Single-dwelling FTTC households no longer need a high-speed NBN plan to be eligible for NBN Co's free FTTP upgrade program. Previously, these homes needed to be on an NBN 100/20 plan or faster to qualify, though the FTTP upgrade program still needs to be available in their area. In total, this change affects around 600,000 premises.
FTTN households under the upgrade footprint haven’t had the restriction lifted, though an exemption will be made for FTTN homes being forced to upgrade or be cut off next year. Multi-dwelling FTTC premises were already exempt.
First announced in December last year, NBN Co hopes this initiative will boost FTTP uptake, encouraging more homes to take advantage of the improved reliability of an all-fibre connection – even if they don’t plan on benefitting from its superior speed.
“Full fibre not only offers multi-gig speeds, but is also far more reliable, more responsive, and more resilient through storms, floods and fires,” said NBN Co Executive General Manager Products and Pricing, Bec Heap.
As for why FTTC households are getting preferential treatment, NBN Co stated it’s due to this technology’s higher fault rate versus other copper-based connections, such as FTTN.
Overall, uptake of the free FTTP upgrade program has been slow. In its latest report from February, NBN Co announced more than one million customers had upgraded from copper to FTTP. This is compared to a total 5.05 million eligible premises at the time.
Since then, uptake hasn’t been remarkable. Also in February, it was announced 35% of NBN connections were delivered via FTTP, making it the dominant connection type on the network. While an important milestone, that figure has only risen to 38% in the four months since, despite the widespread availability of the free upgrades.
