If you’re among the thousands of regional Australians who’ve been stuck with the NBN’s sluggish satellite service, you could now have access to faster fixed wireless internet for the very first time.
NBN Co has announced that around 24,000 homes and businesses across New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania are now within range of the fixed wireless network, which can reach speeds of up to 50Mbps.
While NBN Co couldn’t provide a breakdown of the suburbs that these 24,000 premises are located in at this stage, you can check your address on the NBN’s website to assess availability for your home or register for updates.
NBN Co says it will begin to contact eligible premises for this upgrade from mid-April, but in the meantime, here’s a breakdown of the newly eligible locations by state:
- NSW: 6,700
- Queensland: 6,500
- Victoria: 5,900
- SA: 2,200
- WA: 1,800
- Tasmania: 1,200
Today’s announcement is the first in a series of upgrades that are rolling out across the NBN’s fixed wireless network. Once upgrades are complete, it’s expected that these upgrades will provide approximately 120,000 homes and businesses in regional Australia with faster internet, meaning they’ll no longer have to rely on NBN’s Sky Muster satellite service.
NBN Co says the ongoing work is expected to be complete by December 2024, and it’s at this time that it will also introduce two higher speed tiers, with 'home fast' and 'home superfast' offering downloads speeds of up to 100–130Mbps and up to 200–325Mbps respectively. That’ll be a vast improvement from the top speeds of 50Mbps that are currently on offer.
If fixed wireless NBN is coming to your area for the first time, we'd recommend reading our guide to the best wireless broadband in Australia.
We’ve got other alternatives covered too, such as 4G home internet plans, so you can learn exactly what’s available for your home.
