Broadband boost for businesses

Businesses across Australia will benefit from cheaper, faster broadband as NBN Co expands its network of Business Fibre Zones.

Minister for Communications, Urban Infrastructure, Cities and the Arts, the Hon Paul Fletcher MP, said the 44 new Zones would help thousands of businesses participate in the digital economy on an equal footing, and bring the total number of Business Fibre Zones to 284.

“As we manage and respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, investment in local business communications infrastructure will help businesses to recover quickly, while taking advantage of domestic and international markets,” Minister Fletcher said.

Today’s announcement will support an additional 60,000 eligible businesses across Australia, taking the total number of businesses within a Business Fibre Zone to 850,000, of which nearly 300,000 are in regional Australia.  NBN’s Enterprise Ethernet, NBN Co’s fastest symmetrical wholesale product offers these businesses plans of up to 1 Gbps at the same price as CBD areas.

This extension to NBN Co’s Business Fibre Zone initiative builds on the $700 million package announced last year to transform the accessibility and affordability of business-grade fibre and allow small to medium businesses to embrace opportunities for growth.

The announcement comes at the same time as research by Frontier Economics shows NBN Co’s business fibre investments will contribute up to $7.2 billion annually to the economy by 2024.

The research also forecasts productivity benefits for businesses of up to 12 per cent, with regional areas particularly set to benefit.

NBN Co has also announced it will further discount wholesale pricing for businesses within Business Fibre Zones by up to 37 per cent a year for new and existing customers, enhancing expected benefits from NBN Co’s Business Fibre Initiative.

Businesses located outside an existing Business Fibre Zones will also benefit from the establishment of a new, simplified approach to pricing which will deliver wholesale pricing discounts of up to 58 per cent.

For more information about the NBN Business Fibre Zones initiative, visit here. For more information on the research, visit here.