Arris beats Cisco for NBN Co HFC contract
US equipment supplier Arris has beaten Cisco to win a $400 million NBN Co contract. The contract involves the upgrade of existing Hybrid Fibre Coaxial Cable (HFC) networks as part of NBN Co’s multi-technology strategy.
Under the agreement, Arris will install new cable modem termination systems (CMTS) and replace retransmission gear in 230 exchanges over the next three years.
The upgrade is designed to ensure that DOCSIS 3 services, which can support download speeds of up to 100Mbps, are available across the existing HFC infrastructure while providing an upgrade path to higher speed services over DOCSIS 3.1.
NBN Co is expected to run commercial pilot trials involving HFC customers by the end of 2015, with full-scale rollouts from March 2016 onwards – in time for the next federal election.
A more detailed rollout plan is expected to be released in the next two months.
