This year, something pretty dramatic has changed with the NBN. Australians are switching to faster higher speed tiers, largely helped by free or discounted offerings by Retail Service Providers (RSP). New data released today reveals 70% of new orders are now based on wholesale speeds tiers of 50 Mbps (download) or higher.
Since December 2017, orders for the 50 Mbps or higher have nearly tripled, increasing from 16% to 44%. This is a massive shift within a short period of time and demonstrates people do want faster speeds, but the pricing wasn’t right before. This change in the wholesale and ultimately retail price of plans, means that we avoid the awkard circumstance of families upgrading to lower tiers and noticing almost no difference in speed over ADSL2. Achieving higher speed internet for similar money is the kind of value proposition that the whole project was built on, so its great to see more Aussie’s being able to afford that.
The average bandwidth network congestion has reduced from more than 5hrs to under than 30 minutes per week compared to this time last year (excluding Sky Muster satellite). The change in NBN wholesale agreements with RSPs now means they’re forced to buy enough bandwidth with new connections, something that wasn’t the case for many years and seen profit driven internet companies oversell their networks. Thankfully this is being resolved.
As designed, the latest years of the rollout are really ramping up the speed of connections with more than 250,000 new homes and businesses across metro Australia to be able to connect to the NBN over the next 3 months.
NBN Co’s Chief Customer Officer – Residential, Brad Whitcomb said,
We’re pleased to see our work with industry is showing early signs of paying off with our insights indicating that new customers who connect to the network are generally more satisfied with their broadband service than before we introduced our new wholesale discount options.
It’s important for people connecting to the nbn access network to understand how to pick a speed tier and retail plan that suits their needs.
We recommend people talk to their internet provider about the actual speeds they are likely to experience, particularly during peak times and choose a plan that supports the number of people, usage habits and devices in the home.
Our latest progress report shows in the last year we have also improved our ability to work with internet providers to restore faults on the network within our agreed time frames by 30 per cent. We know there is more work to be done and will continue to collaborate with the industry as the rollout gathers pace.
The nbn access network is more than half way built with nearly four million homes and businesses already connected. NBN Co remains on track to complete the rollout by 2020. According to the NBN Co’s weekly progress report, there are 6.7 Million homes and businesses that are able to connect and we’re about to pass a major milestone of 4 million active connections.
Here’s one case study of a lady who runs a home business which now relies on the NBN. Like many families, she also streams her entertainment and has taken advantage of a higher speed tier.
NBN Co’s May 2018 monthly progress report includes:
Ready to connect
There are more than 6.7 million Australian homes and businesses who are able to connect to the nbn™ access network – compared with 5.0 million in May 2017.
Connected homes and businesses
There are 3.9 million homes and businesses connected to a plan over the nbn™ access network – compared with 2.3 million in May 2017.
Installed right the first time
There are 91 per cent of homes and businesses who had their nbn™ equipment installed right the first time – compared with 86 per cent in May 2017.
Meeting agreed installation times
There are 94 per cent of homes and businesses who were connected within the agreed timeframes with phone and internet providers – compared with 88 per cent in May 2017.
Average network bandwidth congestion
Average bandwidth congestion across the nbn™ access network (excluding nbn™ Sky Muster™) is around 18 minutes per week per premises – compared with 5 hours and 42 minutes per week in May 2017.
Fixed Line Congestion
There are 0.089 per cent of all homes and businesses connected to the nbn™ Fixed Line access network who have experienced network congestion – compared with 0.121 per cent in May 2017.
Uptake to higher wholesale plans
There are 44 per cent of homes and businesses on a 50Mbps (download) wholesale speed plan or higher – compared with 16 per cent in May 2017.
Network availability
The nbn™ access network was up and running 100.00 per cent of the time – compared to 99.9 per cent in May 2017.
Meeting agreed fault restoration time
There are 90 per cent of faults resolved with phone and internet providers within the agreed time frames – compared to 59 per cent in May2017.
Faults per 100 connected homes and businesses
There are an average 1.00 per 100 homes and business who experienced a fault on the nbn™ access network this month – compared to 1.0 in May 2017.
Please visit nbn.com.au/updates for more information.
I reckon there’d be even more interest in higher speeds if the network could actually deliver the speeds.
There’s huge parts of the country where it hasn’t even arrived yet – like at my joint, smack bang in the middle of suburbia.