Australia Gov't Announces Major Upgrade For National Broadband Network

Millions of Australians will be able to access ultra-fast internet by 2023 under a major upgrade of the National Broadband Network (NBN) announced on Wednesday

CANBERRA, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 23rd Sep, 2020 ) :Millions of Australians will be able to access ultra-fast internet by 2023 under a major upgrade of the National Broadband Network (NBN) announced on Wednesday.

Paul Fletcher, the minister for communications, said on Wednesday that the government will spend 3.5 billion Australian Dollars (2.5 billion U.S. dollars) upgrading the NBN, including expanding the NBN's Fibre To The Node (FTTN) system.

The upgrades will give six million homes access to internet speeds of up to one gigabit per second (GBPS). Currently the mandatory NBN minimum is 25 megabits per second (MBPS).

The Hybrid Fibre Coaxial (HFC) and Fibre To The Curb (FTTC) networks will also be expanded to deliver "consistent" speeds of 100 MBPS for homes that will not have access to FTTN.

The plan is expected to create 25,000 jobs over the next two years in construction, engineering, project management and transport.

Fletcher said it was the right time for a network upgrade following an 80 percent increase in internet demand and slow speeds in some major cities as Australians began working from home amid the coronavirus pandemic.

"There is a long-term trend of broadband demand growth -- with a very significant spike this year as COVID-19 has changed the way we use the internet," Fletcher told reporters.

"And it means NBN Co is now well placed to invest in Australia's broadband infrastructure to meet Australians' growing appetite for faster speeds."The NBN was first announced in 2009. It is the largest publicly-funded infrastructure project in Australian history with an estimated cost of 51 billion Australian dollars (36.5 billion U.S. dollars) as of 2018 -- up from an estimated 29 billion Australian dollars (20.8 billion U.S. dollars).