The company behind the National Broadband Network, NBN Co, has issued a further $90 million in equipment contracts to Australian manufacturers. Paul Skelton reports.

As the rollout of the National Broadband Network (NBN) ramps up, NBN Co has sought out the finest Australian technologies to use in the commissioning of the nation-wide network.

Melbourne-based Warren & Brown Technologies (W&BT) and Brisbane-based Madison Technologies have been awarded for $60 million and $30 million over five years, respectively, for the supply of customer premises equipment.

For W&BT, the new supply contract is for optical fibre wall outlets, which will connect the incoming cable to the network termination device (NTD) and will be installed in every premise requiring a NBN fibre optic connection.

The outlets will all be designed and manufactured in Australia.

“We are one of very few companies contracted to NBN that has Australian based design and manufacturing and is fully
Australian-owned”, says W&BT marketing director John Domelow.

“It truly is an opportunity to prove ourselves on a national and international level. And being based in Australia means that we can interact with NBN Co on a level that isn’t possible for large international companies.”

W&BT was founded in 1921 as a tool-making factory in Melbourne. It joined the large automotive component manufacturer conglomerate REPCO in 1949 and re-emerged as Warren & Brown & Staff in 1986 when five former managers bought the division from REPCO’s new owners. It was at this stage that the company moved into the telecommunications industry after Telstra, then recognised as being at the cutting edge of the global telecommunications industry, approached them to develop a simple crimping tool.

From there, this small Australian company grew at such a rapid rate that it soon began to compete with international corporations all around the world.

In fact, W&BT was involved in one of the first ever fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) rollouts in the world – the Nuenen project in Holland.

“Through that project, we saw that optical fibre technology was set to spread throughout the world. The benefits were too good for it not to,” John says.

When Australia announced the plans for an NBN, so sure was the company of a fibre future that all of its resources were focussed on securing a piece of the lucrative equipment supply contract. In fact, so heavily was the company invested in securing an NBN Co contract that without it, it could have spelled the end of W&BT.

“Ever since the NBN was announced, spending on traditional copper networks practically stopped, so not only were we waiting and banking heavily on the NBN to come through but we had no sales coming in the door for our traditional product lines,” John says.

But the all-or-nothing approach seems to have paid of for the company. To date, the company has been awarded a total of $170 million in NBN contracts over five years for 180 versions of its products.

Of course, for NBN Co hiring local companies means more than just supporting local business. It also means that Australians will have control over Australian infrastructure, John says.

“The importance of having people based locally that are intimately familiar with the technology is of paramount importance,” he says.

“The added benefit is that through NBN Co’s adoption of local resources, it is helping to build skills and technology that can later be used around the world as other countries undoubtedly begin similar projects (though maybe not as ambitious).

“That being said, getting these contracts is no act of charity; we have had to work very hard for a very long time to prove ourselves worthy.”

Also benefitting from the second round of equipment supply contracts is Madison Technologies, which has been awarded the contract to supply premise connection devices (PCDs) for the roll-out. The PCDs will be installed on the external wall of the house or home unit to provide a termination point for the lead-in fibre cable which connects the customer to the network.

This five-year contract is worth approximately $30 million and forms part of NBN Co’s overall premise equipment system.

Over the ten years it will take to build the National Broadband Network, approximately 9.5 million PCDs will be supplied to NBN Co.

With this NBN Co supply contract, Madison reaffirms its position as a market leader in telecommunication demarcation enclosures. Since 1995, Madison has been the leading supplier of PCDs to all of the major Telco companies such as Telstra, Optus, Foxtel, Western Power and TransAct, with models to suit twisted pair copper cable (for telephony), coaxial cable (for Pay TV) and optical fibre cable (for high speed networks).

As one of only three Australian companies to be selected by NBN Co to supply the premise cabling equipment, this is a very important contract for Madison and for the local community. The investment in injection moulding tooling, production machinery, logistics, warehousing, project management and supply chain management over the next five years will create more than a dozen local jobs and provide a welcome boost to the manufacturing sector in Australia.

The Madison PCD exceeded NBN Co’s technical specifications by providing additional cable storage, additional cable termination facilities, additional fibre terminations and an extended design life. The PCD allows easy access to any of up to four fibre termination points and provides facilities to suit any fibre termination type whether it’s a fusion splice, a pre-terminated cable, a field-fit connector or any combination of these. This flexibility provides a universal solution so the installation contractor can be assured that the one product will be suitable for any installation type. The inventory requirement is further simplified as the Madison PCD can be used for single houses, duplexes or MDU’s having up to four units. The proven thermoplastic construction has a design life of greater than fifty years and this aligns with the NBN Co’s overall network design life.

Madison’s PCD suits all fibre termination types in all houses (up to four MDUs), will last for a very long time and will provide a boost for the local Australian manufacturing sector.

Contact
Warren & Brown Technologies
www.warrenandbrown.com.au

Madison Technologies
www.madisontech.com.au