Australia's digital backbone is evolving

With more connected devices, and more people working from home than ever, we’re continuing to invest in Australia’s digital backbone to ensure people across the country enjoy a future with faster internet.²

By extending our fibre infrastructure deeper into our network, we’re working to provide access to more fibre and improved services to more homes and businesses. This is aimed at enabling higher speed services on-demand to millions of premises nationwide.

We’re also continuing to co-invest with state governments and local councils to further enhance the benefits of fast and reliable broadband, and are providing support to business customers by helping to extend the competitive benefits of the nbn network to more regions nationwide.

Getting more premises a faster internet connection

We’ve already begun working to extend fibre deeper into selected towns and suburbs, and as we ramp up this initiative first announced in March 2021 to upgrade eligible Fibre to the Node (FTTN) to Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) technology, we’ve been adding more areas from across Australia. And from 3 June, eligible customers on Fibre to the Curb (FTTC) technology in parts of Australia are invited to upgrade to FTTP.⁵

This is another step toward extending higher speeds to more Australians across our fixed-line technologies.

Enabling higher speeds

Once initial stage work is complete, eligible customers will be able to place an order on-demand with a participating phone and internet provider for a higher speed plan.^2,5

If Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) technology is needed to provide access to that wholesale speed tier to their premises, nbn will work with delivery partners to install a fibre lead-in to complete the conversion from FTTN or FTTC to FTTP.⁴

In March 2022, the first premises became eligible to order their upgrade from FTTN to FTTP. Eligible customers on FTTC in parts of Australia are also invited to upgrade to FTTP.

To find out if your premises may be eligible to upgrade, register for updates at nbn.com.au/fttpupgrade The website includes links to participating retailers.

¹ Regardless of the retail service you purchase, the actual wholesale speeds will be less than 1000 Mbps due to equipment and network limitations.

² nbn provides wholesale services to phone and internet providers. nbn wholesale speed tiers available to providers vary depending on the access technology in an end customer’s area. An end customer’s experience, including the speeds actually achieved over the nbn broadband access network, depends on the nbn access network technology and configuration over which services are delivered to their premises, whether they are using the internet during the busy period, and some factors outside of nbn’s control (like their equipment quality, software, chosen broadband plan, signal reception, or how their provider designs its network).

³ NBN Co reserves the right to amend the list of targeted suburbs and towns for local fibre network build at its discretion if circumstances change and if absolutely necessary.

⁴ NBN Co’s build completion commitment was that all standard installation premises in Australia are able to connect to the nbn access network as at 30 June 2020. This excludes premises in future new developments which will be an ongoing activity for the Company beyond the build completion date. It also excludes a small proportion of premises defined as ‘complex connections’ – which includes properties that are difficult to access, culturally significant areas and heritage sites – where connection depends on factors outside NBN Co’s control such as permission from traditional owners, and where network construction to allow such premises to connect will be an ongoing activity of NBN Co beyond 30 June 2020.  

⁵ Conditions, eligibility criteria and costs will apply – please speak with your preferred provider. Eligibility criteria includes among other things, being designated by nbn as a simple premises and placing an order for an nbn powered plan based on an eligible wholesale speed tier. Additional costs may apply to providers, who may choose to pass this charge onto their customers.

⁶ Regardless of the retail service you purchase, the actual wholesale speeds delivered by nbn’s highest wholesale speed tiers of 500 to close to 1000 Mbps will be less than 1Gbps due to equipment and network limitations and the peak information rate may fall anywhere in this range. In addition, the HFC Home Ultrafast bandwidth profile downstream service provided to retail providers is a ranged profile with a maximum sustained information rate of 750Mbps. Reference to speeds are not end user speeds; they are wholesale layer 2 peak information rate bandwidth provided to retail providers. An end customer’s experience, including the speeds actually achieved over the nbn network, depends on some factors outside our control (like equipment quality, software, and how your retail service provider designs its network) and the nbn technology used for your connection.