The NBN now passes 2.9 million homes
1.1 million Australians can access high-speed broadband.
The National Broadband Network (NBN) now passes 2.9 million homes, and 1.1 million Australians are now using the service.
That means 900,000 premises have been added since nbn (the government-backed company building the NBN) last reported its results in May. It's also 300,000 ahead of where the NBN Corporate Plan predicted it would be at that point.
Which technologies are we using? Here are the five options nbn offers, the number of premises passed and the number of customers using that service. There are still far more fibre-to-the-premises connections than anything else, but fibre-to-the-node has overtaken fixed wireless. There are only 10 HFC (cable) customers, since that option has only been run as a trial so far. Commercial services will be offered later this year.
| Technology | Customers June 2016 |
|---|---|
| FTTP | 822,652 |
| Fixed wireless | 117,514 |
| Satellite | 38,764 |
| FTTN | 119,694 |
| HFC | 10 |
The majority of customers are going for the second-slowest speed, 25/5. That's still faster than any ADSL connection can deliver.
| Speed | Fixed line users | Fixed wireless users |
|---|---|---|
| 12/1 | 32% | 16% |
| 25/5 | 49% | 81% |
| 25/10 | 1% | n/a |
| 50/20 | 4% | 3% |
| 100/40 | 14% | n/a |
During the last quarter, nbn announced plans for its second Sky Muster satellite. Around 13% of Sky Muster customers are opting for the faster 25/5 speeds.
By 2020, the NBN is supposed to pass 8 million Australian premises. By June next year, it is predicting 5.4 million premises will have NBN services available, and that 2.3 million customers will be signed up.
You can check on when NBN services are due to roll out in your area using finder's NBN tracker.
Picture: Shutterstock
