Fibre and faster speeds coming to another 1.5 million homes and businesses
There is increasing demand for faster internet from homes and business across Australia and we are continuing to invest in the nbn® network to help stay ahead of demand.
Today’s news that an additional 1.5 million premises currently served by Fibre to the Node (FTTN) will be eligible for Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) fibre upgrades is the result of a $2.4 billion investment from the Federal Government, as part of its commitment to support the rollout of more fibre to communities across Australia.
The 1.5 million homes and businesses announced today is in addition to the 2 million premises already announced in nbn’s fibre upgrade program.
“The nbn network is Australia’s digital backbone and the performance of the network underpins Australia’s global competitiveness and the economic future of our nation,” says Stephen Rue, CEO at nbn.
“The measure of this success hinges on NBN Co’s ability to grow the capability and capacity of the network to keep ahead of the nation’s digital demand.
“Around one in five premises are connected to plans based on nbn wholesale speed tiers offering peak wholesale download speeds of 100 Mbps and above. With more connected devices and more simultaneous data usage in homes and businesses, we expect to see growing demand for faster broadband services.”
As upgrade works are completed in eligible suburbs, premises will then be able to order an upgrade. To find out if your premises may be eligible, customers are invited to register for updates.
To trigger a full fibre upgrade, eligible customers will need to place an order with a participating retailer for a plan based on an eligible wholesale speed tier2. These include nbn’s three highest residential speed tiers: nbn® Home Fast, which offers wholesale download speeds of up to 100 Mbps; nbn® Home Superfast, which offers wholesale download speeds of up to 250 Mbps, or nbn® Home Ultrafast (FTTP)1,2, which offers wholesale download speeds of close to 1 Gbps3.
As well as pushing fibre deeper into communities, nbn is also improving capability and services in rural and regional Australia. Announced earlier in the year, an additional $750 million investment will help to deliver faster speeds to homes and businesses across semi-rural, regional and remote Australia as well as enhanced data allowances on nbn’s Satellite services – nbn Sky Muster and nbn Sky Muster Plus.
Look out for more announcements on the suburbs and towns that will be included in the plan in coming months. Previously announced suburbs connected to FTTN but eligible for an upgrade can be found here.
Frequently Asked Questions
On Thursday 20 October 2022, the Government and nbn announced plans to invest an additional $2.4 billion to roll out more fibre to communities across Australia. This will enable an additional 1.5 million premises currently served by Fibre to the Node (FTTN) to upgrade to Fibre to the Premises (FTTP).
nbn will make further announcements on the suburbs and towns that will be included in our plans to extend fibre to 1.5 million additional premises in coming months.
Eligible customers living and working in eligible premises within the suburbs and towns that comprise the additional 1.5 million premises footprint will be able to order a higher speed service by the end of 2025.
As part of the announcement on 20 October 2022, the Government revealed a small selection of towns and suburbs where premises will become eligible to upgrade to FTTP by the end of 2025. This included:
- Smithfield and Wetherill Park, Cecil Hills, Greystanes, Blackheath, Yass, Picton and Cessnock in New South Wales
- Albany, Denmark, Margaret River, Warnbro, Roleystone and Kelmscott in Western Australia
- Bowen, Karana Downs, Warwick, Maryborough, Darra and the Glasshouse Mountains in Queensland
- Clifton Springs, Bendigo, Portland, Sorrento and Gisborne in Victoria
- Mount Gambier and Renmark in South Australia
- Huonville, Burnie, Ulverstone, Old Beach and Berriedale in Tasmania
- Monash in the Australian Capital Territory
The design and construction work to roll out fibre deeper into communities, passing up to 1.5 million premises, will take around 12-18 months, so we are targeting the end of 2025 for customers living and working in these premises to be ‘Ready for Order’.
Once this work has been completed, we will advise Retail Service Providers of all individual premises that are Ready for Order.
Customers can also register for updates on their respective individual premises at nbnco.com.au/fttpupgrade
nbn will make further announcements on the suburbs and towns that will be included in our plans to extend fibre to 1.5 million additional premises in coming months.
Customers can also register for updates on their respective individual premises at nbnco.com.au/fttpupgrade
Over the last two years, nbn has made a series of announcements identifying suburbs and towns where up to 2 million premises will become eligible to upgrade from FTTN to FTTP by the end of 2023.
NBN Co’s original program to enable full fibre upgrades to up to 2 million premises served by FTTN is already well underway. Design and construction activity has been completed within many suburbs and towns across Australia and will enable around 550,000 premises currently served by FTTN to upgrade to FTTP by 31 December 2022.
Customers can review the following media release – and click on the green tab to review all suburbs and towns that have been announced as part of the original FTTN to FTTP upgrades.
In selecting suburbs that have already been announced, we have used the following criteria:
- where we anticipate strong demand for higher speeds
- where we had established construction and delivery partners with an existing workforce in place following the completion of the initial build of the nbn network
- where we could deploy with speed and agility
- where it was most cost-effective to start work immediately and in a way that the investment was most likely to spread and multiply economic activity across the nation
We will apply similar criteria to identify the footprint of suburbs and towns that will be included as we work to make the next 1.5 million FTTN premises eligible for upgrade.
1 NBN Co reserves the right to amend the list of targeted suburbs and towns for the local fibre network build at its discretion if circumstances change and if absolutely necessary.
2 Conditions, eligibility criteria and costs will apply. Eligibility criteria is expected to include, among other things, being designated by nbn as a simple premises (eg. standalone premises or Single Dwelling Unit (SDU)) and once the program is available for an eligible premises, placing an order for an nbn® powered plan based on an eligible wholesale speed tier. Additional costs may apply to providers, who may choose to pass this charge onto their customers. Not all providers offer plans based on the full range of wholesale speed tiers. Talk to your preferred provider for more information about availability and the right solution for your needs.
3 Regardless of the retail service you purchase, the actual wholesale speeds delivered by nbn’s highest residential wholesale speed tiers of 500 to close to 1000 Mbps will be less than 1Gbps due to equipment and network limitations and the peak information rate may fall anywhere in this range. In addition, the HFC Home Ultrafast bandwidth profile downstream service provided to retail providers is a ranged profile with a maximum sustained information rate of 750Mbps. Reference to speeds are not end user speeds; they are wholesale layer 2 peak information rate bandwidth provided to retail providers. An end customer’s experience, including the speeds actually achieved over the nbn network, depends on the nbn® access network technology and configuration over which services are delivered to their premises, whether they are using the internet during the busy period, and some factors outside of NBN Co’s control (like their equipment quality, software, chosen broadband plan, signal reception, or how their provider designs its network).
Last updated on 31 October 2022