NBN Co to expand rollout by 550,000

NBN Co will begin rolling out the National Broadband Network to an additional 550,000 homes and businesses from September 2016, the company said in its latest quarterly update.

Communities added to the plan include Noosa on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast, Mt Gambier and Whyalla in South Australia, Bendigo and Docklands in Victoria, Bathurst in NSW, Castle Hill in Sydney, Broome in Western Australia and the Perth suburbs of Hilton and Bassendean.

In February, NBN Co chief, Bill Morrow, said the company was on track to achieve its goal of connecting eight million premises to the NBN. Around 870,000 homes and business can currently connect.

At the end of calendar 2014, NBN Co had connected 40,716 premises via satellite; 253,883 using fibre and 27,792 using fixed wireless technologies.

NBN Co’s rollout schedule includes all technologies in the ‘multi-technology mix’ – fibre-to-the-node, basement, distribution point and premises – with the exception of hybrid fibre coaxial and long-term satellite services, which will be added in a future forecast.

Morrow said these quarterly forecasts enable customs, telephone and internet service providers, to start planning for the delivery of broadband services to communities.

NBN Co provides an interactive rollout map with a detailed colour-coding system that displays the four phases of the NBN rollout within a community.

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