The Hon Andrew Leigh MP
Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury
Member for Fenner
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
DOORSTOP PRESS CONFERENCE
HOLT, ACT
THURSDAY, 12 NOVEMBER 2026
SUBJECTS: Faster NBN arrives for thousands of Canberrans
ANDREW LEIGH, ASSISTANT MINISTER AND MEMBER FOR FENNER: My name is Andrew Leigh, the federal Member for Fenner, and I would like to acknowledge we are meeting on traditional lands of the Ngunnawal people. Canberrans use a lot of broadband. The typical Canberra household is using over 500 gigabytes a month and has 25 connected devices. That's forecast to rise to 44 connected devices by 2030. And what Labor is doing is ensuring that we get the full-fibre to the home broadband roll-out that we promised when it was first announced by the Rudd and Gillard Governments. That roll-out was delayed under the Coalition, but it's now roaring back.
We are anticipating 94 per cent of Canberra premises to be connected to full-fibre broadband by the end of 2030 – around double the current share. That will mean more Canberra households able to access telehealth, online education and working from home. It will mean less time buffering and more time spent productively. These gigabit speeds are crucially important in a modern economy, and Labor is committed to ensuring that this roll-out works at speed. I'll hand over now to Greg Thornton from NBN Co, and then to Jim Thornton to talk a little bit about how this is working in practice.
JIM THORNTON, NBN CUSTOMER AND ACT RESIDENT: We’re not related!
GREG THORNTON, NBN CO EXECUTIVE GENERAL MANAGER INFRASTRUCTURE PLANNING AND DELIVERY: Yeah fantastic. Thank you Andrew, it is great to be here. We have spent a lot of time getting to this point. What I would say is we are also here with Ventia – one of our major partners. We have been working in the background building ever since the announcement back in February that construction has commenced.
We are in Holt. It's great to see that we've now achieved that milestone of the first 2,000 premises have now been released. Customers can now place orders and get that fibre experience and we can start to make our transition off copper, which obviously, it's a difficult delivery of giving a customer a connection on copper. We're now seeing that fibre gives you so much more. The connected devices that Andrew spoke about, that's only going up. The need for additional speed as well as resilience is just paramount. And so that first 2,000, we're going to see another 2,000 by the time we get to Christmas. And we're going to keep releasing footprint all the way along until we get to the end of this program. We are on-track, we are slightly ahead of the program and we are looking very comfortable about this program.
Canberra is very unique in the way in which we install here. We've got backyard aerial. We are looking at building brand new infrastructure out the front. It does come with a little bit of disturbance on that and that's why we look at – the way we do it, we actually release small footprints as we go so that we can reduce the timeframe between that initial disturbance to when they can place an order. And so once they get to that point, they'll get a letter from us. That letter will allow them to then make a choice of which RSP or retail service provider they'd like to place an order with, choose a provider and then we will come out and do that final connection inside the home and connect them up to those super-fast broadband speeds.
ANDREW LEIGH: Fabulous. Thanks Greg. Jim, do you want to talk a bit about your experience?
JIM THORNTON: Well, it started off with having NBN at the men's shed, giving us a talk and I was persuaded to look at the fact that fibre was outside the door to get it connected to future-proof the value of the house, and that's where we started. We had a 5G network because we couldn't quite get the speed and reliability we wanted. And since the install, everything has been fine.
JOURNALIST: So when you say everything has been fine, what kind of difference have you seen?
JIM THORNTON: Well, the speed is there. The reliability is there. I used to have, maybe a Zoom meeting, which would drop out previously. So, you know, and we get better coverage. One thing I noticed was with the new device, you didn't need that big black box of a modem router. I could plug straight in a mesh router, which is about the size of a bar of soap, which is much more discrete in the house.
JOURNALIST: How did you find the process of getting someone in to actually switch that all on for you? Was it onerous or was it pretty simple?
