Australia: nbn hits 6m Ready for Service
August 23, 2017
Australia’s national broadband network (nbn) has reached another significant rollout milestone with six million homes and businesses now able to connect to fast broadband from their preferred Internet provider over the nbn network.
The company’s goal is to provide universal high-speed wholesale access and connect eight million homes and businesses by 2020 in partnership with industry.
The Fibre-to-the-Node (FTTN) and Hybrid Fibre Coaxial (HFC) deployments are driving the increased rollout pace with the two technologies now serving more than half of the six million premises able to connect to retail services on the nbn network.
The nbn network is being deployed faster than ever with an average of close to 100,000 premises made serviceable per week over the last three months.
Activations are also increasing with 2.7 million premises now accessing retail services over the nbn network, with around 40,000 new premises signing up with Internet providers each week.
The network is more than halfway built today and is scheduled to be three quarters built by mid-2018 and complete by 2020.
“The pace and scale of this project is unparalleled anywhere in the world and this latest milestone – six million ready for service – is testament to this fact,” declared nbn Chief Executive Officer, Bill Morrow.
“Very few operators have built a network as fast as we are building the nbn with more than 1.1 million premises made serviceable over the last three months. We are extremely proud of everyone who has helped us to this point.
“The last three years have been dedicated to getting the network on track for a 2020 delivery. We won’t be taking our foot off the pedal until we are done, but our focus on the actual end user experience is more important than ever as we work with industry to connect the country at scale.
“The numbers and the momentum are important but contented end users are the key to success and we have every intention of delivering on our plan of connecting eight million happy homes and businesses by 2020.”