Unrestricted NBN Network Architecture
The NBN reference architecture appears to be based on the assumption that application and content providers will be feeding content and services one-way across the network down to passive end users, who will pay for it.
First this stunts economic potential. The greatest benefitis when the network has wider business applications than just being a vehicle to sell telecommunications content and services. All manner of businesses need to connect directly with their own sites and offices, with each other, with their employees teleworking from home, from educational institution to institution, from hospital to clinic, etc.
The NBN will only reach its real economic potential if it is set up as a giant WAN.
Secondly, the past five years have seen an explosion in user generated content such as Twitter, other social networking sites and You Tube. This will expand. It is wrong to assume users are going to do nothing but sit around passively consuming commercial content. Who knows what will emerge in the coming years.
Setting up the architecture like a WAN does not preclude content, application and service providers feeding consumers, but it does open up a whole range of additional possibilities and benefits for the future. It will put Australia ahead of the world.
How would the NBN work as a WAN?
The real implication for the NBN architecture as a WAN is the point in the network where traffic from user to user turns around, or loops back.
Take the example a business in an industrial estate connecting into the systems of their logistics provider two doors down the road. In the worst case, like we have today, the data goes all the way to their ISP’s gateway, across to the other company’s ISP gateway, then all the way back through the network to the logistics company. They both pay their respective ISPs for a connection to the Internet that in this scenario they do not need. Furthermore their traffic is charged both ways through the network at Internet rates, even though they didn’t need the Internet.
The ideal point for this traffic to turn around is in the local switch or router of the Access Provider, perhaps two streets away. This is the superior technical solution. The access provider however needs to be able to connect and bill them. If they don’t want any other service, then the Access Provider is the only entity they should ever have to deal with.
If they were separated by some distance or if the Access Provider was too constrained to offer this type of service, then the next best turn-around point is the Aggregation and Transport provider. Again if this is all the customer wants, such as a medical clinic connecting its two offices, then they should not have to deal with anyone other than their access providers and the transport provider. But the Aggregation and Transport provider must be set up to connect and bill in this manner.
The second most inappropriate place to turn around WAN traffic is the Service Edge & Core. This appears to be set up to serve providers, not users. It seems to ignore the possibility and the benefits of users who are their own providers.
As described initially the absolute worst place to loop back WAN traffic is at the Applications and Content layer. WAN-like users may not even need any applications or content. An example of this is telecommuters connected to their company system. For this connection, they do not want Internet. If they use Internet or any other services it will be via the company gateway on a completely different connection to the company’s Applications and Content providers.
A WAN-like architecture will accommodate all these scenarios, and many others into the future, and it will enable Australia’s full economic growth potential from the NBN.
The reference architecture would be inappropriate for the NBN if it is not WAN-like.
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