Australia's NBN now covers 784,592 premises

NBN Co., the company building out Australia's National Broadband Network, on Friday said it met its construction goals, reaching a total of 784,592 premises by the end of 2012.

The service provider said construction will commence when it issues contract instructions to its contractors for a Fibre Service Access Module (FSAM), a device that can serve between 2,000 to 3,000 premises.

As it moves into 2013, NBN has signed deals with various construction companies for regions including Silcar, for New South Wales, Queensland and the Australian Capital Territory (ACT); Visionstream for Tasmania; Transfield for Victoria; and Syntheo for the Northern Territory, South Australia and Western Australia.

In addition to single family homes, NBN has established partnerships with Downer EDI Limited and Universal Communications Group Limited to extend fiber-based services to multi-dwelling units (MDUs). As of the end of November 2012, NBN had connected 237 residential MDUs across Australia, with work begun on another 131.

By the end of June, NBN has set a goal to reach 286,000 premises passed.

Mike Quigley, CEO of NBN Co., said in a release that it now has the foundation "to reach the peak rollout target of passing over 6000 premises a day by 2015." 

The fiber-based portion of the NBN will reach 93 percent of Australian premises by 2021, with the remaining set to receive high-speed broadband via fixed-wireless or satellite by 2015.

NBN has continued to make progress in attracting more competitive providers to use its network to provide services. In late November, Internode, which now operates as a subsidiary of iiNet, introduced a wireline voice service designed for Australia's fiber-based National Broadband Network (NBN) last November.

For more:
- see the release

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