The National Broadband Network has turned the federal coalition's 2013 election promise into reality, with today's launch of the fibre-to-the-node (FTTN) technology.
FTTN brings fibre optic cable to a neighbourhood node then connects individual premises with copper for the final metres. This compares to the previous Labour government's plan of fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP), which would have seen fibre all the way to the user.
"The launch of FTTN technology will help us get fast broadband to Australians more quickly and with less inconvenience to end-users," said NBN chief customer officer John Simon.
"We are looking forward to getting this part of the NBN network fully built out and allowing Australians to enjoy the huge benefits of fast broadband."
NBN chief architect Tony Cross claimed users would still receive connection speeds comparable to FTTP.
"Our own FTTN end-user trials have been hugely encouraging in showing that FTTN can deliver great speeds to Australians, with most end-users on the trial getting wholesale speeds of 100Mbps (download) and 40Mbps (upload)," said Cross.
FTTN has launched with the southern Newcastle suburb of Belmont in NSW as the initial site. NBN announced that it aims to have 500,000 FTTN premises ready by middle of next year, and eventually 3.7 million serviced by mid-2018.
"Overseas experience in markets like the UK and Germany has proven the value of FTTN in delivering fast broadband services to millions of premises both quickly and cost effectively," Cross said.
NBN broadband services cannot be purchased directly by users. The vendor has already made deals with more than 20 retail ISPs to resell FTTN, including AAPT, TPG, iiNet, SkyMesh, Harbour ISP, M2 Group (owner of the Dodo, iPrimus, Commander brands), Telstra, Optus, Optus Wholesale and Exetel.
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