nbn has announced it will increase its planned Fibre-to-the-Curb (FTTC) footprint with an additional 440,000 homes and businesses around Australia to receive the new technology.
This takes the total planned FTTC footprint closer to 1.5 million homes and businesses by 2020.
The additional premises added to the FTTC footprint were originally planned for the Fibre-to-the-Node (FTTN) ‘long-copper lines’ and ‘infill and extension’ premises within the existing planned HFC footprint.
These premises are inside or adjacent to existing Telstra HFC network coverage but are not able to connect to the Telstra HFC network.
nbn said it will use the existing copper lead-ins to connect these properties to FTTC.
In addition to announcing the expansion of FTTC premises, nbn has also announced that it will begin a staged re-sale of wholesale HFC services to retailers from 27 April 2018.
nbn plans to initially release around 1000 premises in the NBN HFC access network footprint in Melbourne and Sydney.
The company is planning to release around 38,000 HFC premises by the end of June 2018 in select areas across Brisbane, Gold Coast, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth.
From July 2018 onwards, nbn expects to significantly ramp up the release of HFC premises to retailers, forecast to hit around 100,000 premises per month.
The optimisation program will continue across the HFC network and nbn will update its website in the to reflect these changes starting with those that will be declared ‘ready to connect’ in the April-June 2018 period.
nbn CEO, Bill Morrow, said, “We are pleased with the improvements seen from the additional work undertaken while sales have been paused on the HFC network. We expect to see an uplift in customer experience as a result of these improvements.
“We are also excited to announce we will be expanding FTTC to cover an additional 440,000 in areas where some long-copper FTTN and new HFC lead-ins were previously planned.
“The team remains at the forefront of technology developments and continues to innovate to bring the best network to all Australians, as quickly and affordably as possible.
“The flexibility of the multi-technology mix allows us to choose the right technology for each area and deliver the project on time and on budget.
“We remain confident of reaching our goal of completing the build and connecting eight million Australian premises by 2020.”
