- NBN Co has announced its half-year results
- 594,000 homes have accepted the free fibre upgrade
- Final upgrades expected by 2030
NBN Co has revealed its half-year results up to December 31, 2024, including data regarding the number of households that have so far taken up its offer of a free fibre upgrade.
NBN Co’s fibre upgrade program has only been in effect for two and a half years, and in that time some 594,000 homes have upgraded their home’s technology to full-fat fibre to the premises (FTTP) – 217,000 of which were completed in the second half of 2024 – that’s currently capable of supporting the fastest NBN 1000 plans and the incoming 2Gbps tier expected in September.
A vast majority of Australian homes connected to the fixed-line NBN network are already eligible to upgrade, or should be eligible by December 2025. NBN Co has said it is “on track to complete upgrades to the local fibre network that will enable 3.5 million homes and businesses served by Fibre to the Node (FTTN) and 1.5 million premises served by Fibre to the Curb (FTTC) to upgrade to FTTP”.
Plus, earlier this year, NBN Co announced it would be upgrading the last-remaining copper-based, FTTN-connected homes by 2030 thanks to a joint investment by NBN Co and the Australian Government. It’s estimated that some 622,000 homes will benefit from this investment, with more than half located in regional Australia.
Alongside these figures for its fixed-line network, NBN Co also revealed in its latest press releases that its upgraded fixed wireless network is now available to “approximately 90 per cent of expanded footprint”. Additionally, the network provider is exploring new satellite internet options to replace the aging Sky Muster network.
All aboard the upgrade train
Given the attractive combination of many more upgrade-eligible homes and the increasingly great value of the fastest NBN plansthere really has never been a better time to upgrade. Not only does a high-speed internet plan (those delivering 100Mbps download speeds or faster) naturally mean file downloads and streams can be completed more quickly, but full-fibre infrastructure is also more reliable and less susceptible to outages.
You can easily find out if your home is eligible for the free FTTP upgrade on the NBN website. If you are, all you need to do is find one of the best NBN providers and sign up for an NBN 100, NBN 250 or NBN 1000 plan. As mentioned earlier, 2Gbps ‘Hyperfast’ plans are expected in September this year. Not only will this introduce a higher speed tier among the best NBN plansbut it will also result in a speed increase of the current options. An NBN 100 plan, for example, will see its theoretical maximum speed increased to 500Mbps.
We’ve picked out three of our favourite plans below – one for each tier – to help get you started. You can also view a wider selection of plans in the price comparison widget further down this page.