NBN Co has announced a new upgrade plan for its fibre-to-the-node (FTTN) network today, after receiving an equity investment of up to AU$3 billion from the Australian Government.
In addition to the AU$800 million contributed by NBN Co, the investment will benefit an estimated 622,000 homes and businesses, with more than half of these premises located in regional Australia. NBN Co expects at least 95% of the addresses will upgrade to the NBN's full-fibre network — a.k.a. fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) connections — whereas the remaining 5% will require further design work to complete the upgrade.
According to NBN Co's CEO, Ellie Sweeney, the investment will "deliver access to better broadband" to the remaining customers in the FTTN footprint.
"With the growing number of connected devices in Australian homes and ever-increasing data usage, this upgrade investment will enable us to meet the needs of Australian homes and businesses now and into the future and continue to lift the digital participation and capability of Australia," Sweeney said in a company statement.
NBN Co says the average household now consumes 443 gigabytes of data per month across 22 internet-connected devices. The company predicts this average will grow to 1,100GB across 40 devices by 2030.
The investment also joins the anticipated 10 million homes and businesses — around 90% of the NBN fixed-line network — that are expected to access the fastest wholesale speeds (think: NBN 1000 or higher) by the end of 2025. The company has already enabled access to these speeds for more than 9 million premises as of December 2024.
The new FTTN upgrades are expected to be completed by 2030, with work starting immediately in selected areas. You can find out more about your area or state's upgrade timeline on the NBN Co website.
What is FTTP? And how do you upgrade?
Now, FTTP upgrades have been all the rage over the past few years, with a large portion of the NBN network — around 9 million homes and businesses — having gone through the full-fibre upgrade process as of December 2024.
FTTP connections are less susceptible to outages or dropouts, with fibre linking directly — you guessed it — to your premises. FTTP is exactly what it sounds like — a fibre optic cable connects directly to your home, providing your own personal fibre connection. And if you're a heavy internet user, FTTP connections are theoretically capable up to of 1,000Mbps download speeds.
Node connections, on the other hand, is when a fibre optic cable links to a distribution point that services either your neighbourhood or street and relies on copper cabling to deliver internet from the node to individual homes. It's this older copper cabling that is the culprit where dropouts and slower speeds are concerned, which is why an upgrade to fibre optic cabling has been a long time coming.
If you're still on a FTTN connection, there's never been a better time to upgrade. If you're eligible for a full-fibre upgrade, the process is set up at no extra cost by your internet service provider. All you need to do is order an NBN 100 plan or higher and your ISP will do the rest.
If you're keen to jump into the ultrafast lane and get started on your FTTP journey, you can check out the best NBN 1000 plans right now below:
