NBN on Monday announced the commercial launch of its fibre-to-the-node (FTTN) offering in one New South Wales town.
The Australian next-generation broadband network operator said its first commercial FTTN product is available in Belmont, NSW, but it did not say how extensive its coverage area is. NBN said it aims to have 500,000 FTTN premises ready for service by the middle of next year, rising to 3.7 million two years later.
It is targeting 1.6 million homes and business connected to the NBN via FTTN by mid-2018.
"Overseas experience in markets like the U.K. and Germany has proven the v alue of FTTN in delivering fast broadband services to millions of premises both quickly and cost effectively," said NBN chief architect Tony Cross.
"Our own FTTN end-user trials have been hugely encouraging in showing that FTTN can deliver great speeds to Australians, with most end-users on the trial getting wholesale speeds of 100 Mbps (download) and 40 Mbps (upload)," he said.
The operator clarified that it aims to provide those headline speeds to its wholesale customers, but that the speed realised by end users will depend on the final connection into the premises and on the retail provider’s network.
NBN said it has signed wholesale deals with 20 retailers, including Telstra, Optus, Exetel, TPG and iiNet.
"The launch of FTTN technology will help us get fast broadband to Australians more quickly and with less inconvenience to end-users," said John Simon, NBN’s chief customer officer.
"We are looking forward to getting this part of the NBN network fully built out and allowing Australians to enjoy the huge benefits of fast broadband," he said.
The Australian government is keen to record progress in its NBN project. When it took office in 2013 the current administration talked up its reworked NBN plan, which essentially involved replacing a heavily fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) focused project with one led by FTTN. However, this summer it was forced to admit that the total funding required to build the network will come in at A$46 billion-A$56 billion, compared to a previous target of around A$41 billion.
Meanwhile, Malcolm Turnbull, the communications minister tasked with reworking the NBN, last week launched a successful leadership challenge and has now taken over from Tony Abbott as Australia’s prime minister.
