09.03.2023nbn investing for Melbourne’s future

It’s an exciting time with digital trends accelerating across a range of consumer and business services including shifts in work from home, home health, education, entertainment and e-business.

As a national wholesale infrastructure provider, nbn recognises greater Melbourne is serviced by a significant part of our network, however our infrastructure covers premises across Australia – CBD, urban, regional and remote – including existing premises and growth in new housing and business developments.

We know broadband connectivity can help improve health and lifestyle outcomes through enabling access to remote healthcare providers, online social networks and educational opportunities.

When the pandemic hit, we operated in a largely digital economy – for at least a period of time – as businesses pivoted strategies, changed products and found new ways to engage with their employees, clients and customers.

The role of technology has therefore never been greater as companies, governments and communities – think about models of working and supporting regionalisation and decentralisation.

Remote working preparedness has gone from being a luxury for employees to a critical capability for many businesses that is here to stay. Companies that can leverage what they have learned during this crisis and can take it to the next level will be in the box seat to attract the best talent and retain their staff longer.

In relation to business trends, we see a range of high bandwidth applications driving broadband demand including:

  • Videoconferencing
  • Security monitoring
  • Working with large digital images and files
  • Adoption of cloud as businesses increasingly shift their operations online – noting that in the City of Melbourne Benchmarking Report 2023, three new data centres are planned for Melbourne which has jumped into the top 25 cities globally for cloud availability data zones.

In recent years, nbn has been delivering co-investment opportunities across Australia to further enhance the capabilities of the network. The company has successfully worked with all levels of government on co-investment initiatives and future opportunities remain open to all states and territories across Australia.

People sat in a board room talking to someone on video conferencing

nbn is proudly working with the Victorian Government to deliver on Victorian Government’s ‘Connecting Victoria Program’, working together to enhance digital infrastructure. The co-investment (first announced in August 2021) will benefit more than 120,000 homes and businesses in over 180 Victorian suburbs and towns – including 150 suburbs in regional areas.

Stage three of this program (announced in October 2022) will enhance the digital infrastructure across the nbn fixed line, fixed wireless and satellite footprints.

This includes 15 additional Business Fibre Zones, building twenty new wireless towers to bring nbn fixed wireless services, via retail phone and internet providers, to 39 suburbs and towns currently served by NBN Co’s Sky Muster satellite service and the opportunity to migrate to nbn Fixed Wireless for around 1,000 homes and businesses currently served by nbn Sky Muster satellite service.

This co-investment benefits many premises in suburbs and regional towns across Victoria, increases access to higher speeds and enables premises to shift from our Sky Muster service to fixed wireless services.

nbn is connecting customers to the nbn network via phone and internet retailers across the country, offering higher speeds and offering fibre infrastructure for Australian businesses.

With this commitment to infrastructure and the growth we are seeing in digital trends, we can help enable the social and economic benefits of broadband across Victoria and Australia for both consumers and businesses.

In this way we can also help create a more digitally equal society.

If you’d like to read more – you can visit nbn‘s website at: nbn.com.au

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