We give you the bare facts about Australia’s National Broadband Network (NBN) being rolled out across the country:
You can even enter your postcode, suburb or address on the interactive NBN rollout map to see if the NBN has been rolled out in your region or to find out when it is being rolled out.
What is NBN?
The NBN is Australia’s largest telecommunications infrastructure project that will bring very fast broadband to every home or business across the country. It will provide speeds from 10 Megabits per second (Mbps) to 1 Gigabit per second – this is up to 100 times faster than many people experience today.
More than 90 per cent of Australia’s 13 million homes, schools and businesses are expected to be connected to the NBN with high-speed optical fibre by 2021. The remaining premises will be connected with next-generation fixed-wireless and/or satellite technologies with peak speeds of 12 Mbps.
Eventually, the NBN will replace Australia’s ageing copper telecommunications network currently connecting homes to the internet and causing Australia’s broadband performance to fall behind the rest of the world.
NBN rolling out
More than 4,000 homes and businesses were connected to the NBN at the end of 2011. Already, there are more than 2,000 premises using the fibre optic service. Another 1,700 premises in rural and remote Australia are receiving broadband via the recently launched interim satellite service.
The NBN will be rolled out to three million premises over the next three years. Work has already begun on extending the network to a further half a million premises in 2012. The first rural communities to be connected with fixed-wireless will be switched on by mid 2012.