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5.52 million premises are now connected to Australia’s national broadband network, meeting current targets but falling short of those shared a couple of years ago
Australia’s NBN Co on Wednesday trumpeted exceeding its rollout targets for the full year, but neglected to note that those targets were lower than previous projections.
The national broadband network reached 9.93 million premises by 27 June, having rolled network past an additional 1.1 million during the quarter, beating its target of 9.7 million ready-to-connect premises.
Actual activations came in on target at 5.52 million.
However, that target, as set out in NBN Co’s 2019-2022 corporate plan, is some 1.4 million lower than the number it was aiming for just a year earlier.
NBN Co’s 2018-2021 corporate plan included the goal of connecting as many as 6.9 million premises by June 2019. That’s quite a difference.
NBN Co is making progress though, and that’s good new for Australia. The company said that more than three quarters of the country’s homes and businesses are now able to connect to the NBN.
Under the current corporate plan, the build is due for completion in June 2020, with 11.6 million premises ready to connect and 7.5 million homes and businesses connected.
The firm is due to share its full annual figures at its end-of-year briefing next month. We would expect to learn about any changes to rollout targets at the same time, if there are any.