Australia's NBN names 140 suburbs to get FTTN-based service

NBN Co. has announced the 140 Australian suburbs that will be the first to receive a fiber-to-the-node (FTTN)-based connection over the next 12 months on the National Broadband Network.

In August, NBN Co. connected its first FTTN customer as part of its initial technology trials, which will bring fiber to a remote terminal (RT) cabinet node and then use the existing copper pairs provided by incumbent telco Telstra to each premises.

Under this plan, a total of 200,000 homes and businesses will get a FTTN-based connection via 1,000 nodes across the 140 Australian suburbs. The service provider will install FTTN connections to 155,000 premises in New South Wales and Queensland; that's based on its plan to introduce a FTTN product in the third quarter of 2015 and signing an agreement with incumbent telco Telstra.

In addition, NBN Co. has put together a plan to build out FTTN service to another 37,000 premises, but has not provided any specific details on where those rollouts will be.

Earlier, NBN Co. and incumbent telco Telstra entered a $121 million agreement where they will connect 260,000 premises with FTTN technology, an approach favored by the Australian government's Coalition party. 

The Coalition party has created an "optimized multi-technology mix" plan that will connect 26 percent of premises with fiber to the premises (FTTP) by 2020, while another 44 percent will be served by FTTN, and the remaining 30 percent by hybrid fiber coax (HFC). 

For more:
- IT News has this article

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