nbn hits five million milestone

Five million homes and businesses now have the capacity to connect retail services over the nbn network.

The goal of the nbn is to provide universal high-speed access to eight million homes and businesses by 2020.

An average of 250,000 premises have been made serviceable each month this year so far.

“nbn continues to demonstrate its rollout momentum with 140,000 services made available to homes and businesses across the country in a single week — the equivalent of lighting up Canberra — with five million homes and businesses in total now able to connect to retail services over the nbn network,” said Peter Ryan, chief network engineering officer at nbn.

The fibre-to-the-node (FTTN) and hybrid fibre coaxial (HFC) deployments are driving the increased rollout pace.

Rollout pace will increase further in the three months from April to June with nbn expecting to make another one million premises serviceable in the period as it moves towards its FY17 target of 5.4 million premises ready for service.

Activations are also increasing with 2.2 million premises now accessing retail services over the nbn network, with around 130,000 new premises signing up with retail service providers each month.

Retail services on the nbn network are currently available to almost one in two Australians. The network is scheduled to be three-quarters built by mid-next year and complete by 2020.

The rollout of the nbn network sets the scene for the biggest transformation to Australia’s telecommunications industry involving retail service provider network upgrades and the establishment of a network of networks to bring fast broadband to all Australians.

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/Stringer Image

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