The way you as an RSP, connect to the nbn™ broadband access network can differ from POI to POI, depending on your needs, customer base, infrastructure and investment strategy.
One way of connecting to the nbn™ access network is via an NNI (Network to Network Interface). This is great if you want to manage all your own network, and/or want to provide wholesale services to other RSPs.
Virtual NNI / NNI Link
An alternative way to connect at a POI is via virtual NNI (or V-NNI). This is obtained by connecting to an NNI Link, created by a wholesale provider and can be useful at POIs where you have little or no infrastructure, or a small but growing customer base.
Benefits
This V-NNI / NNI Link model enables you to deal directly with nbn for connection and assurance requests, as opposed to purchasing solely from a wholesale provider. You have direct engagement with nbn™ over the ordering and management of your services and connectivity components and therefore, potentially more visibility over your customer’s experience.
V-NNI / NNI Link model
The NAS and DAS are part of the RSPs network.
NAS contracts with nbn for:
- Access to NNI at each nbn™ POI
- Access to NNI Link at each nbn™ POI.
DAS contracts with nbn for:
- Supply of network services for nbn™ Ethernet and Enterprise Ethernet
- Access to V-NNI.
DAS contracts with NAS for:
- Access to nbn™ NNI Link
- Network backhaul from the nbn™ POIs back to DAS data centre
DAS contracts with end user for:
- Retail broadband service that utilises nbn™ Ethernet and/or Enterprise Ethernet.
How it works
- An RSP who has a physical NNI at a POI can allocate some of the NNI properties (bandwidth and S-tag range) to another RSP, to enable access to a Virtual NNI.
- The RSP with the physical NNI is referred to as the Nominating Access Seeker (NAS) and the RSP with the Virtual NNI (V-NNI) is referred to as the Downstream Access Seeker (DAS).
- The NAS will order an “NNI Link” from nbn with associated properties as agreed between the NAS and DAS.
- The DAS can then order a V-NNI from nbn against this NNI Link. Note that the V-NNI inherits the chassis-diversity option from the NNI. That is – if the NAS has redundancy on the NNI, then this is carried through to the associated V-NNI.
- Once the V-NNI Link has been set up the NAS can order any of the access and connection components of an ordered product and associate them with that V-NNI (which behaves just as an NNI). This applies to both nbn™ Ethernet and nbn™ Enterprise Ethernet.