Telecom up to speed by 2012

By PAUL BRISLEN

Stephen Crombie, Telecom's general manager for network investment, is a man with a billion-dollar budget.

He is spending more than that over the next eight years to transform Telecom's network from its 19th-century copper roots to a 21st-century service.

Today, Telecom has several networks in place, with the basic infrastructure, the public-switched telephone network (PSTN), being what most people refer to when they are talking about "the phone network".

On top of that are the various data-delivery networks - DSL and frame relay among others - the mobile networks (Telecom has two) and the backbone fibre-optic network that delivers traffic up and down the country.

There is also the IT infrastructure, the provisioning and billing systems and back-office systems.

Crombie plans to scrap as much of that as possible and build a single "internet protocol" (IP) based network that treats all Telecom traffic the same way, whether it is voice, data, video or music.

Work has already begun, he says.

"We're building a common core infrastructure that will supply voice, data and video services.

"On top of that we have various access networks, such as mobile and broadband, that will deliver the connection to the end-user."

Telecom is also extending the reach of this fibre-optic core network.

In essence, it is doing away with most of its 600 regional exchanges in favour of delivering a fibre connection directly to the roadside cabinets.

There will still be several "super-exchanges" throughout the country, but the days of being told you cannot have a service because the exchange cannot deliver it are numbered.

"We need to do that because as more users sign up for broadband services they're placing higher demands on the network and we need to meet those needs."

Crombie says that eventually every user will in effect be a broadband customer, even if they only connect a phone to it.

Telecom is also looking at two advanced forms of DSL - ADSL2 and VDSL.

ADSL2 is a faster version of the product Telecom now offers under the JetStream brand. JetStream's top speed is about 8 mbps (megabits per second), but ADSL2 can offer up to 20 mbps.

VDSL is faster again, but can only achieve that over much shorter distances.

At the same time, Telecom is considering extending fibre even further. In the year ahead, Crombie is set to trial fibre to the kerb and even fibre to the premises.

Technical issues need to be addressed with a full-fibre network, but Crombie is confident these are under control.

"It's not really about the technology any more, it's about the technology reaching the right price point to be commercially available."

He says Telecom is at the forefront of network development and needs to watch overseas trends to ensure it does not end up with a network, but without end-user devices, for example.

The entire $1 billion network will take until about 2012 to complete, but some services will start next year.

Crombie says one of the first services to move across will be voice, meaning people will use Voice over IP (VoIP) for calls on the national incumbent before many other countries in the world.