Australia’s NBN Co on Tuesday announced the commercial launch of its fibre-to-the-building (FTTB) offering, although as it stands the technology is only available to a small number of premises.
The firm, which is in charge of the rollout of the country’s next-generation broadband network, said it is in the process of rolling out FTTB to 6,000 homes and businesses in the major cities of Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra. NBN Co did not provide further detail in its announcement, but according to the Sydney Morning Herald, at launch the service is available to 2,000 customers in 18 apartment blocks.
"Eliminating the need for individual building designs and in-building wiring cuts down on construction time. Removing the need to install new equipment in the home accelerates the ability of people to connect," said John Simon, chief customer officer at NBN Co, in a statement.
FTTB brings a fibre connection to a multi-occupancy building, such as an apartment or office block, and then uses the existing wiring in the building to connect to individual dwellings or units, rather than extending fibre all the way into the customer premises.
"We’ve been delighted with the results achieved in our FTTB pilot, with families and businesses reporting high rates of satisfaction and receiving an average of 89 Mbps download and 36 Mbps upload," Simon added.
NBN Co said it aims to cover 1 million homes and businesses with FTTB over the course of the project. The Sydney Morning Herald added that it expects coverage to reach 90,000 dwellings by the end of this year.
The company is working with 44 retail ISPs and telcos that will provide services to end users over the network.
NBN Co’s announcement comes a fortnight after AusBBS declared itself the fir st independent ISP to offer services over a competing wholesale FTTB network that is being rolled out by TPG-owned AAPT Wholesale.
TPG started offering FTTB last year but came up against regulatory hurdles. Essentially, the government required it to launch a wholesale service and offer that to other ISPs at equivalent prices and conditions to those available to its own retail business. It complied with this ruling by offering such a product through AAPT Wholesale, and as a result has since brought its own retail service back to market.
AusBBS, meanwhile, has started offering residents in 300 buildings in major cities access to an FTTB service at a cost of A$59.95 per month.
"We wanted to get to market quickly with this product," said AusBBS chief executive Rob Appel, earlier this month.
"Customers on the TPG/AAPT FTTB network have been starved of choice due to red tape," he added. "We are pleased to jump in quickly and offer some relief with the first standalone VDSL2 plan on the FTTB network backed by a trusted Australian ISP and premium local customer service."
