Canberra Accelerates Fibre Upgrades, Expands High-Speed Broadband Access Across ACT

Construction has begun to upgrade approximately 97,000 Canberra homes and businesses from Fibre-to-the-Node (FTTN) to full fibre connections across 85 suburbs.

The shift aligns with broader efforts to strengthen digital infrastructure that underpins daily work, education and communication needs for residents and local operations.

Fibre Upgrade Details and Timeline

The ACT fibre upgrade involves installing over 2,500 kilometres of fibre and utilising more than 1,200 poles, with completion expected by the end of 2030. Once upgraded, over 94% of ACT premises will be eligible for NBN's highest residential speeds of up to 2Gbps, compared to 50% currently. Current NBN fixed-line very high speed services in Australia achieve an average download speed of 869.5 Mbps and an average upload speed of 90 Mbps. These figures provide a baseline against which the completed network can deliver measurable gains in capacity and consistency for households and businesses.

Work is already active in multiple locations, laying the groundwork for the expanded reach of higher-performance connections that will become available progressively through the decade.

G.fast Expansion in Inner Areas

G.fast technology, offering up to 1Gbps download speeds without the NBN, is expanding to residential homes in inner Canberra suburbs including the inner north, inner south, and Weston Creek. This option adds another pathway for faster access in targeted zones while the main fibre project advances across the wider territory.

Local premises stand to benefit from these parallel developments as construction and rollout continue. Households and businesses can monitor progress through official NBN channels and provider updates to understand when their specific addresses become eligible for the improved services.