Introduction

The Regional Backbone Blackspots Programme (RBBP) is an Australian Government initiative with the specific objective of providing competitive wholesale backbone services to underserved regional markets.  
 
Nextgen has won the role to design, construct, manage, operate and maintain these new backbone transmission links on behalf of the Australian Government.

Locations

Timing

• March 2011 for services on the shorter Geraldton, Victor Harbor, and South West Gippsland routes.
• September 2011 for services on the longer Darwin and Broken Hill routes.

Products

Equivalence

Wholesale Sales Enquires

Potential wholesale customers engaging in forward looking network planning involving any of the nominated RBBP routes should contact their Nextgen Account Manager or call 1300 653 351 for further discussions.

Programme Description

As part of its National Broadband Network (NBN) commitment, the Australian Government allocated up to $250 million in funding to improve backbone transmission market outcomes to a number of priority ‘blackspot’ locations.

In July 2009 the Commonwealth issued a Request for Tender (RFT) to build, operate and maintain backbone transmission links under the Regional Backbone Blackspot Program (RBBP) to six priority locations:

• Geraldton, Western Australia;
• Darwin, Northern Territory
• Emerald and Longreach, Queensland;
• Broken Hill, New South Wales;
• Victor Harbor, South Australia; and
• South West Gippsland, Victoria.

Following the conclusion of a competitive tender process, Nextgen Networks (Nextgen) was selected to build, operate and maintain almost 6,000 kilometres of new fibre network assets.  Nextgen will also make a substantial financial contribution to the RBBP.

Nextgen is contracted to build the RBBP network on behalf of the Australian Government.

The core features of the new backbone transmission network incorporate:

• More than 100 service ready Points of Interconnect ultimately benefiting almost 400,000 regional residential and business customers;
• Provision for future access points at approximately every 10 kilometres along each backbone route;
• Use of highly scaleable Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) optical fibre based transmission technology providing at least an initial 10Gb/s total trunk capacity on any portion of the network, with incremental upgrades able to meet demand;
• The offer of a full range of transmission and associated services for access seekers; including:
• Managed optical fibre services;
• Managed wavelength services (STM16 and 64, Ethernet 1G and 10G);
• Carrier managed leased line services (SDH);
• Carrier managed Ethernet services;
• Interconnection services;
• Co-Location services;
• Data centre facilities; and
• Wholesale Internet access services.
• Connectivity will be provided to the nearest capital city and/or Sydney on all RBBP routes; and
• Services will be protected through physical diversity or active systems.

Nextgen will offer wholesale services using the RBBP network assets on an open and equivalent basis, enforced through contractual terms and the funding of the agreement with the Australian Government. 

The network design, technical features and commercial arrangements for RBBP have been established to extend the service reach and business opportunities for a wide range of communications industry operators.

Construction activities commence in February 2010.  All infrastructure links associated with the RBBP routes will be completed within 18 months from this time.  Shorter routes within the network are scheduled to be delivering services even earlier.

The design and construction activities will be undertaken by our partner Visionstream.  Both Nextgen and Visionstream are owned by Leighton.  Visionstream is a leading telecommunications network contractor having successfully deployed more than 100,000 kilometres of fibre assets across Australia, including regional and remote areas of the country

Over the coming months Nextgen will make a series of announcements to access seekers about key aspect of RBBP network construction and operation, including:

• Route deployment scheduling and information;
• Transmission products;
• Technical and service specifications; and
• Templates for standard RBBP Master Services Agreements and Co-Location Services Agreement.

This initiative has been made possible with the support of the Australian Government’s National Broadband Network Regional Backbone Blackspots Program.