NBN Co is working on a new product that it says will help retail service providers (RSPs) wanting to connect to its network.

The company says its ‘virtual network-to-network interface’ (NNI Link) product is a response to concern that large telcos dominate the NBN landscape, as they are the only ones that can afford NNI connections to many of NBN Co's 121 points of interconnect (PoIs).

RSPs have been buying NBN and related services from larger telcos in aggregated service bundles in areas where there is no NNI.

It means RSPs have been kept distant from NBN Co, raising end-user prices.

NBN Co says the NNI Link will allow a large operator - or a coalition of smaller operators - to purchase wholesale connectivity directly.

The company says RSPs will be able to control their own CVC contention levels, establish direct links to NBN Co’s B2B portal, create new income streams for large wholesalers, reduce physical connections at the PoI, and enable backhaul operators to offer lower-level carriage services.

“The NNI Link product provides for a variation of the wholesale aggregator model, offering more options for wholesaling a service over NBN, and therefore more options for the purchase of resold services by RSPs,” NBN Co said.

“It is a virtual NNI so that an RSP who doesn’t have a physical connection to the PoI can still connect to that PoI via a wholesale aggregator, but buy their CVC and AVC directly from NBN Co.

“The idea is to enable multiple RSPs to be able to share physical NNI ports, so that, for example, Vocus could buy a large NNI, and then allow Vodafone to place their CVCs on that NNI without having to get their own NNI in the PoI.

“This is meant to make it much easier for our aggregators to wholesale nbn interconnection services, thereby helping to solve the 121 PoI issue.”

Reports say that NNI Link is still in its planning phase, with more industry and regulatory consultation expected.

There is no official timeline for its launch.