Number of NBN ready premises in Australia FY 2017-2023

As of June 2023, the cumulative number of premises that were ready to connect to the National Broadband Network (NBN) in Australia had reached 12.29 million properties. The NBN was first conceived in 2007 and has been in the making for over a decade with the project infrastructure expected to be completed by mid-2020. 

Australia’s largest infrastructure project

At a total cost of 51 billion Australian dollars and boasting a fiber network spanning more than 90 percent of homes and business across Australia, the NBN is indeed Australia’s largest infrastructure project. By the end of the 2019 financial year just over half of all properties made ready to connect to the NBN had switched their service to the broadband network. The enormity of the NBN project is also accentuated by the size of the county; half of all broadband services are delivered in low population density regional areas and still satellite and wireless make up only a small proportion of the total connections.

Increased speed, lower cost?

This massive undertaking has not gone without criticism. The original NBN plan announced that the majority of connections would be fiber to the premises (FTTP), however when faced with concerns over cost blowouts and looming deadlines, the NBN was revised to include a mix of technologies. This change has been at the cost of internet speed, with only a quarter of homes lucky enough to have access to high speed FTTP connections. Overall Australia places 62nd in the world for internet speed with the majority of Australians having an average connection speed of around 45Mbps, although higher speed tiers of up to 100Mbps can be purchased at a premium. As for the cost of internet connections, since the roll out of the NBN there is some evidence that prices are dropping for NBN and non-NBN services alike.