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A Guide to the NBN

How you connect to the NBN depends on where you live (and often, the type of building it is, such as an apartment building), whether you’re in a large city or small town and even whether you were part of the TV cable rollout in the early 2000s.

Almost every internet provider you can look up online will be able to tell you what sort of connection you have at your place just from typing in your address – that’s the first step in finding out what sort of NBN you can get. It’s important to remember that no matter what type you end up with, you’re still connecting to the same network with access to the same stuff. But some connection types have greater advantages than others.

The National Broadband Network – the NBN, as it’s known – is the largest rollout of a communications network since the original Australian phone network was built more than a century ago. It levels the playing field for internet providers, so now there’s all kinds of providers to pick from – huge companies, small independents, and tons in between.

The NBN was intended to roll out as a network almost entirely built with fibre optic cables running right into homes; that was changed later to be a mix of technologies. Depending on where you live, you might have fibre to the home (FTTP), fibre to a box out in the street that connects to your phone line (FTTN) or several other options. Some are better than others, and you can’t pick which type you get – but as long as there’s no technical hassles and you pick a reliable internet provider and good plan, you’re going to enjoy much faster broadband than you’ve had before.

Part of the NBN rollout was the promise that everyone in Australia would have access to it, no matter where they live. With that in mind, a special NBN satellite was launched into orbit to provide broadband via satellite to people who otherwise wouldn’t have access to the internet at all. Known as “Sky Muster”, it’s capable of delivering surprisingly fast speeds. It has its limitations, since the signal has to travel to orbit and back, which takes time. But for everyday internet use and even streaming video, it does the job.