Who is QCN? The team at QCN is driving innovation throughout Queensland communities. Through delivering real solutions of improved telecommunications Coverage, Capacity and Competition, QCN enables Queenslanders to take advantage of their exceptional opportunities in the emerging economy.

QCN stands for Queensland Capacity Network and is jointly owned by Powerlink and Energy Queensland. Our Chairman, Greg Young and CEO, Derek Merdith have deep, global, and local experience with market-leading telecommunications organisations.

QCN is known as a government-owned corporation (GOC) subsidiary. It is jointly owned by Powerlink Queensland and Energy Queensland who have two Shareholding Ministers;

• The Hon. Cameron Dick MP, Deputy Premier, Treasurer and Minister for Trade and Investment; and
• The Hon. Mick De Brenni MP, Minister for Clean Energy and Clean Economy Jobs.

QCN was established in direct response to the recommendations of the Telecommunications for the Regions Project, which provided its key report, late 2018.

This project identified a number of opportunities to leverage existing government-owned telecommunications infrastructure. QCN will improve access to digital capability for regional Queenslanders through delivering real solutions of improved telecommunications Coverage, Capacity and Competition. QCN enables Queenslanders to take advantage of their exceptional opportunities in the emerging economy.

1. Connecting to Queensland’s nbn Points of Interconnect (POIs) and increasing access to affordable backhaul capacity for retail service providers (RSPs) throughout Queensland.
2. Developing backhaul hand-off points (PoPs) throughout regional Queensland.
3. Vastly improving the network’s capacity through investing in innovative optical networking equipment and world-class network design.
4. Extending the Queensland Government’s existing 13,000km+ network by building infrastructure, smart and strategic capacity swaps and negotiating access to additional Government-owned optical fibre assets.
5. Increasing competition in Queensland’s telecommunications market by creating a network of innovative Channel Partners with the same client focus as QCN.
6. Creating a comprehensive database of government-owned telecommunications assets and making this information easily accessible.

QCN utilises spare capacity on the state’s existing fibre network to sell affordable, wholesale backhaul (data transfer) capacity to Retail Service Providers (RSPs) and Internet Service Providers (ISPs). This directly impacts the structure and pricing provided to individuals, families, businesses and organisations.

QCN uses high capacity, telecommunications grade, wireless connectivity where fibre access is physically or commercially unavailable.

Our products include:

ethernetQnect^TM

Ethernet backhaul using Ciena’s MEF 3.0 certified platform, guaranteeing 100% committed data rate. Point-to-point or point-to-multipoint, meeting international telecommunications standards.

waveQnect^TM

QCN’s Wavelength services link your sites through top performance, low latency connections – throughout Queensland and enable connectivity to Asia and the USA via the JGA South International Cable. QCN’s Wavelength services are best suited for core network transmission, data replication, data storage connectivity and disaster recovery.

edgeQnect^TM

edgeQnect is provided as a direct wave over the QCN DWDM network for 100Gbps services and e-Line over the QCN engineered MPLS-TP network for services of 10Gbps.

Click to find out more.

Backhaul is a high capacity wholesale service that enables an RSP or ISP to carry large volumes of voice, data and video traffic, often over long distances back to their network hub – typically Brisbane.

Backhaul capacity is sold to telecommunication service providers, who then sell Internet and business grade packages to their customers.

1. QCN brings spare capacity from government infrastructure to market. This includes unused and unlit (dark fibre) capacity.
2. Increasing supply of capacity will reduce market prices and allow new and innovative companies to enter regional Queensland.
3. Providing increased, competitively priced capacity to the 22 nbn POIs.
4. Developing Points of Presence (POPs) in regional Queensland to help RSPs and ISPs get services over the last mile to their clients.
5. Through smart and strategic network design, and working with channel partners to innovate, QCN will increase Coverage, Capacity and Competition for regional Queenslanders.

QCN’s network coverage extends across the established 13,000kms+ of Powerlink and Energy Queensland fibre infrastructure networks which provides a regional footprint, second only to Telstra. Additional network expansion available to QCN, by enabling other State-owned fibre infrastructure and strategic ‘capacity swaps’, could see the coverage extend beyond 13,000kms.

This includes thousands of kilometres of idle and under-used fibre optic cables throughout the State, stretching west from Brisbane to Toowoomba and beyond, and north through regional townships up to Cairns.

QCN’s network is connected to a major international cable network through an undersea cable link at Maroochydore, which gives Queensland faster access to Asia and the US – a boon for data-intensive regional businesses.

QCN is a wholesaler to Retail Service Providers (RSPs) and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and QCN Channel Partners.

As a carrier-agnostic telecommunications backhaul provider, QCN sells wholesale services to local internet providers, providing local, regional and remote businesses and communities with more choice than ever.

QCN is not duplicating or competing with the National Broadband Network. QCN complements and supports nbn by connecting backhaul capacity to nbn Points of Interconnect (POIs). The nbn can then connect these regional POIs to homes and businesses for RSPs and ISPs.

QCN’s network utilises Dense Wave Division Multiplexing (DWDM) to provide extremely high capacity data transmission over optic fibres.

This technology puts together (or ‘multiplexes’) data signals from different sources so they can share a single optical fibre pair while maintaining complete and secure separation of data streams.