To Gigabit or not to Gigabit

As the NBN rolls past its completion date, the Government is strangely silent choosing not to mark the occasion. Perhaps remaining quiet before this weekends by election. A new report out in the last few days is titled “ the gigabit gap “ argues for Australia’s weak international ranking on gigabit aspiration.

• Gigabit is 40 X the mandatory speed promise for all. (25 Mbps)
• Gigabit is 10 X the previous top speed available widely. There were business plans ($800/mth) and 250 plans availed on FTTP, which makes up about 20% of the NBN.
• Gigabit is on the roadmap for 50% of NBN, inc FTTP, HFC and FTTC.
• NBN has committed that all HFC will have access to 250 Mbps by June 2021. But at release of new high speed plans (end May) only some 7% of HFC could get gigabit speeds. Home Superfast (250 Mbps) was available to 32% of NBN ready to connect, NBN said, inc up to 70% of the HFC footprint.

What’s in a name?

NBN calls fast 100Mbps, Superfast 250 Mbps, and Ultrafast 500-1000Mbps.

But ACCC called Superfast when referring to 25Mbps.

NBN calls a 25Mbps service, Home Basic.

The NBN SOE aims for universal very fast broadband - “ The Government is committed to completing the network and ensuring that all Australians have access to very fast broadband as soon as possible, at affordable prices, and at least cost to taxpayers. The Government expects the network will provide peak wholesale download data rates (and proportionate upload rates) of at least 25 megabits per second to all premises, and at least 50 megabits per second to 90 per cent of fixed line premises as soon as possible.”

I would agree that 250 Mbps is very fast, beyond fast, and so the NBN according to the SOE should be pursuing universal access to this service AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. So for now Australia has universal basic broadband, and we are still waiting for universal very fast broadband.

“The Statutory Infrastructure Provider (SIP) obligations ensure that all Australian premises are able to access superfast broadband services (25 Megabits per second (Mbps) or better).” Dept of Communications

“Our priority is to help deliver high speed broadband to premises across Australia and, as we complete the initial volume build to 11.5 million premises⁷, we are starting to unleash higher speed tiers on a phased basis,” said Brad Whitcomb. “Launching the three new higher wholesale speed tiers is the next step in our network evolution and we will continue to upgrade the network to offer higher speed services to more customers over time.”, NBN said.