NBN Co, the company overseeing the construction of Australia’s National Broadband Network (NBN), has reportedly said it expects to spend around AUD80 million (USD57 million) on upgrading its HFC infrastructure to DOCSIS 3.1 technology. According to a report in iTnews, the wholesale service provider has said it expects the cost of the technology deployment will be ‘more than offset’, with it cited as saying: ‘These costs are, however, more than offset by ongoing capacity management benefits, including fewer HFC node splits and operational benefits of spectral efficiency.’
As previously reported by CommsUpdate, in August 2018 technology vendor ARRIS confirmed it was working with NBN Co to bring DOCSIS 3.1 to three million premises in ‘major’ cities by 2020. Prior to that – and following a relaunch of activations on NBN Co’s HFC network in April 2018 – that month the company claimed there was ‘no better time’ for it to begin switching on DOCSIS 3.1, and it said it would do so with a view to supporting a ramp-up of activations on its cable infrastructure. It is believed that the initial phase of NBN Co’s DOCSIS 3.1 rollout covers several thousand premises in Sydney and Melbourne.