Ever since the announcement of the NBN rollout, it has been a work in progress as to how to enter the household, where the NTD will be located and much, much more, writes Alex Polujnikoff.

The rollout of the National Broadband Network (NBN) is still at a stage where decisions are being made as to what should be put where in relation to the carrier’s equipment. But because no firm policy has been made on these issues there is still a prevalent ‘wait and see’ attitude.

There has been so much emphasis put on this part of the rollout and providing a solution for these requirements, that we, as an industry, have not addressed what will happen within the home. Nor have we educated the public on how to get maximum output and the full benefits from the NBN rollout.

The industry needs to look beyond the fibre network boundary and provide informative, cost effective solutions for when fibre is at the end user’s doorstep. And this education needs to start now so that the public is able to make educated decisions on how they can prepare and to what level of preparation they wish to take in terms of benefiting from the fibre network.

Some may say that there is still plenty of time as the take up is slow at this stage for the sites that have been serviced, but as it gathers momentum we will see more and more householders sign up. When we look back to when ADSL first came in, people were of the same opinion and attitude back then, but the take up grew and grew quickly. 

Traditionally, those in the IT and the communications industries will be among the first to push for structured cabling in the home given their experience in the commercial sector. This is heading in the right direction as these groups of people can already understand the benefits of this, but the wider public needs some form of education.

Greenfield sites around Australia are particularly interested in the aspect of providing a forward thinking solution for the home as it gives the opportunity to implement the necessary cabling structure to accommodate the needs of technology in the future right now. We all can help by providing informative solutions to cater for this technology.

Fibre to the home can deliver 100Mps to the end user at the NTD, but without having the right equipment or a system to deliver the speeds internally, then it ends up being a bottleneck. As the saying goes, the best team is only as good as its weakest player.

So what areas within the home networking scope can we advise the public to implement and to look out for? Home networking is becoming the word.

Traditionally it has incorporated the telephone and the TV system. But as mentioned above, people are starting to install Cat 5 or Cat 6 within the home arena in the star topology format. This gives the flexibility to make any outlet a phone or a data point.

As an industry we need to be encouraging this trend, not only for the sake of creating a demand for our services or products, but to advise householders that technology will continue moving forward and they don’t want to be left behind.

As more home networking equipment is introduced into the market we are seeing that it is compatible with Cat 5 or Cat 6 cabling such as IP cameras and TV’s with an RJ45 outlet, where it can be used as a monitor for internet activity. Then there’s IPTV – which currently can only work either by being plugged directly into Ethernet port on the router or via a network outlet that has been patched, High Definition Media over structured cabling, white goods being able to hook up to the network for remote fault finding, intercom and security systems.

One of the emerging solutions of having High Definition AV over structured cabling has really highlighted the benefits of haven a cabling system installed. Figure 1 shows the easy setup of the system as long as you are prepared with your cabling.

Even with the use of a wireless router, as nearly every household would have, the benefits of cabling during construction stage would allow for multiple locations that the router can sit and not be an eyesore. Some houses can benefit from having 2 wireless routers to ensure that signal strength is maintained within every part of the home especially within multi storey homes.

But when choosing a wireless router for a NBN cabled property, as mentioned earlier the strongest solution is only as strong as the weakest link, you should ensure that you have a router that can maximise your speed and bandwidth output with1Gb wireless routers currently being the benchmark for the home network.

The ideal set up of a home network cabling system will ensure that you have all bases covered (see Figure 2). With a central location for all the cabling to come back to, an enclosure that can accommodate this cabling would be the best option. This is where all the patching activity happens providing a clean and uncluttered room outlet.

Up to now we have been concentrating on the structured cabling system for the home, but the Free to Air TV reticulation system will still be required to run over Coaxial Cable.

Again the ideal setup would be to run the Coax Cabling system to a central location (preferably the same enclosure as the structured cabling) bringing in the antenna cable to this position and splitting from that point. This would be encouraged for the same reason, that you keep all the activity in the one space.

I think the message is clear, if your customers are at the stage of building or talking to builders about constructing a new home, give them reasons to consider a home network cabling system. They may even come to value this more than the granite bench top they have ordered for the kitchen.

The concept of having a networked system, a Category 5 or 6 structured cabling system and a coaxial system already offers great benefits. However, when the Fibre network arrives those benefits will be even further enhanced.