93% of us will receive superfast fibre connections, sadly that means 7% will miss out. 4% of the remaining 7 will be serviced by fixed wireless and the other 3 by satellite. Speeds, latency and load degradation will all be worse on both of these wireless technologies, but with some corners of Australia being so remote, its just not financially viable or sensible to run fibre.
Metro residents may look at the heavily disclaimed ‘Up to 12Mbps’ speeds above and be shocked, sitting pretty with their 100Mb cable connections today. In reality the further you go into regional and rural Australia speeds drop off – dramatically. If your wondering where the remaining customer base for dial-up is, you found it.
12Mbps may be slow, even by today’s standard ADSL2+ connection of 20Mbps, but its all relative. Just think of remote users being 5 years behind. The biggest issue will be from residents who live on the borderline of the fibre rollout. There literally could be one side of the street on 100Mbps and the other on 12Mbps. Talk about a digital divide.
Don’t kid yourselves people, real estate sites will absolutely add internet connectivity options to buying and renting property details in the next 5 years. To be honest its surprising its not available now. If I knew a similar rental property was available 1km closer to the exchange would net me 8-10Mbps better speeds on ADSL2+ I’d happily pay $5-$10 more a week for it.
So lets get to what your really here for.. will you get Fibre or not ? NBNCo have released maps of the first communities to receive fixed wireless. The surround Geraldton (WA), Toowoomba (Qld), Tamworth (NSW), Ballarat (Vic) and Darwin (NT).
For detailed maps, check out the Fixed-wireless coverage map [PDF]. For more information, head to NBNCo’s website.
