Almost 200,000 premises have upgraded to full fibre NBN

Alex Choros - Managing Editor + Group Telco Editor

Last updated 08 February 2024

NBN Co today announced that almost 200,000 homes and businesses have taken advantage of a free upgrade to full fibre NBN, as of December 31 last year. In addition, around 7,000 customers per week, on average, are placing fibre upgrade orders.

The upgrade initiative allows NBN customers who connect to the network via the Fibre to the Node (FTTN) or Fibre to the Curb (FTTC) technology types to upgrade to Fibre to the Premise (FTTP) at no cost. FTTN is often considered the worst NBN technology type due to speed issues; a house or business needs to be within 400 metres of the local exchange to have a chance of achieving NBN 100 speeds. Meanwhile, all FTTP homes and businesses can achieve gigabit speeds.

75% of all fixed-line NBN customers are now able to order a gigabit NBN plan, or request a free FTTP upgrade and then order a gigabit plan. This represents 8.4 million premises, with NBN aiming to hit 10 million gigabit-ready addresses by the end of 2026.

NBN CEO Stephen Rue described the upgrade program as being on time, and on budget.

"Almost 200,000 Australian premises have chosen to upgrade to a NBN full fibre service, which has been made possible by our network investment strategy," said Rue. "This demonstrates customers’ strong appetite for high-speed internet amid the consumption of increasing volumes of data."

2024 will also see NBN Co upgrade the Fixed Wireless part of its network to allow for faster speeds. Fixed Wireless Plus plans will be bumped from 75Mbps to 100Mbps, making them equivalent to NBN 100. This will be available to everyone on the Fixed Wireless network.

The upgrades will also bring two new speed tiers. Fixed Wireless Fast with speeds between 200Mbps and 250Mbps, and Fixed Wireless Superfast with speeds of up to 400Mbps. These new speed tiers are still on track to launch in mid-2024 for some customers.

Alex Choros

Managing Editor + Group Telco Editor | X | Instagram | Threads | LinkedIn

Alex Choros is the Managing Editor of WhistleOut Australia and an award-winning journalist. He's been writing about consumer technology for over a decade and is an expert on the Australian telco sector, to the point where he knows far too many phone and internet plans by heart. In addition to leading the WhistleOut editorial team, Alex is responsible for ruining the office Sonos with his troubled taste in music.

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