Around 10,000 homes and businesses across the South Coast will be able to get faster Internet speeds at the busiest times.
People from Batemans Bay in the north to Eden in the south – will be able to benefit from more speed while an additional 700 homes and businesses that were previously only able to access nbn services via the nbn satellite service, are now able to access to the nbn Fixed Wireless network for the first time.
Federal Minister for Communications, Michelle Rowland, was in Batemans Bay on Wednesday, to announce a number of significant milestones, on upgrades to the NBN fixed wireless network in our region.
“People on the South Coast will be able to take advantage of this upgraded nbn Fixed Wireless service,” Minister Rowland told East Coast Radio.
“It means a faster and a more reliable service and it’s been brought about by the government’s $480m investment in upgrading this technology.”
“All these improvements make it easier for people to work remotely, access digital services and entertainment and connect with loved ones and do the online activities and services that are most important to them.”
By the end of 2024, more than 750,000 homes and business across Australia – including more across the South Coast and South east region – are intended to be able to benefit from the upgrades to the nbn Fixed Wireless network.
Nbn Co also announced some enhancements to its overall upgrade plan including changes to the two proposed higher-speed that will see plans offer close to double the speeds to those originally planned, along with a boost to its most popular existing plan – Fixed Wireless Plus.
Nbn Co Chief Technology Officer for Wireless Networks, Jason Ashton said it’s the first of many announcements over the next 14 months as nbn Co completes the fixed wireless upgrade nationally.
“It’s really exciting because we’ve completed the upgrade from Nowra down the coast to a bit past Eden, and we’ve sretched the range of our 35 or so towers in the region,” Ashton said.
“The nice thing is as part of this announcement in Batemans Bay, we’ve also upgraded the plans that we’re going to offer on the network,” he continued.
“We previously had a very popular plan called Fixed Wireless plus which over half of users are on today and we’ve lifted the speed of that plan up to 100 megabits and announced it will be avaialble to 100% of the footprint.
“And furthermore we’ve got two high-speed tiers for really heavy users, and those two plans are going to be elevated from what we previously offered which was 100 and 200 megabits to now being a 200 megabit and a 400 megabit plan.”
“This will essentially allow higher Internet speed with more devices in use at one time.”
The enhancements are a part of nbn’s commitment to deliver better broadband for homes and businesses across regional and remote Australia, especially as regional Australia are using more devices and demanding more data and speed than ever before.
“Households that might have multiple televisions that are streaming and kids using ipads, or gaming and mum or dad might be in the home office doing video conferencing, you’ll be able to run those all simultaneously and smoothly now
“Historically you’d have periods where the network would be slower during really busy times but you’ll avoid that now because the network has the capacity to support those applications happening at the same time in the home.”
“Also game, video and program downloads will happen a lot faster.”
Images: nbn co
