Comms Minister Paul Fletcher
NBN Co is to offer business-grade broadband speeds to more of regional Australia, adding 44 more 'Business Fibre Zones' to cover up to 60,000 businesses.
The move will give more businesses speeds of up to 1 Gigabit per second via the National Broadband Network (NBN) builder's Enterprise Ethernet product.
According to federal Minister for Communications, Urban Infrastructure, Cities and the Arts Paul Fletcher, the boost will bring the total number of businesses within a Business Fibre Zone up to 850,000, of which nearly 300,000 are in regional Australia.
Meanwhile, those outside a Fibre Zone will gain pricing wholesale pricing discounts of up to 58 per cent, Fletcher added.
“As we manage and respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, investment in local business communications infrastructure will help businesses to recover quickly, while taking advantage of domestic and international markets,” he said.
The extension to NBN Co’s Business Fibre Zone initiative builds on the $700 million package announced last year, which aimed to boost accessibility and affordability of business-grade fibre and offer more opportunities for small-to-medium-businesses.
In September, NBN Co announced it was to establish 240 Business Fibre Zones over the next three years, spending the $700 million along the way.
Carried out in partnership with retail service providers (RSPs), the national broadband builder aims to significantly expand RSPs' national reach and offer solutions based on NBN’s Enterprise Ethernet services.
The locations of the first 130 NBN Business Fibre Zones were first announced for 61 regional areas such as Bunbury, Mount Gambier, Devonport, Shepparton, Port Macquarie and Rockhampton.
The regions in the latest tranche will include the following in NSW: the peninsula from Avalon to Palm Beach, Camden, Casino, Cessnock, Hunters Hill, Lithgow, Nelson Bay, Singleton, Wauchope and a Lake Macquarie - West zone incorporating parts of Morisset, Toronto, West Wallsend and Edgeworth.
In total, NSW has 103 Business Fibre Zones.
Meanwhile, Victoria now has 61 zones, with the following locations added to the current total: Balwyn-Surrey Hills, Bentleigh, Cowes, Eltham, Glenroy, Hampton-Sandringham, Hastings-Tyabb, Melton, Ocean Grove, Rosebud, Tatura, Torquay and Yarrawonga.
Queensland now has 49 zones in total, with nine new regions added, including Ayr, Dalby, Emerald, Goondiwindi, Hervey Bay, Nambour, North Lakes, Warwick and Yeppoon.
In Western Australia, four new regions will be added to metropolitan areas and Collie in the South West region. while South Australia will gain five new spots, consisting of Goolwa, Modbury, Naracoorte, Port Pirie and Stirling.
The ACT and Tasmania will gain two and one new Business Fibre Zones respectively.
“NBN Co has a very clear and simple purpose: to lift the digital capability of Australia. We are therefore expanding the coverage of our NBN Business Fibre Zones across Australia to help support and grow Australia’s digital economy," said Brad Whitcomb, NBN Co chief customer officer.
“Businesses are increasingly using business NBN Enterprise Ethernet to support cloud-based business operations, remote file storage, content hosting, unified communications, large file distribution, and to connect head office locations.
"However, for decades the location of a business -- whether it’s in the city or outer metropolitan area, peri-urban fringe, regional city, town or rural area -- has been the determining factor in the price they pay for business-grade fibre."
