slower than most HFC cable connections already available elsewhere for the best part of a decade.
“It is unlikely these speeds will improve into the future whereas fibre to the premises would have offered a day-one minimum speed of 100Mbps with 1000Mbs slated with future upgrades.”
The US Federal Communications Commission this year ruled that 25Mbps was the bare minimum connection speed to be considered broadband.
Another Redland IT expert Matthew Wren said Cleveland and Capalaba exchanges were also in need of the upgrades and said fibre to the node rather than to the home could result in outages and slower internet speeds when exchanges got congested.
“It seems Telstra has walked away from building new exchanges as my current ADSL application for a port at Capalaba is on hold waiting for a port to become available,” he said.
“Telstra said the NBN would fix my problem but there are no NBN plans for Capalaba or Cleveland, apart from the newer greenfield development sites.
“NBN won't be good for long as it is old technology.”
