NBN announces more suburbs and towns for fibre expansion – is yours on the list?

The NBN has announced the latest suburbs and towns across Australia where more than 300,000 homes and businesses will be eligible to receive the fibre upgrade and higher download speeds.

This upgrade will make customers who work and live in these areas around Australia currently served by FTTN (Fibre to the Node) eligible for Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) upgrades.

This will give them access to download speeds of up to 1Gbps.

This announcement follows the first expansion of fibre to more than 1.1 million homes around Australia and this latest move will bring that number to 1.4 million premises in additional suburbs and towns in NSW, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia. See the list of suburbs and towns below.

The NBN FTTN to FTTP upgrade program aims to connect up to 2,000,000 premises to be able to access NBN Home Ultrafast which allows download speeds close to 1Gbps.

This is part of the NBN’s wider $3.5bn network upgrade programme with the goal to have around 8 million premises or up to 75 per cent of homes and businesses on the fixed line fibre network by 2023.

“The network has been put to the test over the last 18 months and it has passed with flying colours,” says NBN CEO Stephen Rue.

“We have been proud to support the country when it needed a fast, strong, reliable and resilient network the most, and we are continuing to invest in the digital backbone of Australia.

“The completion of the initial scaled build and the announcement of further investment in the network unveiled last year was a significant milestone for the company.”

NBN is also about to commence similar fibre upgrades to be made available for eligible customers living or working in premises currently served by Fibre to the Curb (FTTC).

From next year, NBN will progressively invite customers living and working in areas served by FTTC to be able to order a higher speed NBN Home Superfast (up to 250Mbps downloads) or Home Ultrafast service (between 500Mbps and 1Gbps).

The NBN is already well on its way and ahead of schedule on its Hybrid Fibre Coaxial (HFC) network enhancement programme which is giving customers access to Home Ultrafast plans.

As of June 30 2021, all 2.5 million premises that are eligible to connect to NBN via HFC can now access these Superfast services on demand.