NBN Co's FTTdp to come first to Sydney and Melbourne

NBN Co has signed three new deals with construction partners Downer EDI, Service Stream, and Fulton Hogan to build the first set of fibre-to-the-distribution point (FTTdp) connections.

The deals - which will cover the rollout for 525,000 premises across Sydney and Melbourne - will mostly involve FTTdp deployments, but NBN Co said at least 20 percent of premises would receive fibre-to-the-premise (FTTP), to the node (FTTN), or to the basement (FTTB) connections instead.

"Importantly, we have the flexibility to deploy other technologies easily over time. The design and construction framework is intended to enable a faster rollout, by providing end-to-end accountability for the footprint," NBN Co chief network enginerring officer Peter Ryan said in a statement.

Under FTTdp, fibre is run to the front of a home or business using an existing copper cable for the lead-in. A distribution point unit is used for the fibre-to-copper connection, powered by the customer's premise, avoiding the cost of an FTTN cabinet.

NBN Co declined to provide a breakdown of the suburbs within Sydney and Melbourne scheduled to receive FTTdp. 

Downer's contract is worth $200 million and will run until June 19. It covers 230,000 premises across Sydney metro.

Service Stream will deliver FTTdp to 130,000 premises across eastern Melbourne, in a deal worth $120 million. It said it expected to start work in February and complete construction by April 2019.

Fulton Hogan is yet to comment. Its deal will cover around 165,000 premises across Victoria.

NBN Co first started trialling FTTdp in March this year. In September it revealed it would deploy FTTdp to around 700,000 premises across the country as a replacement for the unfit Optus hybrid-fibre coaxial (HFC) network.

The network builder today said it was in discussions with its existing delivery partners to incorporate FTTdp.