NBN to re-launch HFC network, FTTC extended to HFC in-fill areas

Around 400,000 additional homes are going to be receiving the NBN via the latest Fibre to the Curb (FTTC) technology as the NBN today announces they’re ready to resume selling services on the Telstra Pay TV cable – otherwise known as HFC.

The HFC roll out was halted after a higher than usual number of complaints led the NBN to review their roll-out and go back to square one on HFC allocated areas.

Using the Telstra Pay TV cable was a stroke of genius, it passes almost 3,000,000 homes and is capable of the top NBN speed tier of 100/40 – implemented right it’s a breeze.   However the NBN roll out was at best rushed, so steps were missed, steps that were planned to be taken after areas were ready – instead, this resulted in a high level of complaints (around 4%) so the roll-out was paused while the network was put right.

New processes will see areas come online only after the full process is complete, and that will begin as soon as the end of this month.

Late next week the NBN progress database and map will be updated with hundreds of thousands of homes to be connected each month from July. Initially they will start with 1000 homes, then ramping up to that 100,000 number.

At the same time NBN has announced they are not going to extend the HFC network to any homes not currently passed by HFC.  Instead, FTTC will be used to scale the network out to those areas.

This is an additional 340,000 homes who are slated for FTTC, with another 100,000 originally planned for FTTN set to be receiving FTTC instead.

Many people have had to wait for the HFC rectification and it seems that wait is almost over.