Australians linked to the national broadband network will be able to get world-leading internet download speeds of one gigabit per second by the end of this year.
In an address to the parliamentary committee on the NBN in Sydney on Friday, CEO Mike Quigley said NBN Co remains "very comfortable" about staying within its forecast $34.7 billion capital cost to roll out the network. He said costs of the rollout and connections had also fallen significantly since the completion of initial connections.
An entire movie could be pulled down in several seconds using the service, which is about 100 times faster than the average speeds offered by ADSL connections.
The wholesale price for the 1Gbps service will be $150 a month, though retailers will add a margin to this. NBN Co will also launch two other high speed services - 250Mbps and 500 Mbps - by December.
NBN Co's announcement comes as the company's chief executive, Mr. Quigley, refuted claims by the Coalition that NBN Co prices will increase.
Most commentators believe that Labor's "fibre to the premises" technology is better than the Coalition's slightly cheaper and much slower plan which relies on decaying copper telephone lines.
The chairman of the parliamentary committee overseeing the NBN, Robert Oakeshott, said he would use the committee hearings to scrutinise the Coalition's broadband policy.''Now there is bipartisan commitment to complete the NBN, all policy suggestions on how to reach completion are fair game for the oversight committee,'' Mr Oakeshott said.
No comments:
Post a Comment