NBN has revealed that the Coburg North in Melbourne will be the first suburb to receive fibre to the curb (FTTC) services as part of the company’s expanded rollout of the technology.
NBN trialled FTTC in the first half of 2016 and initially envisaged using the technology to connect around 300,000 premises, particularly in areas where access to power made it difficult to roll out fibre to the node (FTTN). (Unlike FTTN, FTTC — or fibre to the distribution point, FTTdp — does not employ a powered node; instead power is drawn from an end user’s premises.)
NBN announced last year, however, that it was planning an expanded FTTC rollout, ditching a previous plan to use Optus’ hybrid fibre-coaxial (HFC) pay TV network.
In total, the government-owned company now expects around 700,000 homes and businesses to be connected to the National Broadband Network with FTTC.
NBN FTTC trials with retailers will begin in Coburg North in the second half of this year. NBN says it expects to launch commercial FTTC services for an initial 100,000 premises in the first half of 2018.
NBN said that suburbs set to be hooked up using the technology include Burnside, Brooklyn, Coburg North, pockets of Collingwood, Cremorne, Richmond Carolyn Springs, Derrimut, Frankston and Williamstown in Melbourne and Alexandria, Botany, Caringbah South, Cronulla, Denham Court, Erskineville, Gladesville, Horningsea Park, Hunters Hill, Lugano, Mona Vale, Peakhurst, Revesby, Tennyson Point, Woolooware and Woronora Heights in Sydney.
“We are delighted to be leading the world in the deployment of FTTC technology,” NBN’s chief network engineering officer, Peter Ryan, said in a statement.
“This demonstrates that NBN is on the cutting edge of technological advancement in the global telecoms market.
“Our goal is to deliver broadband in the most cost and time efficient manner possible and FTTC will help us do this in many parts of the NBN network.”
NBN on Monday updated the address checking function on its website. The update means households can check when they are scheduled to be connected to the National Broadband Network and which technology is expected to be used to connect their home or business.