Australia's NBN Co – the state-owned company building out the National Broadband Network – has expanded the fixed wireless component of the network to cover 5,500 more rural premises.
The fixed wireless network has gone live in 17 more areas in New South Wales, Western Australia and Victoria, NBN Co said.
NBN Co's fixed wireless footprint now covers around 124,000 farms, homes and rural businesses and so far has around 22,000 direct connections.
“Today’s announcement highlights how the NBN is helping to close the digital divide in regional Australia – and with that comes many economic and social opportunities for local communities,” NBN Co spokesperson Tony Gibbs said.
“Fast broadband enables residents to access e-health services, distance education and entertainment on demand, while businesses now have the ability to increase productivity, reduce costs and access new markets.”
The original plan for the NBN rollout was to use fixed wireless and satellite technologies to provide access to the network for the 10% (and later 7%) of homes not scheduled to be passed by fiber.
But the new Coalition government's multi-technology model for the rollout could see fixed wireless technologies taking up more of the slack.
The Coalition recently ruled out immediately implementing suggestions from a panel it had appointed to perform a cost-benefit analysis of the project to carve up NBN Co into separate companies and/or sell off the satellite and fixed wireless components of the company.