Gigabit speeds to hit NBN by end of year
Summary: NBN Co has released three new wholesale plans for the National Broadband Network, which will allow some customers to achieve download speeds of 1Gbps by the end of the year.
By the end of the year, NBN Co wholesale customers will be able to obtain 1-gigabit-per-second (Gbps) products to resell to households and businesses on the National Broadband Network (NBN).
The wholesale price for the 1Gbps plan is slated at AU$150 per month, and will provide 400 megabits per second (Mbps) upload speeds.
Similarly, NBN Co released a 500Mbps/200Mbps plan for AU$100 per month, and a 250Mbps/100Mbps plan for AU$70 per month.
The pricing does not necessarily scale linearly in terms of speed. While the 1,000Mpbs/400Mbps plan represents a tenfold increase in speeds, its AU$150 per month price tag is 3.9 times the AU$38 wholesale price of a 100Mpbs/40Mbps connection.
Similarly, the 500Mbps/200Mbps plan is 2.9 times the price of the AU$34 per month 50Mbps/20Mbps plan, and the 250Mbps/100Mbps plan is 2.3 times the price of a AU$30 per month 25Mbps/10Mbps plan.
| Speed (upload/download) | Wholesale access price per month |
| 12Mbps/1Mbps | AU$24 |
| 25Mbps/5Mbps | AU$27 |
| 25Mbps/10Mbps | AU$30 |
| 50Mbps/20Mbps | AU$34 |
| 100Mbps/40Mbps | AU$38 |
| 250Mbps/100Mbps | AU$70 |
| 500Mbps/200Mbps | AU$100 |
| 1000Mbps/400Mbps | AU$150 |
None of these prices include associated overheads, such as the cost to access network facilities, and retailers are expected to add their own margins to NBN Co's wholesale pricing. The wholesale prices are, however, forecast to decrease over time.
In a sitting of the joint parliamentary committee overseeing the NBN on Friday morning, NBN Co CEO Mike Quigley confirmed that the 1Gbps service will be gradually made available to customers already connected to the NBN by the end of the year.
He also provided some additional statistics on the number of plans that have currently been taken up by those connected to the network. The majority (39 percent) of NBN users are on 12Mbps/1Mbps plans, followed by 31 percent on 100Mbps/40Mbps, 24 percent on 25Mbps/5Mbps, 5 percent on 50Mbps/20Mbps, and 1 percent on 25Mbps/10Mbps.
Quigley said NBN Customers download an average of 47GB each month, while the Australian average is 31GB.
Josh Taylor contributed to this article.
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Talkback
nbnco lies
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The coalition plan and wireless will never offer the same speeds and upload capabilities as fibre.
But you are right if the coalition wins we'll be back in the dark age. Data rates have tripled in australia over the last 2 years according to the ABS. So assuming it even just doubles every 2 years, the coalition plan will not go close to being anygood and the infrastructure we need will take 20 years to rollout because they are trying to win votes by rolling out an inferior network sooner.
How? Because this has been planned for some time now. Please read the NBNco corporate plan either the December 2010 or August 2012 copy. All the speed tiers are listed there in both.
"and if coalition win the election all of this will not happen !"
Oh, so NBNco should drop all tools for an unknown? I see. That's a very brilliant idea... more to the point I know who I won't be voting for. Thanks for the political reminder Ammad!
What...
VDSL