Rural Fibre Co#

Phil Britt - Rural Fibre Co

• Why: Outside the PM's core areas, but two things here are genuinely novel signals: operational software built by a network engineer with Claude Code in eight weeks, and hard economics on vertically integrated fiber builds.
• What: A 16-month-old Gippsland FTTP overbuilder: 1,431 premises passed, 430 connected, 130 km of duct, built by 42 people, targeting 10,000 passed by mid-2029. Key choices: Nokia end-to-end stack (Lightspan MF-2 OLT, Altiplano, 7750 SR-1s) chosen partly so the network is saleable without the founder; a wholesale product deliberately shaped like NBN's (QinQ S-tag/C-tag from ONT to RSP handoff, AVC-style IDs in DHCP option 82) because every Australian RSP already has those integrations — "inventing a better product would mean asking every RSP to build a new integration for a network with 1,431 premises." Automation: no human touches an order until the technician knocks on the door; the design system generates all construction tasks, work orders, inventory, and purchase orders ("the design is the work orders"). The workforce management system was built in eight weeks by a network engineer with Claude Code — zero developers, no PMO — and drill productivity tripled (250 → 775 m/day total) attributed to visibility and gamification rather than the machinery. Take-up against NBN fixed wireless reached 52% at ~9 months. Hard lesson: an unlocated NBN duct got drilled through, taking down ~3,000 premises; asset-locating checks are now enforced in software, blocking tasks until completed.
• How: Vertical integration across design → civils → splicing → network → provisioning → billing to eliminate margin stacking and coordination tax; software-enforced process gates.
• Where applicable: The regulatory frame (Part 8 superfast broadband obligations, TEBA/POI, open-access wholesale) and the NBN-overbuild economics are Australian. The transferable ideas are the AI-assisted software build and design-as-single-source-of-truth.