nbn announces plans to turbo-charge high-speed tiers at no extra wholesale cost

Tuesday, 05 March 2024 22:36

nbn announces plans to turbo-charge high-speed tiers at no extra wholesale cost Featured

By David M Williams

NBN Co has launched a proposal to provide download speeds five times faster than present, on its nbn Home Fast product. This would see wholesale download speeds accelerate from 100/20 Mbps to 500/50 Mbps at no extra wholesale cost to retailers.

NBN Co is proposing to provide these accelerated speeds to customers connected to the nbn network via Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) and Hybrid Fibre Coaxial (HFC) technologies, taking its 100/20 Mbps product to 500/50 Mbps. It is also proposing to triple the wholesale download speed of its nbn Home Superfast product from 250/25 Mbps to 750-1000 Mbps download, and to 50-100 Mbps upload. These changes are proposed to be at no extra wholesale cost to retailers.

The accelerated speeds would be made available to customers who are already using one of the three highest-speed products, and those who upgrade to one of them in the future. Fibre to the node (FTTN) and fibre to the curb (FTTC) customers will need to upgrade to FTTP to take advantage of the accelerated speeds. You can check the technology used at your address here.

NBN Co states this proposal is in response to the step-change in technology adoption and usage across Australia and the world.

NBN Co states it is seeing approximately 7,000 homes and businesses per week upgrading to FTTP technology.

It also stated it is seeing increasing needs for reliable high-speed, high-capacity, low-latency broadband with the proliferation of more Internet-connected devices in homes and businesses.

In Australia, data demand and usage has doubled in the last five years. NBN Co says the average household nor consumes 443 GB per month across 22 Internet-connected devices, while 10 years ago the average was 40GB of monthly data use across seven Internet-connected devices.

NBN Co expects this to increase to 33 devices per household by 2026, and 40 devices by the end of the decade. This will be driven by increased 4K content, increased gaming, the rise of generative artificial intelligence, as well as augmented reality and virtual reality.

NBN Co gave the practical example of a recent Fortnite patch of about 25GB, saying this would consume all bandwidth and take 73 minutes to download on a standard nbn 50/20 Mbps plan. It would be around 36 minutes on the current nbn Home Fast 100/20 Mbps speed tier, but only seven minutes on the proposed 500/50 Mbps speed tier, and around five minutes on the proposed ultrafast 750-1000/50-100 Mbps speed tier.

NBN Co says it is proposing to introduce the accelerated speeds within the next 12 months. It has issued an industry consultation paper and is seeking retailer input on the potential to introduce the changes earlier. It has requested this feedback by Friday 19 April 2024.

Approximately nine million homes and businesses would have access to the upgraded speed tiers by December 2024, growing to 10.2 million premises by December 2025. That would make up 90% of the nbn fixed line network.

A critical issue will be the retailer's ability to transmit the higher wholesale speeds across their retail networks and to ensure their supplied modems and Wi-Fi routers are capable of delivering the full benefits to customers.

NBN Co chief customer officer Anna Perrin said, “Ten years ago, the average Australian home had seven internet-connected devices and consumed around 40 gigabytes per month. Today, some people would use that much data in a day."

“The average household now consumes 443 gigabytes per month across 22 internet-connected devices. We predict that average will grow to 33 connected devices by 2026 and 40 by the end of the decade. Yet despite this explosion in data usage, many customers have remained on the same broadband plan for years. Our network monitoring suggests that some customers are potentially hitting their maximum speed on a regular basis. These customers may enjoy a better internet experience on a faster speed tier."

“The good news for customers is we are upgrading the nbn network to keep pace with customer demand. Fibre is the great enabler to deliver near gigabit speeds across the nbn network. We are on track with our national fibre upgrade program to put these incredibly fast speeds within reach of more than 10 million Australian homes and businesses by the end of next year."

“And, most importantly, we are proposing to deliver these accelerated speeds at no extra wholesale cost to internet retailers. By working together with the industry, we hope to deliver these accelerated services to customers later this year or early next year.”

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