NBN Co today welcomed the Government’s commitment to invest $2.4 billion to roll out more fibre to communities across Australia. The new investment will enable an additional 1.5 million homes and businesses currently served by Fibre to the Node (FTTN) to upgrade to Fibre to the Premises (FTTP).

Full fibre connections will help deliver faster broadband speeds, better reliability, are more energy efficient and support the provision of additional data capacity across the nbn^® network. These upgrades will help ensure eligible customers can more effectively work from home and operate online businesses, participate in online education, engage in telehealth consultations, stream entertainment and connect with friends and family.

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.

NBN Co will make further announcements on the suburbs and towns that will be included in the plans to extend fibre to 1.5 million additional premises in coming months.

Research commissioned by NBN Co and undertaken by Accenture has indicated that the economic impact of upgrading an additional 1.5 million premises to higher speed FTTP connections could generate a GDP uplift of up to $20 billion by 2030.

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.

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.

The company is on track to enable around 10 million premises across Australia to access nbn^® Home Ultrafast, offering wholesale download speeds of 500 Mbps to close to 1 Gbps, by the end of 2025.^2,3

To find out if their premises may be eligible to upgrade from FTTN to FTTP, customers are invited to register for updates at nbn.com.au/fttpupgrade.

Stephen Rue, Chief Executive Officer at NBN Co, said:

“We welcome the Government’s additional $2.4 billion investment in the nbn^® network.

“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.

“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.

“Fibre is inherently more capable of delivering faster upload and download speeds, is generally more reliable than copper connections and reduces our maintenance and operating costs.

“Today’s announcement allows us to set a goal of enabling around 10 million premises, or up to 90 per cent of homes and businesses on the fixed line network, to access nbn’s highest residential speed tiers with wholesale download speeds of 500 Mbps to close to 1 Gbps by the end of 2025³.”

Notes to editors

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).