NBN Co to upgrade high-traffic transit routes

NBN Co is set to begin upgrading high-traffic routes on its nationwide transit network as it hits scale in the rollout.

The company said it would use coherent optical transmission technology from Coriant to increase transmission capacities and speeds on its fibre backbone.

The transit network is already built in part using Coriant technology.

“Maximising the performance of our fibre optic infrastructure is critical as we expand the capacity of the NBN network throughout Australia and enable residential and business customers to take full advantage of fast and reliable broadband,” chief network engineering officer Peter Ryan said.

Coriant said its technology could improve per-wavelength transmission speeds and help NBN Co improve utilisation of its transit network.

NBN Co’s weekly rollout reports shows the company has the capability to bring large numbers of premises online relatively quickly.

Over the past three weeks, the company has averaged more than 100,000 brownfields premises declared ready for service, with one week hitting over 138,000.

It is also continuing to prepare for a formal entry into the business Ethernet market, which could place further demand on particularly metro portions of its transit network.

Its evolution as a company is ushering in technology as well as organisational changes.

Earlier this month, the company said it was restructuring its executive team to prepare for its transition from network builder to network operator.

Part of becoming the latter would mean optimising its network assets to cater for expected growth, it recently said.