TEN years after the National Broadband Network was declared “fully operational,” industry experts expect the project to finally realise its original mission: high-speed internet connections for almost everyone.
The accomplishment is expected in 2030 after the announcement of a $3.8 billion investment to strip more ageing copper connections from the network, replacing them with fibre optics.
Analysts say the result will “roughly” meet the original targets for the network when it was established in 2009, and could deliver hundreds of billions of dollars to the Australian economy.
But they also warn consumers may be missing vital information about the upgrades and how to ensure their homes benefit the most from them.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced the upgrade to Australia’s broadband network on Monday, revealing plans to invest up to $3 billion to remove almost all of its remaining fibre-to-the-node (FTTN) connections.
The technology – one of the slowest NBN options – works by connecting fibre optic cables to a cabinet in the street and using copper wires to connect homes and businesses to it.
The investment comes after a $2.4 billion cash injection to upgrade 1.5 million copper connections in late 2022, and Finance Minister Katy Gallagher says it is vital to ensure households are not left behind.
“This funding is necessary and unavoidable to address growing reliability and security issues,” she said.
“Removing copper from the FTTN network means we are finally building the NBN that was originally planned.”
The financial boost is expected to upgrade 622,000 internet connections by 2030, more than half of which are located in regional areas.
The change could also mean the upgraded network will “roughly” meet the original plan for the NBN when it was announced in 2009, independent telecommunications analyst Paul Budde says.
That plan was to connect most Australian homes and businesses to the internet using fibre-to-the-home technology, with a minority in remote areas using satellite and wireless connections.
“It won’t be 100 percent the same but the end result – what it means for customers – will be achieved if this $3 billion delivers what it promises,” he told AAP.
“From a user’s perspective, they will get what was promised with the original plan.”
The path to this point has been bumpy, however, and littered with political U-turns about the technology used in the network.
Ignoring the obvious benefits of using superior fibre optic connections in the network in favour of a faster, cheaper initial rollout was a costly mistake, Mr Budde says, which the recent billion-dollar upgrades prove.
The NBN’s long rollout should serve as a lesson when designing future infrastructure investments, he said, that all political parties should consult and listen to industry advice.
“When you start with one technology and then you have to scrap these fibre-to-the-node boxes to go back to the original plan, all that would have been unnecessary if you had bipartisan support,” he said.
“It should have been a non-political decision.”
The decision to remove and replace copper connections would not only benefit users, though, RMIT engineering associate professor Mark Gregory says.
The useful life of a copper connection is shorter than alternative technology, he said, and the cost of maintaining the material in the network would continue to escalate.
“The NBN won’t be completed until fibre-to-the-node has been replaced simply because having that copper segment in the network adds to costs,” he said.
“This is not just about providing consumers with better connectivity and better speeds, it’s also about reducing the costs of maintaining that copper.”
But there is a potential catch those receiving NBN upgrades should consider, Mr Gregory says: the upgrade will put fibre connections past premises but not inside them unless the residents request it.
To receive a fibre-to-the-home upgrade, NBN users will need to order a 100 megabit per second internet plan from a service provider, who will organise the installation on their behalf.
“There needs to be an education campaign by NBN or the government that says we’re going to guide the fibre past the premises and then service providers will work with you to get the fibre into your homes,” Mr Gregory said.
“It’s up to service providers and consumers to agree for the fibre to come in.”
If fibre upgrades are rolled out successfully, Mr Budde says the NBN will help Australia in fields such as quantum computing and artificial intelligence and will ultimately pay dividends despite the additional costs.
“At $60 billion, yes, it’s a lot of money but without it we would lose hundreds of billions of dollars,” he said.
“The value of the broadband network is not what you can earn with it but what it does for society and the economy and that’s worth hundreds of billions of dollars.”
By Jennifer DUDLEY-NICHOLSON, AAP
