The NBN has been ‘fully operational’ for almost a year, but some Australians still don’t have reliable internet

Five years ago, Jody Allen was excited about what the National Broadband Network (NBN) would mean for the business she runs from home.

She lives about 10 kilometres from Gympie in regional Queensland and runs a parenting website.

“We do videos, all social media, but it’s all the other programs that take quite a lot of space as well [where] I really need excellent internet all the time,” she told 7.30. 

But she’s been disappointed with the experience thus far.

Ms Allen is part of the 4 per cent of NBN users who have a fixed wireless connection, meaning data is transmitted over radio signals. 

“When it’s cloudy, the internet’s terrible.”

The business has 12 staff, who are often sent home when the internet drops out.

Ms Allen said there had also been times where they would hotspot data off a phone or drive into town to the local library to use the internet there.

“It’s just not good enough,” she said. 

Fixed wireless connections are typically used in regional and rural areas where there are large distances between premises.

Fixed wireless speeds and quality can be impacted by weather conditions, obstructions in the line of sight between roof antennas and wireless towers, and network congestion.

In a statement, NBN Co said the fixed wireless to Ms Allen’s home was online and working to NBN specifications, with no congestion on the infrastructure.

A spokesman said no faults had been reported in almost two years.

‘The future-proof option is fibre’

Australia has a patchwork of fibre technologies, including fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP), fibre-to-the-curb (FTTC), fibre-to-the-node (FTTN), connections via existing pay TV cable, as well as fixed wireless and satellite.

Labor’s original NBN plan was for more than 93 per cent of households to receive FTTP, with others connected via fixed wireless and satellite.

Labor estimated its rollout would cost about $44 billion.

The Coalition proposed a cheaper but ultimately slower NBN with a mix of technologies that would be completed earlier. 

The current Communications Minister Paul Fletcher declared the NBN rollout “built and fully operational” last year, at a cost of $51 billion.

Associate Professor at RMIT Mark Gregory has been a vocal critic of the NBN rollout, and believes it should have been done with FTTP in the first place.

NBN Co has already been upgrading some FTTN households to a FTTP option, as part of a $3.5 billion program.

Labor is seeking to make broadband an election issue, with a $2.4 billion promise to upgrade copper connections to fibre for 1.5 million premises who want faster speeds.

When it comes to fixed wireless, NBN Co spends $200 million a year on improvements to that service and satellite services.

There are also reports NBN Co is seeking a billion dollars more in federal funding for further improvements to fixed wireless, something neither the business nor Mr Fletcher would confirm.

Mr Gregory said fixed wireless wasn’t working for many people in regional Australia.

“What the government needs to do is to go back and to relook at the fixed wireless footprint, and to see … which of these areas can be moved on to FTTP,” he said. 

NBN Co says given Australia’s geography, it would be too expensive and challenging to deploy fibre to all premises in Australia.

The company is exploring 5G technology as a way to enhance fixed wireless, but says the network is providing high-speed secure broadband in regional Australia.

Associate Professor Tooran Alizadeh from the University of Sydney has been researching the urban-regional divide when it comes to NBN technologies.

NBN Co’s corporate plan includes some detail about its investment plans, but Ms Alizadeh said there needed to be a more strategic and transparent approach to upgrades.

“At this point, we are mostly going with ad hoc rounds of upgrades,” she said.

Thousands of Australians still without NBN

Communications Minister Paul Fletcher said his statement that the NBN rollout was “built and fully operational” was based on the fact that about 12 million premises could connect to the NBN, with more than 8 million actually connected.

He said about 10,000 “complex connections” still remained.

“If we’d stuck with Labor’s plan, then less than 60 per cent of all premises would have been connected when the pandemic hit,” he said.

Matt Gillan is one of those Australians whose area has not been connected to the NBN.

He lives in Middle Dural — only about 40 minutes’ drive from Sydney’s CBD.

Mr Gillan and his wife run a small media business, creating commercials and videos with four-wheel drive content, tips and reviews.

“Internet is absolutely essential so that I can upload videos, so I can download content. I can’t work without internet,” Mr Gillan said.

But Mr Gillan is still on ADSL, which is too slow for his business needs.

Instead, he takes his laptop and mobile phone in the car and tries to find a 4G spot nearby, where he can upload content or take video calls.

In a statement, NBN Co apologised and said there had been delays to the rollout in Dural because of COVID-related supply issues, and the connection date for some premises was now March 2022.

Matt Gillan’s frustration led him to invest in an alternative to the NBN — a new satellite internet service by Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

Starlink is more expensive than the NBN’s satellite service, but it has also promised faster speeds.

“I can upload footage, I can download footage in a matter of seconds, as opposed to hours and days sitting in my vehicle up the road,” Mr Gillan said.

Starlink is in its development phase and only available in a few parts of the east coast.

Mark Gregory said even though performance of new technologies wouldn’t be known until more people are on them, he wasn’t surprised some people were looking for alternatives.

“What could happen is that these alternatives could start eating into NBN’s customer base,” he said. 

Jody Allen just wants to see an NBN upgrade that means she can grow her business.

“Better internet would be absolutely amazing, for people not just like me, but all workers who live rurally,” she said. 

Watch this story on 7.30 tonight on ABC TV and iview.