Two million more Australian households ready to upgrade to nbn 

As part of a programme to evolve the massive scale infrastructure, and in what is said to be a “significant” milestone meaning a record number of people in the country can now enjoy the benefits of a faster and more reliable service, more than two million additional Australian households are now able to order a full-fibre connection for the national broadband network (nbn).

The nbn is seen as the digital backbone of Australia and is designed to evolve constantly to keep communities and businesses connected, lifting the country’s digital capability by delivering reliable, fast, resilient and secure broadband over the wholesale access network, working collaboratively with internet retailers to deliver the required customer experience, reduce cost, and drive industry efficiency and sustainability.

Run by NBN Co, which was established in 2009 by the Commonwealth of Australia as a government business enterprise with a clear direction: to design, build and operate a wholesale broadband access network for Australia, it uses a mix of technologies across its fixed and wireless access footprint. In 2022, NBN Co received government funding to 5G-enable fixed wireless, deliver faster speeds to regional Australia and allow the company to implement a new measure to indicate the network’s capability to achieve a typical wholesale busy-period fixed download speed of at least 50Mbps.

In the fixed domain, the new full-fibre option offers customers access to the highest residential speed tiers, close to 1Gbps, which deliver a better and more reliable internet experience for homes and businesses, with video-conferencing for work called out by the supplier as a key use case.

The nbn is on track to enable up to 10 million premises, or up to 90% of homes and businesses, across Australia to access nbn Home Ultrafast (currently at 61%), offering wholesale download speeds of 500Mbps to near 1Gbps, by the end of 2025. The upgrade is part of an nbn fibre upgrade programme which was boosted by the Australian government’s additional $2.4bn investment. NBN Co said more than 4.36 million Australian households have or are ready to order full-fibre broadband. 

“Customers are consuming more data than ever to do the things they love, like streaming 4K on multiple devices, online education, next-level gaming, conference calls, and uploading and downloading large files for work. The need for broadband will reach levels never seen before over the next decade as the internet transforms the world and how we live, so we are growing the network to stay ahead of that demand,” commented nbn chief customer officer Anna Perrin.

“With the nbn carrying more than 80% of our country’s download data – and Australians consuming more of it than ever – the availability of full-fibre for more homes across Australia has never been more important. Uploading and downloading files can also be much quicker – a 200MB file may download nine times more quickly, while uploading the same file can potentially be done nearly twice as quickly,” she added.

“Technology has advanced, data use on the nbn has tripled in six years. The average household now has 21 connected devices and that’s growing year on year, we encourage customers to check with their internet provider to see if their plan has enough speed and data inclusions.”