The company responsible for rolling out the National Broadband Network has announced more than 2 million homes are now eligible for an NBN upgrade. It will allow those currently served by Fibre to the Node (FTTN) to upgrade to Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) – a significant boost in quality and speed.
Full fibre offers customers access to the highest residential speed tiers (NBN 100, NBN 250, and NBN 1000) which deliver a better, and more reliable internet experience. While there are some caveats, mostly dependent on your ISP, as a general rule, full fibre can deliver wholesale download speeds of close to 1 Gbps.
The federal government last year came through with a pre-election promise to help NBN Co get through its FTTN to FTTP upgrade plan. Back in March 2022, then-Shadow Minister for Communications Michelle Rowland promised a $3.2 billion investment, which included expanding full-fibre access for a further 1.5 million homes and businesses. And in October, NBN Co announced $2.4 billion was hitting its pockets, with that latest investment enabling an additional 1.5 million homes and businesses to upgrade.
The company responsible for the NBN network is hoping to upgrade 10 million premises, or up to 90 per cent of its FTTN customers to FTTP ‘Home Ultrafast’ by the end of 2025 (it’s at 61 per cent today). Currently, more than 4.36 million Australian households have full fibre or are able to order full fibre.
New sites eligible for NBN upgrade
Previously, NBN Co would publish a list of eligible suburbs, but it’s getting super long now, so the best way is to see if you’re eligible by searching through the upgrade page on the NBN website.
Let’s just break this down really quickly, because this is a little confusing. If you live in one of the areas on NBN Co’s list for potential network upgrades, and you want a faster internet speed, all you need to do is sign up on an NBN 100 plan or higher. At the moment, these upgrades are limited to FTTN customers.
The participating internet provider (companies like Telstra, Aussie Broadband and Superloop, for example) then handles the order and will organise the upgrade for you.
These upgrades are pretty significant for FTTN customers, which are currently serviced by what’s considered to be the slowest type of fixed-line NBN. It’s not as fast as FTTP or Hybrid Fibre Coaxial (HFC) which are able to reach speeds of up to 1,000 Mbps.
“When eligible customers order a plan based on an eligible wholesale speed tier, we will replace the existing copper lead-in with a fibre lead-in,” NBN Co said.
Over here you’ll find our wrap-up of the cheapest NBN 100 plans; and heading here will serve you up the more affordable NBN 250 and NBN 1000 plans.
This article has been updated since it was first published.