NBN Co has pushed back its date to create a point-of-interconnect redundancy product.

A point-of-interconnect (PoI) is where retail ISPs’ networks plug into the NBN, usually telephone exhanges.

NBN had planned to set up a PoI redundancy product to enable ISPs to continue servicing customers in the event of a PoI failure.

Originally, it said the PoI product would be ready this year, but NBN Co’s new integrated product roadmap shows that date has been pushed back to 2018.

An NBN Co spokesperson says it “shifted due to conflicting business priorities”.

“We do expect customer consultation through the product development forum as the next step before the end of 2017,” the spokesperson told ITnews.

It is not yet clear if the PoI redundancy project actually has the support to go ahead.

“[We have] been working on other network redundancy solutions to get the network back up and running, but as yet this does not include an alternate PoI option,” the spokesperson said.

NBN Co has been dealing with PoI redundancy issues since the project was first proposed.

The ACCC has mandated PoI model with 121 connections, which NBN Co’s former executive general manager of planning and design Peter Ferris once described as “121 single points of failure”.

“Should a single point of interconnect go down, it could potentially disrupt services to up to 150,000 premises,” Ferris said at the time.

He and other telco bosses want 14 PoIs nationally – just two in each capital city.