NBN Co has secured $1.2 billion to ramp up fibre and fixed wireless upgrades.
NBN Co will funnel fresh funds into fibre and fixed wireless upgrades following its first-ever Sustainability Bond issuance, raising the money to deliver a faster, more energy-efficient broadband network.
The 7.5-year, €700 million (AU$1.2 billion) bond, issued in the European debt capital markets and settled on 29 May, marks the first EUR-denominated sustainability bond from an Australian corporation.
More than 80 per cent of the proceeds will support fibre rollout – technically superior to legacy copper due to its lower energy consumption and higher data throughput. The remainder is earmarked for improving nbn’s fixed wireless network in regional and remote Australia.
Engineers leading the transition from Fibre to the Node (FTTN) to full Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) are tasked with delivering network-wide energy and speed improvements, while addressing design complexity in the final five per cent of yet-to-be-upgraded locations.
The program is backed by a combined $3.8 billion from the Federal Government and NBN Co and aims to upgrade 622,000 premises, over half of which are outside metropolitan areas.
From a technical standpoint, the shift to full fibre represents a leap in both efficiency and futureproofing. Fibre infrastructure enables multi-gigabit speeds and substantially reduces energy intensity per megabit. NBN Co has committed to reducing absolute scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions by 95 per cent by FY30 and cutting scope 3 emissions by 90 per cent by FY45.
Meanwhile, fixed wireless network upgrades include scaled deployment of long-range 5G mmWave and advanced 4G/5G software-defined technologies.
Engineers have already expanded capacity to support peak wholesale speeds of up to 400 Mbps downstream and 40 Mbps upstream for regional users.
The bond also supports NBN Co’s broader sustainability framework, which has seen more than AU$8.6 billion raised through green or sustainable formats since 2022.
