Faster internet is on the way for 300,000 homes and businesses across the nation as NBN Co reveals the latest list of suburbs and towns to receive full fibre upgrades.
The announcement marks the completion of NBN Co’s pledge to deliver the upgrade of two million premises using fibre to the node to the faster and more efficient fibre to the premises.
Customers living in the towns or suburbs included below will be able to sign up for faster NBN by the end of the year.
At the moment, these upgrades are limited to fibre to the node customers.
Participating internet providers (Telstra, Aussie Broadband and Superloop, for example) will organise upgrades.
NBN Co wasn’t up front about how long upgrades might take or the cost involved, RMIT associate professor Mark Gregory said.
Under the previous Liberal government people could only upgrade their service if they took out a higher speed plan, Associate Professor Gregory said.
“It’s about transparency,” Professor Gregory said.
“People need to know exactly what’s going on, and whether or not what’s happening is really appropriate.
“What are the conditions, eligibility criteria and what costs will apply? This isn’t being made clear.
“This government has been in charge for six months and it’s still business as usual at NBN Co.”
NBN Co chief operating officer Kathrine Dyer said the national broadband provider is on track to enable up to eight million premises across the country to access NBN Home Ultrafast, offering wholesale download speeds of at least 500 Mbps.
“We are working to unlock new social and economic benefits by pushing fibre deeper into communities,” Ms Dyer said.
“In addition to the inherent speed benefits offered by fibre to the premises, these full fibre connections significantly reduce the number of copper connections in our network.
“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.”
