Hybrid Satellite-Optical Ring Network for Regional Blackspots in Australia’s National Broadband Network Sithamparanathan Kandeepan 1 , Chava Vijaya Saradhi 1 , Sam Reisenfeld 2 , Eryk Dutkiewicz 2 , Nicolas Chuberre 3 , and Pierre Fraise 3 1 CREATE-NET Research Centre, Trento, Italy kandeepan@ieee.org, saradhi.chava@create-net.org http://www.create-net.org 2 Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia {samr,eryk}@science.mq.edu.au http://www.mq.edu.au/ 3 Thales Alenia Space, Toulouse Cedex, France {nicolas.chuberre,pierre.fraise}@thalesaleniaspace.com http://www.thalesgroup.com/ Abstract. Satellite communications is the most prominent solution for covering remote areas for broadband Internet access where long and ex- pensive cables are not feasible to be deployed. The Australia’s National Broadband Network (NBN) initiation ’delivering superfast broadband to Australian homes and workplaces’ currently face the problem of deploy- ing long fibres to cover regional blackspots considering the geographic structure of the continent. Considering this we present some prelimi- nary ideas to have hybrid satellite-optical broadband networks specifi- cally covering the regional blackspots in Australia based on ring network topologies. We present topologies for the hybrid network and also archi- tecture for the electronic (RF)-optical interface which enables to connect the fibre optical network to the satellites. Furthermore, topologies for the regional fibre optical networks in the blackspot regions are also presented in this paper. Keywords: Hybrid satellite optical networks, Australian National broadband network, coverage of regional blackspots, ring topology. 1 Introduction The Internet in the current era has influenced significantly on the global eco- nomic and social aspects. It has been predicted that the Future Internet will play a vital role in every business by connecting millions and millions of people around the globe simultaneously [2]. The Internet traffic is substantially growing at a predicted rate of 50% - 70% a year and by the year 2012 the IP traffic is expected to be 50 terabits per second. One of the possible solution to address K. Sithamparanathan et al. (Eds.): PSATS 2010, LNICST 43, pp. 203–217, 2010. c  Institute for Computer Sciences, Social-Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering 2010