NBN Co is expecting to service about eight percent of all new housing developments with fibre-to-the-node (FTTN) technology by 2022.
The network builder confirmed today the proportion of so-called greenfields areas that are in line to receive new copper last-mile connections rather than the previous policy of providing them all with fibre.
NBN Co said FTTN-cabled new developments would “largely be in-fill developments”; new developments that are within the boundaries of an existing FTTN area.
The network builder indicated at the end of last year that it was ready to bring its multi-technology mix (MTM) of access technologies to new housing developments.
That will mean new developments will receive either fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP), fibre-to-the-basement (FTTB) or FTTN connections.
Most so-called “broadacre” developments are still likely to receive full fibre – and potentially skinny fibre from sometime this year - but NBN Co had said smaller developments in brownfield areas would most likely get FTTN instead.
Blogger jxeeno first revealed at the start of last year that new estates were beginning to receive copper rather than fibre connections.
Also today NBN Co confirmed it had purchased 15,051 kilometres of new copper cable to use as part of its rollout.
However, most of this will be used for cross-connects between the 30,000 FTTN cabinets being deployed as part of the rollout and existing street pillars.
It is understood that the average distance between a node cabinet and pillar is between 10m and 20m.
In addition, some new copper is being purchased for remediation and repair works on the existing copper network.
