Communications Alliance has published a new industry Guideline designed to facilitate the smooth migration of Australian telecommunications customers onto the National Broadband Network (NBN).

The first iteration of the NBN Migration Management Industry Guideline sets out the roles and responsibilities of all the relevant players involved in moving customers from a legacy copper network to an NBN-based network. These parties include Telstra, as copper network owner, a major telecommunications service wholesaler and a retail service provider (RSP), legacy network owners other than Telstra, RSPs, NBN Co, Medical Alarm Service Providers and Application Service Providers.

The Guideline documents industry-agreed practices, processes and solutions for RSPs and other providers to undertake, in consultation with Telstra and NBN Co, to smoothly manage customers as they migrate.

This version of the Guideline only applies to Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) deployment of the NBN. The Communications Alliance Working Committee responsible for the Guideline will continue consideration of Fibre to the Node (FTTN) and Hybrid Fibre Coaxial (HFC) technologies for inclusion in the next version, documentation of which will commence in early 2015.

Communications Alliance CEO, John Stanton, said the guideline is not a panacea for the difficult challenges that can arise during migration to the NBN.

“The Guideline does, however, represent a step forward to help coordinate and standardise the efforts of providers, whose main priority is to ensure a hassle-free move for customers over to new high-speed networks,” Mr Stanton said.

A copy of the guideline can be found here.