NBN Co, the organization responsible for construction of Australia’s National Broadband Network, says it either completed or at least began construction of the fiber to the home (FTTH) network in areas covering 784,592 premises by the end of last year. This total slightly exceeds its goal of 758,000 premises before the end of the year.
The Australian Government has charged NBN Co with constructing the fiber-based broadband access network to connect 93% of Australian premises by June 2021. The open-access FTTH network will support download speeds of up to 100 Mbps. The remaining 7% of Australian households will be served by a combination of fixed-wireless and satellite by 2015.
“The National Broadband Network is an ambitious project which requires the efforts of many people working cooperatively towards a common goal,” said NBN Co CEO Mike Quigley. “To have achieved our year-end target is both pleasing for all involved and a clear indication that the NBN project is ramping up to full volume rollout.
“I particularly thank our network planning and design team, our contract managers, and our construction partners for their efforts. By working together to achieve this year-end outcome the combined project team has established the settings to reach the peak rollout target of passing over 6000 premises a day by 2015,” Quigley added.
So far, four contractors are working with NBN Co to build the national fiber-optic network:
- Silcar in NSW, Queensland, and the ACT
- Visionstream in Tasmania
- Transfield in Victoriad
- Syntheo (a Lend Lease/Service Stream joint venture) in the Northern Territory, South Australia, and Western Australia.
- NBN Co’s next milestone comes in June 2013, when it hopes to pass an additional 286,000 premises.
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