Federal government's fibre upgrade reaches Bendigo households in NBN rollout

More than 28,000 Bendigo households and businesses will have their National Broadband Network connections upgraded from fibre-to-the-node to fibre-to-the-premises technology by the end of the financial year, under the Albanese government's accelerated NBN upgrade program that aims to bring gigabit-capable connections to three million Australian premises by 2025.

Federal Communications Minister Michelle Rowland confirmed the Bendigo rollout schedule, noting that the city's FTTN infrastructure was among the older vintage in Victoria, with connections installed from 2015 to 2017 that had been criticised for speeds that fell significantly short of what the technology was theoretically capable of. The average download speed on Bendigo's FTTN connections was 42 Mbps — adequate for basic streaming but insufficient for households with multiple users working and studying from home simultaneously.

The FTTP upgrade will give Bendigo premises access to the NBN's highest speed tiers, including the 1 Gbps Home Superfast and 500 Mbps Home Ultrafast plans that are not available on the FTTN technology. NBN Co confirmed that approximately 60 per cent of upgraded premises are expected to choose a higher speed tier within 12 months of the upgrade becoming available.

For Bendigo's growing technology sector and the businesses at the Civic Hall Innovation Hub, the upgrade is particularly significant. Several companies that have participated in the hub's accelerator program cited connectivity speed as a constraint on their operations, particularly those using cloud computing, video production, and data-heavy applications.

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