NBN construction is now underway for an additional 5,900 premises in Blairgowrie and Somerville on the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria.
Federal Member for Flinders and Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science, Greg Hunt, said Mornington Peninsula residents had been sent a clear message that superfast broadband was on its way.
Within the Flinders electorate more than 17,000 premises are able to receive an nbn service and another 68,000 currently are under construction.
Mr Hunt said high-speed broadband was the essential infrastructure of the twenty-first century, and the nbn would provide the platform to deliver a range of economic and social benefits to residents.
The nbn’s rapidly expanding footprint will help more local businesses connect to the global marketplace and assist students at home to achieve their educational goals.
Homes and business in Blairgowrie and Somerville will be connected to the nbn using fibre to the node (FTTN) technology.
FTTN offers average wholesale broadband speeds of around 70 megabits per second (Mbps), with many premises able to access speeds of up to 100Mbps.
nbn aims to ensure that at least 90 per cent of the fixed-line footprint will have access to wholesale download speeds of 50Mbps – allowing at least 10 home devices to connect to the internet simultaneously.
Mr Hunt said when the Coalition came into government in 2013, the nbn network had been available to just one in fifty addresses nationally.
Mr Hunt said the nbn was now available to more than a quarter of all Australian premises, and would grow to half of all Australian premises by 30 June 2017, and three-quarters of premises in 2018.
