NBN Co Is Going To War With TPG And Its Fibre Network [Updated]

Not content with the National Broadband Network’s deployment strategy, TPG made the surprising decision a while ago to go it alone against the government-owned monopoly and build its own 100Mbps fibre-to-the-basement network and offer an unlimited plan to boot. The new head of NBN Co isn’t exactly thrilled by TPG’s plan, and that’s why he’s about to announce a plan to go to war with the ISP.

Updated: NBN Co has now made its announcement. Scroll down for the info!

The new NBN Co construction plan set to be announced this morning will directly compete with TPG’s fibre-to-the-basement strategy to prevent the ISP from negatively affecting NBN Co’s bottom line.

The Australian Financial Review reports the story this morning, adding that Haymarket in Sydney, New Farm and Fortitude Valley in Brisbane as well as South Melbourne will be the first places targeted by the NBN Co, with agreements reportedly to include a clause saying that buildings who sign up to the service won’t go with any other service provider for fibre. Such a clause would shut TPG out of NBN Co’s market and protect the government’s fibre interest.

Here’s NBN Co’s response to TPG:

NBN Co will bring forward its rollout of wholesale very fast broadband to apartments and office buildings in Australia’s inner cities, in a commercial response to emerging competition for high-value customers in these markets from vertically integrated telecommunications carriers.

Preparations are underway to deploy the National Broadband Network (NBN) – a wholesale network funded by taxpayers and open to all service providers – to inner city residential and commercial complexes in parallel with the NBN rollout in other parts of Australia, including priority areas currently under-served by fast broadband.

NBN Co’s push into high-density urban areas will allow consumers to benefit from the competitive market the NBN enables, and purchase broadband, telephone or other services from the retail service provider of their choice.

A list of initial priority areas will be announced in the coming weeks. It is expected to include Haymarket in Sydney, New Farm and Fortitude Valley in Brisbane and South Melbourne, with NBN services scheduled to be available to these premises in the middle of the year.


The company’s move follows plans by internet service provider TPG to provide fibre to the basement directly to 500,000 apartments, with others signalling they may follow suit.

NBN Co is concerned that rollouts of this type may require building owners to agree to exclusive supply arrangements and thereby limit competition at the retail level.


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