The National Broadband Network has announced it will increase its planned Fibre-to-the-Curb (FTTC) footprint, with an additional 440,000 homes and businesses around Australia set to receive the new technology.
The company announced the initial rollout of FTTC services yesterday, with this latest announcement taking the total planned FTTC footprint closer to 1.5 million homes and businesses by 2020.
The additional premises added to the FTTC footprint were originally planned for the Fibre-to-the-Node (FTTN) 'long-copper lines' and 'infill and extension' premises within the existing planned HFC footprint.
However, NBN says while these premises are inside or adjacent to existing Telstra HFC network coverage, they are not able to connect to the Telstra HFC network.
The company says it will use the existing copper lead-ins to connect these properties to FTTC.
NBN CEO Bill Morrow says, "We are excited to announce we will be expanding FTTC to cover an additional 440,000 in areas where some long-copper FTTN and new HFC lead-ins were previously planned.
"The team remains at the forefront of technology developments and continues to innovate to bring the best network to all Australians, as quickly and affordably as possible. The flexibility of the multi-technology mix allows us to choose the right technology for each area and deliver the project on time and on budget.
"We remain confident of reaching our goal of completing the build and connecting eight million Australian premises by 2020," Morrow continues.
NBN to unpause HFC rolloutNBN has also announced that it would begin a staged re-sale of its wholesale HFC services to retailers from 27 April 2018, after the services were paused in November.
NBN says it plans to initially release around 1000 premises in the HFC access network footprint in Melbourne and Sydney, with an additional 38,000 premises by the end of June in select areas across Brisbane, Gold Coast, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth.
From July onwards, NBN says it expects to significantly ramp up the release of HFC premises to retailers, with a forecast to hit around 100,000 premises per month.
According to NBN, the relaunch has come about after the company undertook 'considerable work' to ensure the quality of network performance and stability.
Morrow adds, "We are pleased with the improvements seen from the additional work undertaken while sales have been paused on the HFC network.
"We expect to see an uplift in customer experience as a result of these improvements.
