The NBN has a need for speed and wants its customers to have the option of 2 Gbps sooner rather than later.
After speaking with internet retailers, the National Broadband Network has brought forward its discussions on 2 gigabit per second download speeds.
The consultation for the 2 Gbps talks was scheduled for the second half of this year but according to the NBN several retailers “expressed their preference to initiate consultation and discussions on multi-gigabit speed tiers sooner rather than later.”
For those who might not understand what 2 gigabit per second internet is, it is basically the fastest available internet speed around. To give you an example, for stable lag-free gaming, its generally recommended you have about 25 mbps upload and this is GIGAbit so if you used this speed, you wouldn’t recognise lag.
As part of the expanded consultation, the NBN and RSPs will be considering their combined approach to the delivery of 2 gigabit per second wholesale download speeds to eligible residential, business and enterprise customers across Australia.
NBN Co chief customer officer, Anna Perrin said when the NBN released its proposal to turbo-charge its three highest residential speed tiers, internet retailers were “receptive and immediately engaged in the consultation process”.
“Several retailers were also quick to recognise our mention of the investments we have made to upgrade our network, which is now opening up the possibility of multi-gigabit speeds,” she said.
“We are therefore happy to explore how and when the nbn network could deliver wholesale download speeds of 2 Gbps to eligible residential and business customers.
Perrin said, “Our consultation with retailers is providing them with line-of-sight to a multi-gigabit future, enabling them to prepare their products and customer services to meet the growing need for speed amongst residential, business and enterprise customers.”
With this super fast internet connection, the NBN is proposing new wholesale products labelling them “hyper-fast” for residential and business customers connected to the NBN network via FTTP or HFC.
These include:
NBN Home Hyperfast for FTTP, offering speeds of 2,000/200 Mbps2
NBN Home Hyperfast for HFC, offering speeds of 2,000/100 Mbps2
Business Fibre Plan for FTTP, offering speeds of 2,000/500 Mbps2
It seems NBN is on a speed spree at the moment, as it was only last month we reported on NBN getting a massive speed boost from this month for those with the NBN’s HFC connection type.
This boost will see an HFC connection capable of up to 970Mbps.
It also released a new proposal for its Australia-wide network, an upgrade for ‘Home Fast’ NBN 100 plans to make them capable of 500Mbps speeds at no extra cost to retailers.
We spoke to some retailers which had mixed reactions over the upgrade proposal.
NBN Connection boxes consultation
In addition to releasing the new consultation paper on the proposed multi-gigabit speed tiers, the company also issued a related consultation paper on Next Generation FTTP Network Termination Devices (NTDs) or ‘nbn connection boxes’.
As an essential requirement to enable multi-gigabit speeds, a new, slimline, single-port NTD, which has the technical capability to accommodate future speeds up to 2.5 Gbps, is proposed to be made available for residential use, and a new, four-port model, which has the technical capability to accommodate future speeds up to 10 Gbps, is proposed for businesses.
The NBN has asked RSPs to consider whether they would like the three, new, Hyperfast speed tiers to be launched at the same time as nbn accelerates the Home Fast, Superfast and Ultrafast speed tiers, or whether they would like to see a sequential launch schedule.
The consultation expands on the company’s original proposal that would see five times faster wholesale download speeds on the popular nbn Home Fast product, accelerating it from 100/20 Mbps to 500/50 Mbps.
The company has proposed to triple the wholesale download speed of nbn Home Superfast from 250/25 Mbps to 750/50 Mbps.
It has proposed to accelerate the wholesale speed of nbn Home Ultrafast from (500 to ~1000)/50 Mbps to (750 to ~1000)/(50 to 100) Mbps3. Today, nbn confirmed that it would be feasible to double the upload speed of this product (rather than providing an upload speed range) and is now proposing to accelerate nbn Home Ultrafast to deliver wholesale speeds of ~1000/100 Mbps3.
The deadline for RSP feedback on the original consultation paper and the two new consultation papers is 5pm on Thursday 27 June 2024. The NBN said it expects to issue a closure paper to confirm the outcomes of the consultation process in Q1 FY25.
Image: NBN/Disney