Nearly 7.5 million homes and businesses across Australia have been added to NBN Co’s rollout schedule under a three-year plan released on Friday. Under the plan, NBN says a total of almost 9.5 million premises will have NBN access or construction under way by September 2018.
NBN’s plan shows all states and territories ramping up construction. This will include 2.21 million connections in NSW; 2.5 million in Victoria; 1.9 million in Queensland; 970,000 in WA; 750,000 in South Australia; 72,000 in NT; and 134,000 in the Australian Capital Territory.
The NBN statement says that, nationwide, more than 1.3 million homes and businesses can already order a connection, and almost another 700,000 are under construction. Around 600,000 premises already have an active connection and are enjoying the benefits of very fast broadband.
The new plan covers the period up to September 2018 and for the first time includes the areas where NBN will use cable TV networks (hybrid fibre coaxial cable, or HFC), in metropolitan areas.
NBN CEO Bill Morrow said that, with HFC now in the plan, a growing number of premises connected to fibre to the node (FttN) and the successful launch of its first long-term satellite, NBN is well positioned to achieve its goal of connecting eight million premises by 2020.
“Today we have provided forecasts for the next three years of the build, including areas covered by HFC cable TV networks,” Morrow said. “This is another big step toward our goal of connecting 8 million homes and businesses by 2020.”
