NBN users can expect a boost to their speed from 14 September. Photo: Shutterstock
NBN Co is soon to debut its 2Gbps broadband plan and reports it is running well ahead of schedule in its work to rid the network of ageing Fibre to the Node (FTTN) services that, new government benchmarking has found, are by far the worst performing part of the NBN.
Replacement of the final 622,000 homes running FTTN services was announced early this year with a $3 billion government investment and a projected timeline of completion by 2030 – but eight months later, the company said it has already commenced work for more than 228,000 of those.
Fully 95 per cent of those remaining properties will be upgraded to full fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) services, with more than half of the homes located in regional areas of Australia and property owners encouraged to register their interest to check their planned connection date.
After a slow start in its fibre rollout, NBN Co completed 430,000 FTTP upgrades during fiscal 2024-25, he said, with 806,000 total premises now upgraded to fibre and the company expecting to connect its millionth FTTP service before the end of this year.
NBN Co chief network officer Dion Ljubanovic said the company was making “strong process” in upgrading homes, citing “momentum [that] builds on our existing fibre upgrade programs”.
“We’re seeing Australians embrace full fibre and high-speed tiers like never before,” he said, calling the NBN “a critical enabler of productivity, innovation, and economic growth.”
A list of suburbs included in the final stage of the FTTN upgrade program is available here.
Bigger, better, faster, more
News of the accelerating rollout comes as NBN Co prepares for the 14 September availability of its new ‘Hyperfast’ 2Gbps broadband service, which was announced a year ago as part of a planned reshuffle that will see customers on FTTP automatically given substantially faster speeds.
Users currently running on 100/20Mbps services will be boosted to a 500/50Mbps plan, while those on 250/25Mbps services will get 750/50Mbps and those on 500-1000/50Mbps plans will get a speed jump to approximately 1Gbps/100Mbps.
FTTN is the worst performing part of NBN. Photo: Shutterstock
Those increases will put even more clear air between FTTP and FTTN, which had been identified as expensive to implement and maintain – and inadequate for even near-term requirements – years before the OVID-19 pandemic normalised streaming video, group chats and remote working.
FTTN continues to hobble the NBN, with the ACCC’s newly released Measuring Broadband Australia report finding that FTTN services account for 86 per cent of all “underperforming” NBN connections – meaning they “very rarely, if ever” deliver even 75 per cent of advertised speeds.
FTTN services sold as providing 100Mbps actually provide average download speeds of 88.2Mbps, the ACCC found, compared to 104.4Mbps on FTTP and hybrid fibre coaxial (HFC) services on the same service plan.
When FTTN services were sold as providing 50Mbps, they actually delivered an average of 47.6Mbps, compared to 52.1Mbps on FTTP connections and 52.3Mbps on HFC connections.
“We are concerned that there is a growing divide in the download speeds that Australians can access depending on their NBN connection type,” ACCC commissioner Anna Brakey said in releasing the new figures and advising ISPs to warn customers of the potential shortfall.
“There remains a cohort of households with FTTN connections that rarely, if ever, achieve download speeds close to their plan’s download speed.”
Still trailing global leaders
For all the stumbles along the way, NBN Co’s looming completion of its the nationwide network rollout reflects the initiative’s increasing progress in a world that, a recent International Telecommunications Union (ITU) report found, is still far from providing universal broadband.
Providing “universal, meaningful Internet connectivity” by 2030 could require over $4 trillion ($US2.6 trillion) worth of infrastructure investment, the ITU concluded in releasing its Connecting Humanity Action Blueprint, which lays out a plan to fully close the global digital divide.
Even as the FTTP rollout pushes FTTN into obsolescence, Australia still has a long way to go before its broadband is up to world standards: overall real-world speeds for fixed broadband users are 92.2Mbps download and 18.87Mbps uploads, according to the latest Speedtest Global Index.
That ranks Australia’s broadband 63rd in the world – up 12 places, but still an indictment of Australia’s chronically low digital preparedness ratings and a broadband gap that festered for years amidst shifting government broadband policy.
Other key global operators are also retiring their copper networks: AT&T, for one, recently got the green light to progress its plan to shut down copper services by 2029 after the US FCC’s recent moves to fast-track the process.
Minister for Communications Anika Wells believes the new NBN figures confirm the gap is finally closing: “All Australians deserve access to reliable, fast internet and that’s what these upgrades will deliver for more than 600,000 households and businesses across the country,” she said.
“This will make a real difference to so many Australians, whether that’s through the smoother running of their business, more reliable video calls when working from home, or faster streaming when watching the latest Bluey episode with the kids.”