JIM THORNTON: The most difficult thing is finding an internet service provider that is going to give you a decent deal to actually provide it, and then they provide the free installation which is important that, you know, in years to come if you haven't got it in, it might cost you to get it installed. But that was that was a difficult choice. You know, there's so many providers. Which one to go with?
JOURNALIST: That's good to know it's the provider and not trying to get someone to turn the thing on!
JIM THORNTON: No, no, that was really easy.
JOURNALIST: Yeah?
JIM THORNTON: And some of the some of the documentation, I must admit is misleading. Some other things say it won't be installed on a two-storey building – in the upper-story but ours was. The guy actually put the conduit up the wall and he asked permission first, ‘Do you mind having the conduits on the outside of the building invisible?’ We said ‘Fine’, and he installed it where there was a power point because where the phone came in previously was in the garage and that was not the appropriate place to put a modem.
JOURNALIST: For sure. So your advice to people would be would be just ask if you want it somewhere?
JIM THORNTON: Yes! Don't assume and don't assume they know everything. Put your own wishes first.
JOURNALIST: Awesome. So I understand that we want to have 94 per cent by December 2030. So this is the first round of houses to hook up. We're still laying cables throughout the rest of Canberra?
GREG THORNTON: Yeah, correct. We've released in a number of suburbs, so Holt, Griffith and Narrabundah. Those are the sort of suburbs that we've started to release. Customers, I do suggest, and it is a plug – I do suggest they log on to the NBN website and they can check their address. It actually gives a date as to when those areas will become available. We update that regularly, so I would say check that. As far as the program is concerned, as I said, we're going to continue to release. So the program, the team that's here today, we are still moving through areas. You will see us out in the street. We will still keep constructing all the way through up to that point. So that that 2030 date is where we end, not where we start to release footprint. And I think that's a big call out that people need to be aware that this is here now, and we're going to keep releasing suburbs as we go.
JOURNALIST: Yeah. So you said that's 2,000 premises now. So it's another 2,000 by Christmas?
GREG THORNTON: The expectation is that, and as you can see, with the construction starts to ramp up. I think at any one time we've got around 30 plus drills – directional drills out the front, working through the suburbs. So you will see us out there, and there is a huge amount of construction going on. So yeah, that's an additional 2,000 to the 2,000 we've just released.
JOURNALIST: And for the people who might be a bit confused about, they may have Fibre to the Node at the moment. The difference between getting that to the premises. How does having fibre then going to the premises differ between trying to jam all your data through a copper conduit?
GREG THORNTON: Yeah, sure. Interesting stat; if I look at it across Australia, around 64 per cent of the customers that are on Fibre to the Node can't get 100 megabits, and so with this upgrade, that then means that they can move to multi-gigabit speeds. So there's a real big difference between copper and fibre, not just on the speed but also on the resilience. We know that the copper network degrades over time. We see that. It's also less resilient. I think we get ,you know, complaints, people calling in when there's rain and that type of thing.
Also in restoration, and so you would have seen the Queensland floods. Some of those areas that were still on copper have taken up to 57 hours for us to replace because there's cabinets that are on the street need to be cleaned out and potentially new copper. There's a lot of work that goes into repairing a copper network. With fibre, if I look at the exact same scenario, down to 1.5 hours that we are downtime to restore and give people back services. So it's not just that need for speed, The resilience, the operation of the network – it's just it's a lot better to work on a fibre service, and it's a lot quicker to repair.
JOURNALIST: It was mentioned that there is currently a 100 megabit requirement or limit to be able to get everything turned on, but that's being removed in March?
GREG THORNTON: Yeah, correct.
JOURNALIST: Can you take me through what that is?
GREG THORNTON: Yeah. So at the moment, if you're a customer, you might be on a on a 50-megabit plan on a copper service. When this rolls through, the ask there is for customers to choose a higher speed plan, so they move up into a higher speed – maybe a 100 megabit, maybe higher. Where we actually offered a higher speed uplift recently in our upgrade program so you can get a 400 or 500 megabit speed plan. We're going to remove that in around March of next year. So what that means is for customers who are cost conscious and actually want to stay on their existing speed plan, they can just migrate from copper straight across to fibre without upgrading. That we're looking to release in around March/April of this next year.
