The Australian NBN Corporation stated that this week they will be implementing Fibre-To-The-Curb (Kerb) to over 400,000 homes. An extensive list of the locations hasn’t been released yet but the following suburbs have been confirmed to receive the upgrade.
New South Wales
- Dee Why
- Granville
- Parramatta
- Rooty Hill
Victoria
- Bayswater
- Greensborough
- Lilydale
- Werribee
Queensland
- Cleveland
- Tweed Heads
- Springfield
- Waterford
South Australia
- Hampstead
- Paradise
- Salisbury
- Norwood
Western Australia
- Ellenbrook
- Henley Brook
- The Vines
The new FTTC connections are being implemented over the traditional FTTN (Fibre-to-the-node) technique that was put in place by the Turnbull Government. The original FTTN rollout was to get the service out as soon as possible but this technique can limit the speeds that users get.
The FTTC connection works by having the appropriate technicians replace the old cables of your home with fibre optic cables. The introduction has started to be implemented over the past year as the technology has become cheaper.
These changes will greatly benefit homes that are located a significant distance from the network nodes. The FTTC will allow homes that are in these semi-rural areas to have access to high internet speeds where previously they relied on old copper lines that aren’t as effective.
Unfortunately the changes that are proposed at the moment are only for areas that were previously marked to get the HFC (hybrid fibre coaxial) connection. The HFC would use the TV paid networks but has been paused since last year due to high fault rates.
Bill Morrow, the NBN Co Chief Executive, said that the team that they have on hand are working hard to deliver the new rollout as quickly as they can in an affordable manner. Morrow had also stated that the flexibility of having multiple technologies mixed allows them to choose the right one for each area while also sticking to their budget. As of now, Morrow remains confident that they will reach their goal of connecting 8 million Australian homes to the new network by 2020.
Last week Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull stated that the new 5G networks area a direct threat to the NBN and that billions that have already been publicly invested are unlikely to be recovered.
Mr Turnbull had mentioned on a radio station that since the Australian public is using enornmous amounts of bandwidth to stream videos that the ability of wireless networks taking over is more than likely overstated.
The NBN Co website update includes information on whether the homes that were meant to receive HFC will be able to benefit from NBN in the future.