For over a decade, the rollout of Australia’s National Broadband Network (NBN) has been mired in political compromise and technical regression—most notably through the adoption of Fibre-to-the-Node (FTTN) as a cornerstone of the than Coalition government’s revised NBN strategy. The most recent NBN Annual Service Improvement Plan FY26, released 24 July 2025, now confirms, in stark detail, what many of us warned from the outset: the FTTN model has not only underperformed, it has resulted in substantial cost overruns, avoidable duplication, and systemic inefficiencies.
FTTN: a costly detour on the road to fibre
According to NBN Co’s latest figures, 806,000 premises were connected to full fibre (FTTP) by the end of FY25, with more than 4.6 million premises now eligible for upgrade from FTTN or FTTC. Yet perhaps most revealing is that over 110,000 FTTN connections—deemed “problematic”—were proactively upgraded to fibre under fault-based programs. These connections, often plagued by unstable speeds and service degradation, are now being replaced in what can only be described as a taxpayer-funded repair job.
Worse still, NBN Co continued to connect around 60,000 new FTTN services per month in fibre-ready areas well into late 2024. This astonishing figure means tens of thousands of customers—despite many living in areas already passed by fibre—were installed on obsolete copper infrastructure and will now require a second, unnecessary migration to FTTP. NBN Co itself admits that “almost all newly connected FTTN/C/B customers will need to undergo a second connection.”
This is a textbook example of sunk-cost fallacy and operational waste, with households effectively made to endure a cycle of disruption and disservice purely to protect prior investments in the wrong technology.
Missed opportunities and rejected reforms
Retail service providers (RSPs), who deal with frustrated consumers on the frontlines, regularly called on NBN Co to introduce a fibre-first provisioning policy and to cease copper connections in areas already upgraded to fibre. They also requested rebates for customers on underperforming FTTN lines. Each of these proposals was rejected.
Instead, NBN Co doubled down on process-heavy “Replacement Module” consultations, arguing that a full copper exit plan was not yet feasible. Meanwhile, the cost of inaction grows. As RSPs warned in their submissions, maintaining the status quo guarantees more waste: “Almost all these [FTTN] customers will need to go through a second connection event.”
NBN’s refusal to offer compensation or differentiated pricing for lower-speed copper users also highlights a broader equity issue. FTTN users continue to pay the same as those on FTTP or HFC—despite receiving far inferior service.
A belated pivot to a fibre-based future
Despite these missteps, NBN Co’s latest plan does outline significant future investment to correct course. The company aims to make 3.5 million originally FTTN premises and 1.5 million FTTC premises eligible for FTTP by the end of calendar year 2025, with 95 percent of the remaining 622,000 FTTN connections expected to be eligible by 2030.
NBN also introduced upgraded speed tiers under its Accelerate Great campaign, with FTTP and HFC services to support up to 2Gbps downstream. A new generation of FTTP network termination devices (NTDs) is also being rolled out—using recycled materials and reducing energy use. These changes are welcome but raise a central question: why wasn’t this the plan from the beginning?
Had the original FTTP strategy not been politically derailed in 2013, the country could now be enjoying a universal high-speed network without incurring the massive retrofit costs we now face.
HFC and FTTB: lagging behind
Further evidence of uneven outcomes can be seen in the HFC and FTTB networks. While 1,000 HFC segments were upgraded in FY25, and another 1,000 are planned for FY26, parity with FTTP remains elusive. RSPs have called for assurance and performance equality across these access technologies, but NBN Co has again only partially adopted these proposals.
On FTTB (mostly covering multi-dwelling units), progress is worse. Of an estimated 700,000 to 800,000 premises, just 3,968 had been flagged as fibre-eligible by the end of 2024. A full upgrade path is still not in sight, leaving many apartment residents on legacy infrastructure with limited options.
A system caught in its own contradictions
The FY26 plan is filled with modernisation language—AI fault detection, remote diagnostics, lifecycle investments—but beneath this forward-facing veneer lies an inconvenient truth: billions of dollars have been spent reinforcing and then retrofitting the wrong technology. The network now must be rebuilt from the inside out.
The refusal to implement common-sense measures like fibre-first connections and rebate schemes, alongside the delayed fibre rollout for MDUs, reflects a deep structural contradiction: NBN Co is trying to move forward while still carrying the political baggage of its past.
Conclusion: a case study in policy failure
This latest service improvement plan should not be read as a triumph of network engineering. It is, in many respects, a quiet admission that the politically motivated pivot to FTTN was a historic misstep—one that continues to cost Australians dearly in both public funds and digital opportunity.
The real tragedy is not just in the billions wasted, but in the years lost—years during which Australia could have led the region in broadband performance, digital innovation, and equitable access. Instead, we are now playing catch-up with our own aspirations.
Paul Budde