Four partners picked by NBN for fibre upgrade

NBN Co has awarded Ventia, Service Stream, Fulton Hogan Utilities and Downer EDI the contracts to upgrade a million homes and businesses to full fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) service.

The contracts cover civil works and fibre deployment in metro and regional townships, and suburbs throughout the country, but NBN Co did not reveal how much each is worth.

Ventia recently picked up a $280 million fibre-to-the-node (FTTN) upgrade contract from NBN, with work to start in July this year.

Wholesale speeds via the NBN Home Ultrafast service will be 500 megabits per second, to nearly 1 Gbps.

The four infrastructure builders will be allocated the following regions:

The tranche of homes and business covered by the contract are part of the 1.5 million premises to be upgraded under the government's $2.4 billion NBN investment.

Further information on the final 500,000 FTTP premises will be released by NBN Co in the coming months, the broadband wholesaler's chief operating officer Kathrine Dyer said.

Subscribers on NBN's network who care connected through fibre-to-the-node or the kerb can upgrade to full FTTP, provided they are eligible plans.

These are the NBN Home Fast or higher (FTTN) or Home Superfast or higher (FTTK).

A range of residential and business internet providers are participating in the FTTP upgrade program nationwide.

NBN hopes to have some ten million premises with full FTTP service by the end of 2025.