NBN Co to offer 750 / 50 Mbps plans as a “near gigabit” speed tier for HFC customers

NBN Co has announced plans to trial a new speed tier for customers connected over HFC, offering huge 750 Mbps download speeds and relatively modest 50 Mbps upload speeds.

The announcement comes as the national broadband network operator looks for ways to deliver gigabit speeds to customers, and after recent news that HFC customers on NBN may struggle to reach and consistently achieve gigabit speeds.

Acknowledging the issue, NBN Co has been consulting with retail service providers (RSPs) on what would be acceptable “near gigabit” speeds for customers on those connection technologies capable of supporting them, reports IT News.

Officially, the speed tier will be tested as a “750-1000 Mbps” plan that will typically deliver 750 Mbps speeds, with burst capacity to 1 Gbps for periods of up to 50 seconds. This will allow users to download large files quickly, while preventing continuous data transfers at the higher data speed which may impact on other users on the same access point.

There will be a committed 1 Gbps / 50 Mbps plan trialed too, but this requires DOCSIS 3.1 compatible equipment across the network, and so the trial will necessarily involve a smaller test group.

Customers participating in the trial will effectively receive the service for free during the trial period.

We look forward to hearing how NBN Co will deliver faster speeds to the large swathes of the country covered by the “lesser” connection types, including FTTN, FTTC and FTTB which all rely on copper with relatively less available bandwidth.