Development Application part 2 Report and Plans MCU13/0052

2.0              BACKGROUND
2.1     NBN Co and the National Broadband Network

NBN Co is a Government Business Enterprise and is a wholly Federal Government owned
company established to design, build and operate the National Broadband Network (NBN).


The NBN seeks to deliver high speed broadband to all Australian households, businesses
and   enterprises through a combination of fibre, wireless and satellite technology. The
NBN will service 93% of homes, schools and workplaces with optical fibre connection
(fibre to the premises or "FTTP"), providing superfast broadband services to Australians in
both urban and regional towns. For the remaining 7% of sites located outside the fibre
network boundary, NBN Co will utilise a combination of next generation fixed wireless and
satellite technologies.


2.2     What is Fixed Wireless and how is it different to Mobile
        Broadband?

Fixed Wireless is a network of base station facilities that provide a broadband service via
radio transmissions. These base stations communicate directly with antennas fixed to
individual premises (e.g. dwellings or businesses) to deliver wireless broadband access.


While a mobile network caters to unpredictable numbers of concurrent users at unknown,
transient locations, the Fixed Wireless network communicates to   a known number of

subscribers in fixed locations.


This design difference means that the Fixed Wireless network can target higher levels of
assurance, quality and speed than mobile broadband services, even in peak times of use.
By quantifying the number of subscribers each facility is designed to service, NBN Co
ensures     that the fixed wireless network has the    capacity to deliver high-speed data
transfer.


The Fixed Wireless network is capable of delivering a minimum peak download speed of
12 Mbps, regardless of the distance of the      premises to the facility. This is also an
important distinction to existing ADSL services, where download speeds fall off
significantly the further away a user is from the nearest exchange. The Fixed Wireless
network thereby provides more universal access to reliable, high-speed broadband
services.


Fixed Wireless is not impeded by the variables that affect mobile networks, and as such
can   offer   reliably faster, more universally accessible broadband speeds with greater
certainty.

2.3     The Fixed Wireless Network              -
                                                    Interdependencies

Although the Fixed Wireless facilities are submitted to Council as stand-alone
developments from a planning perspective, from a technical perspective, they are highly
interdependent connected to each other to form a daisy chain of facilities that link back
                  -




to the fibre network via a series of radio transmission dishes.


Each Fixed Wireless     facility comprises of three panel antennas, which communicate
directly with the premises. The data transmitted to and from these panel antennas is then
relayed via a chain of radio transmission dishes back to the fibre network. This is referred



NBN-4NBZ-4POM-5136     -   Boreen Point North                                     Page 6