iiNet builds NBN automation for growth

iiNet has revealed plans to integrate with NBN Co’s newly launched business-to-business interface next month to speed up activation of new services for customers and its subsidiaries on the National Broadband Network.

The B2B interface was launched earlier this month to retail service providers for testing and integration where possible.

It will ultimately replace current year-old systems, which require service providers connecting with the NBN to manually determine what broadband services are available at a given address on a one-by-one command line basis.

This first release of the B2B interface completes this same function through an automated, batch process for multiple transactions.

Primus has publicly announced testing and integration of its systems with the interface, which uses industry-standard Electronic Business using eXtensible Markup Language (ebXML) to connect to existing billing and operational systems at each provider.

iiNet’s NBN product manager Rachael McIntyre told iTnews that it was also “driving heavy” to certify its systems with NBN Co’s automated interface next month.

”The framework we are setting up now will allow us to certify much faster [with NBN Co] and with less effort for the next phases,” she said.

It would ultimately lead to a system at iiNet that allows the company to provision and activate services for customers under the company’s iiNet brand as well as for its growing number of subsidiaries.

This includes Internode, purchased for $105 million in December, which has now pooled its B2B development with the iiNet Group.

Future acquisitions for the hungry company would likely receive the same treatment, allowing iiNet to quickly scale up provisioning databases.

Internode founder Simon Hackett said the B2B integration was “in no sense urgent at this point” due to the relatively low take-up rate of the NBN network.

However, NBN Co’s plans to ramp up construction under a three-year rollout plan announced this week would signal the beginning of faster connections at the ISP and its competitors.

Other telcos, including TPG, have expressed significant interest in tying in with NBN Co’s B2B integration to ease any labour on activation tasks over the network.

B2B norm

NBN Co chief technology officer Gary McLaren told an industry standards conference this week that up to a dozen of the largest service providers would ultimately integrate their billing and operational support systems with NBN Co, with others choosing a manual route for provisioning services on the network.

“In a way I like to think of [B2B integration] being the norm where most of the transactions are going to go,” he said.

“The industry will be looking at us as having a virtual network that effectively we have the OSS for and then the different business systems - activation fulfilment, network assurance - all those business systems interact with our B2B-oriented architecture."

The network builder has continued to assert headline claims that, provided customer equipment has been installed at a premises, the B2B integration will allow changes or provisioning of new service “five to ten minutes".

“It’s not about waiting weeks to get an install or change,” McLaren said.

Retail service providers must also undergo an operational accreditation test once network and B2B interoperability testing is complete.