NBN offers 40% more capacity to telcos to cope with the work-from-home revolution

Desperate times call for desperate measures and today the NBN has announced they are offering telcos an additional 40% bandwidth(CVC) for a few months at no cost to ensure the network can meet the needs of the vast numbers starting to work-from-home.

The news has been welcomed by the federal Minister for Communications Hon Paul Fletcher “The network has been accommodating increased traffic of five to six per cent in recent days. NBN Co is confident in its ability to continue to manage and optimise its network with the expectation that it will see further traffic increases, in line with changes seen in other countries such as Italy,” Minister Fletcher said.

“NBN Co is proactively working with RSPs to manage network requirements, and is leading a dedicated industry working group of key telecommunication network carriers to maintain network performance.

NBN CEO Stephen Rue said today “NBN Co has experience managing periods of high traffic, particularly during school holidays, and has in place processes to utilise latent capacity in the network to respond to changing network conditions together with RSPs.”

“We have been in regular talks with retailers over the past couple of weeks to understand the wholesale network support they require to meet the needs of more Australians working from home and as individuals, couples and families across the nation are spending more time at home, and naturally wanting to stay productive and connected to family and friends.

“We’re proud to play our part to keep Australians connected and productive through this crisis. Data carriage on the nbn has already increased by around 5 – 6 percent over the last few days as customers have increasingly started to work from home. The nbn is performing well, and we have not seen or experienced any significant traffic congestion on the network.

“We are closely following events unfolding in other parts of the world and we have taken decisive action to incrementally offer pricing relief for up to 40 per cent more capacity. This is equivalent to the higher end of increased data bandwidth requirements that we have seen in countries such as Italy, which have mandated work from home arrangements.

“The additional capacity pricing relief will be offered to RSPs at no additional cost and will help support significantly greater data use on the network throughout the day and during peak evening times. The offer will be made available to the industry from Monday in time to meet the steadily growing data consumption patterns of residential and business customers.  

What this means is the NBN is adding more lanes to the freeway during the day to ensure we’re not getting stuck in any traffic jams.

This doesn’t mean increased speeds, it’s all about capacity.

It also helps avoid any congestion issues brought on by Internet Providers who don’t already have the right capacity to cope with existing customers, something that is the fault of the ISP, but would be blamed on the NBN – we all know that.

Well done to the NBN – we’re going to need the capacity!