NBN shifts another 440,000 premises to fibre to the curb
Almost half a million Australian premises are getting faster broadband as NBN Co dramatically extends its fibre to the curb (FttC) network and prepares to resume the troubled HFC cable rollout.
An additional 440,000 homes and businesses around the country will now benefit from fibre running to the end of their driveway, only relying on copper phone lines to cover the last few metres into the building. This offers a significant speed boost compared to fibre to the node (FttN) which can rely on copper for the last few hundred metres.
More premises will be connected by fibre to the curb.
Photo: BloombergMost of these premises had been destined to connect to NBN Co's HFC cable network acquired from Telstra. The rest were previously relegated to FttN connections over long copper lines which would have made it impossible for them to access the NBN's high speed tiers.
Under the Coalition government's Multi-Technology Mix, introduced by then Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull, the NBN was originally planned to completely infill HFC suburbs; going back to connect every home which was overlooked by the Telstra cable rollout.
NBN chief Bill Morrow later revealed that it would only infill the HFC network in areas where there is already high take up, relegating other homes in HFC suburbs to FttN. This was still the plan when Morrow launched FttC trials back in 2016.
While initially limited to 300,000 premises, the FttC rollout was expanded later that year after NBN abandoned plans to incorporate the poorly-performing Optus HFC cable network; shifting across another 700,000 premises to FttC.
The latest expansion will now see 1.5 million homes and businesses relying on FttC when the nationwide network is complete in 2020. The NBN rollout map will be updated later this month to reveal which premises are now moving to FttC.
The troubled HFC rollout remains on hold as NBN works to upgrade the cable network it acquired from Telstra, with plans to resume connecting homes in late April.
"We are pleased with the improvements seen from the additional work undertaken while sales have been paused on the HFC network," Morrow says. "We expect to see an uplift in customer experience as a result of these improvements."
The further expansion of the FttC footprint is not intended to replace poorly-performing sections of the Telstra HFC network, even though NBN's engineers have deemed only half the cable network as "high-performing"; primarily in areas with a high number of existing cable connections.
These HFC areas will be declared Ready to Connect first when NBN resumes the sale of wholesale services to internet retailers from April 27, starting with 1000 premises in Melbourne and Sydney. This will ramp up to 40,000 by the end of June, in major cities across the country, and reach around 100,000 premises per month in July, with around 2.7 million premises now destined to rely on the HFC network.
The expansion of the FttC network is a win for Australian consumers, says telecommunications analyst Paul Budde.
"Any addition to FttC is a great improvement as this makes it very easy to update the last bit from the curb to the house if so needed by the people themselves. We see that in some countries, people pay the extra $300 to $500 for a full fibre to the home connection," Budde says.
"Unfortunately this doesn't do anything for most of the millions of premises connected to FttN, which are the real problem areas."
Former CEO of Internet Australia, Laurie Patton, also welcomed the FttC expansion.
"On the one hand that’s good news for those lucky punters," Patton says.
"What about all the unhappy NBN customers now stuck with FttN and no sign they’ll get this improved service? We are just entrenching the digital divide."