NBN Co Chief Strategy Officer JB Rousselt has announced FTTC upgrades next year will deliver gigabit speeds, delivering some much needed good news for the troubled NBN Co.
The NBN has been in the news for all the wrong reasons over the past week.
Whether it’s Malcolm Turnbull blaming Labor for the NBN train-wreck, or Kevin Rudd blaming the Coalition government for changing “horse mid-stream”, there’s been little reason to feel good about the NBN.
Overnight, however, JB Rousselot spoke at the Broadband World Forum in Berlin and made an announcement which might put a well-needed smile on the faces of some NBN users.
It’s been known for some time that FTTP (fibre to the premises) would be Gigabit ready and that there were upgrade options for the other NBN offerings. Last night, JB Rousselot announced that the upgrades required for FTTC / FTTB to achieve gigabit speeds would take place in 2018.
FTTC (fibre to the curb) in its current guise will easily deliver 100Mbps down/40Mbps up (under appropriate conditions) by way of VDSL2. While this speed is an improvement on ADSL, it’s still slow for todays requirements.
It’s been expected that the NBN Co would implement G.fast to replace VDSL2 and last night JB Rousset confirmed the target delivery for this upgrade to be 2018.
“Adding G.fast to the toolkit for the fibre-to-the-kerb and fibre-to-the-building networks will allow us to deliver ultra-fast services faster and more cost effectively than if we had to deliver them on a full fibre-to-the-premises connection,” – JB Rousselot, Chief Strategy Officer, NBN Co
G.fast will improve on FTTCs existing VDSL implementation by enabling speeds of upto 1000Mbps, a tenfold improvement. In laymans terms, if you use FTTC, the best you can get now will be ten times faster.
This is great news for Sutherland Shire residents who are expecting FTTC over the coming year. We’ve heard many grumblings from users who have lamented the initial substandard capacity of NBN in comparison to… well, the rest of the developed world it would seem.
For Sutherland Shire users on HFC, you’ll want to keep an eye out for the commencement of DOCSIS 3.1 trials in the first quarter of 2018. This will deliver similar speeds for your internet service (no doubt at a higher cost).
If you reside in Sutherland Shire and are experiencing NBN issues, please feel free to contact us for help. We’re genuinely interested in understanding what our customers are experiencing so we can help you and others in the area.
We’re happy to answer questions over the phone and are currently preparing a NBN guide for that will help you understand what to expect and what you should do when the NBN fails to meet your expectations.