Miranda is one of the first suburbs in Australia to receive new new high-speed broadband fibre to curb (FTTC) technology in the National Broadband Network rollout.
While the NBN rollout started in the area about six months ago it has used the fibre to the building (FTTB) technology.
FTTC delivers fibre-optic cable to a pit outside a home or business. Existing copper lines are then used to connect from the curb to the premise avoiding the need to trench through driveways, dig up gardens or drill through walls.
Cook MP and Federal Treasurer Scott Morrison was joined by joined by Federal Communications Minister Mitch Fifield for the FTTC launch in Miranda last month.
Mr Morrison said some 50,000 households in the Cook electorate will have the benefit of FTTC technology.
He said FTTC is being delivered at a fraction of the cost of FTTP (approximately $2,900 per premise vs $4,400 per premises), ensuring household broadband bills stay lower while still delivering fast broadband speeds.
Mr Fifield said Fibre to the Curb enables 100 megabit per second speeds and an upgrade path to gigabit per second speeds.
“Because of the approach that we’re following, the NBN will be completed on time, on budget, and Australians will have access to it far sooner than otherwise would have been the case,” he said
Mr Fifield said the technology will mean that internet bills will be $500 a year less a year than initially expected.
About one million households are expected to benefit from the technology.
“But that could change,” he said. “The mandate to NBN is that they use the technology that makes sense in a given area, to rollout the NBN at lowest cost, and as fast as possible,” he said.
“What will determine who gets fibre to the curb technology will be the cost.”
NBN spokesman Peter Ryan said the FTTC technology has been made by Australian NetComm.
“It is a breakthrough for us because it allows us to deliver a lot of benefits of fibre to the premise without the inconvenience of digging up front lawns of Australians which allows us to deploy the NBN faster and at lower cost and it allows us to complete the network by 2020,” he said.
“We are seeing speeds of over 100 megabits per second download and over 40 megabits per second upload. We know that this technology has a fabulous upgrade path that allows us to get to the gigabit per second speeds mentioned by Mr Fifield.”
Facts:
FTTC can deliver the same 100Mbps speeds as fibre to the premise (FTTP) technology but at lower cost, in much less time and with far less disruption to people's property.
FTTC delivers fibre-optic cable all the way to a pit outside a home or business. Existing copper lines are then used to connect from the curb to the premises, avoiding the need to trench through driveways, dig up gardens or drill through walls.
FTTC is being delivered at a fraction of the cost of FTTP (approximately $2,900 per premise vs $4,400 per premise), ensuring household broadband bills stay lower while still delivering fast broadband speeds.
The new technology can deliver broadband speeds of up to 100Mbps, depending on the broadband speed plan chosen by a user, and the network capacity of their chosen retail service provider.
NBN is already investigating upgrades with new technologies such a G.fast which will allow for even higher speeds over FTTC in future.
Today, the NBN is available to 6.5 million Australian homes and businesses, and more than 3.7 million have already connected to the network.
The NBN rollout is on-track to be available to every home and business in Australia in 2020.