JIM THORNTON: There is a workaround.
JOURNALIST: There is a workaround?
JIM THORNTON: Yes.
JOURNALIST: Tell me Jim!
JIM THORNTON: We were forced onto the minimum speed, which was 100, but if you have a plan, it's install free. You cancel it at the end of the first month and then go to another provider that will actually sell you a plan at a lower speed.
JOURNALIST: Fantastic. See, people are always going to find a way but it's good that it's now removed. So is that being removed off of feedback from people in terms of cost or from providers?
GREG THORNTON: Look, I think from an NBN perspective, we want people to use the network that we've built. We want them to actually get the benefit of that network and so that upgrade capability, getting people up to speed, they'll actually notice the difference. And so, if you're just moving from copper to fibre, you'll get less dropouts. You'll definitely get all that, but you won't get that extra benefit of those extra speeds.
As Andrew mentioned, the number of connected devices – that is going to, when you add more and more devices, and I think everyone does a double tape when they think, ‘Well, how many devices do I have at home?’ You'll be surprised how many…
JIM THORNTON: Dishwashers!
GREG THORNTON: The kids' iPads, the dishwashers, the vacuum cleaners – everything wants a connection. That eats just that little bit more capacity. So when you add it all up, you are going to need that extra speed. And so that's why we're actually trying to remove that stop there, so that people can take full advantage of an extra speed uplift.
JOURNALIST: And Andrew, one for you. I know that there's a very minute amount of Canberra households that aren't going to be getting this service because maybe they're, you know, a bit more rural kind of thing. But I know last time Senator Katy Gallagher mentioned that for the remaining 1 per cent, obviously the logistics connecting them was a bit uneconomical. But we know other solutions are being explored. Do we have an idea of where that's up to? That was stuff like fixed wireless and low earth orbit options. Is it still kind of being explored further?
ANDREW LEIGH: Those technologies are all improving, but Greg is at the cutting edge of technology, so very happy for him to talk about how that's working for that last few per cent.
GREG THORNTON: I would say that 1 per cent, it's actually looking very much like it's less than 1 per cent. What I will say to you is, we started out with a view that we get the teams to go out and do a full survey of the area they intend to build. So the target is to get as many of those customers on fire as possible. Now, when we go and do a survey we actually check what is it going to take, how much work is involved. We're in a suburban area, so the chances are very low that these will not meet that criteria but as we move into further more rural areas, you'll see places that are on large blocks. Those areas, their neighbours are probably already on fixed wireless. It's just the way that the original copper network was built. That you might have a house that's sitting up to 100 metres away from the actual curb.
With that situation, what we do is we do a survey and we work out exactly how much it's going to cost, what the work would be and in that very small number – less than 1 per cent – we'll see that the cost will actually be counterproductive for us to build to those premises. What I will say is, everyone gets an upgrade. So what we do is we actually check that premise to see if it has line of sight to a nearby tower. If it does, then it will move to a fixed wireless service. If it doesn't, we'll move it to a satellite Low Earth Orbit service.
But what I will say, the service that they are on today will be an upgrade for what they will get in the future. That is locked in. And so, they will move to a higher speed, they just may not move to a fibre. But as I said, it is a very small number and it's only when we've really investigated every site to see if we can truly get them a fibre.
JOURNALIST: Andrew, why is it important for the federal government to actually be funding this to give people the option to access much better, faster internet for free? They're not having to actually pay to get all this fibre put in themselves?
ANDREW LEIGH: I think access to superfast broadband is fundamental to so much of what we do. Whether that's accessing health or education services, whether it's working from home as many Canberrans do, or whether it's simply staying connected with loved ones. The internet has become fundamental to our lives and ensuring that Canberrans have those gigabit speeds is crucial to a modern economy.
JOURNALIST: Awesome. Thank you all.
ENDS