GCC Seeks NBN Upgrade for Casey Stage 1 and Hall

The GCC has met with a representative from the nbn on 29/9/20 regarding the recently announced upgrades to the National Broadband Network (NBN):

• Businesses across Australia to get high-speed fibre broadband
• $4.5 billion NBN investment to bring ultra-fast broadband to millions of families and businesses and create 25,000 jobs

This meeting was followed up in writing as follows:

Upgrade Casey Stage 1 and Hall

The majority of the NBN infrastructure in the district of Gungahlin is based on Fibre to the Premise (FTTP) technology. One portion of one suburb, Casey Stage 1, was deployed with Fibre to the Node (FTTN) technology as was the adjacent village of Hall (see below). This represents some 850 premises. Particularly in Casey, this has created a significant digital disadvantage for residents in these areas with houses on different sides of the street with widely different broadband quality (eg. The forgotten side of the street in Canberra’s broadband network). The GCC asks that the nbn prioritise the upgrading of Casey Stage 1 and Hall to FTTP as part of the plan to investment “$3.5 billion to make NBN Co’s highest wholesale speed tiers available, as demand arises, to up to 75 per cent of homes and businesses on the fixed-line network by 2023, including … taking fibre deeper into neighbourhoods serviced by Fibre to the Node (FTTN) technology, enabling on demand fibre upgrades and speeds of up to 1 Gbps”.

Business Fibre Zones

The GCC is concerned that the the Business Fibre Zones (BFZ) initiative will attract businesses to those regions/districts identified in this new build program, at the expense of regions/districts, such as Gungahlin, where Enterprise Ethernet (business-grade, fibre-based) services are already available. The GCC ask that nbn promote all regions/districts where Enterprise Ethernet services are available, not just those which are to upgraded to this capability through the BFZ program.

The Gungahlin Community Council (GCC) is a very long term advocate for improved broadband services for the district of Gungahlin, having pushed for improvements to services in the district prior to the announcement of the NBN. The GCC is therefore a passionate and strong supporter of the NBN, and has featured in a number of NBN launch announcements and worked with nbn on a range of communications and community engagement issues.

We look forward to the completion of an “all-fibre” NBN footprint for Gungahlin!

Please engage with us early on the process by which the FTTN to FTTP upgrades will be identified and implemented (we understand there were some announcements on this last week).

NBN Mapping Tool – Yellow is FTTN; Purple is FTTP