A FASTER internet download and cheaper prices for Bowen – it hasn’t been officially announced yet but it is coming.
That’s the message for both residents and business owners in the local area, according to the regional business leader for NBN’s central Queensland district Rick Hospers.
He made the pronouncement at Bowen Chamber of Commerce’s November meeting, last week, and said that the company was currently doing due diligence on cost and was reasonably confident it will happen soon – at least by the end of 2023.
“If people want to upgrade, they can put a fibre node into their house for no cost,” Mr Hospers said.
He said particular emphasis was being placed on the Queen’s Beach and Mt Nutt Road areas, where reception had been notoriously dodgy in the past.
“Users there can expect fibre to their homes, it’s not far away. Residents will probably see workers installing the system every day,” he said.
Mr Hospers said the upgraded system would support multiple devices with better supply, much better than via the old copper network.
It is part of the Federal Government’s decision to invest $2.4bn to roll out more fibre to communities across Australia.
Bowen residents will be among an additional 1.5m homes and businesses currently served by fibre to the node (FTTN) to upgrade to fibre to the premises (FTTP).
Full fibre connections will help deliver faster broadband speeds, better reliability, are more energy efficient and provide additional data capacity.
Once residents have access to the NBN’s higher speed tiers, they can have multiple people online, can work from home and make video calls, stream high-definition video (4K) and have others playing online games at the same time.
Mr Hospers said NBN had spent $750m fixing the old wireless network and would replace all the tiers and put in new ones.
Benefits would be increased speed of 100 megabits per second with some up to 200Mb.
The reception distance from the four towers at Bowen would extend from 14km to 28km, covering a far wider area.
Mr Hospers said he expected the service to be up and running by March.
