More Australians are ditching ageing copper internet connections for faster fibre optic technology in a move that has increased download speeds across the nation, NBN Co has revealed.
More than 430,000 Australian homes and businesses upgraded their connections from older, slower technology over the past year, the broadband wholesaler disclosed in its annual results on Tuesday, which increased the firm’s revenue.
The government-owned entity’s earnings for 2024/25 jumped eight per cent to $4.2 billion, in line with guidance, and its revenue rose four per cent to $5.7 billion.
The results were helped by growing demand for higher internet speeds on its network, with 2.7 million premises (32 per cent) connected to plans offering 100 megabit-per-second downloads or more, and average spending up by $3 a month to $50.
The shift to faster download speeds and fibre connections also drove higher data usage across the nation.
Average monthly data downloads per premise rose more than 10 per cent, from 460 gigabytes in June 2024 to 508 in June 2025.
Fibre upgrades had driven demand for both faster plans and greater downloads, NBN Co chief executive Ellie Sweeney said.
“Customers transitioning from copper to fibre-based connections are taking advantage of faster speeds and using their internet in more dynamic and data-intensive ways,” she said.
“For the first time ever, fibre is the dominant connection technology in our network.”
The fibre-to-the-node upgrades have been largely funded by a $3 billion commitment from the federal government, announced in January.
While NBN Co upgraded 806,000 premises to fibre in the last financial year, Ms Sweeney said the firm had a plan in place to upgrade the remaining 622,000 properties connected with copper, though warned it would take years.
“We’ll continue to work with (retail service providers) and with industry around how we can accelerate that movement to fibre,” she told AAP.
“At the moment, we’re anticipating it will be the early part of 2030.”
Almost nine million premises are now connected to the National Broadband Network, the company revealed, including 31 per cent using fibre-to-the-premises technology.
Further enhancements for some users were planned for September, Ms Sweeney said, with speed boosts to three wholesale tiers offered over HFC and fibre connections, as well as a more efficient terminating device.
“Looking to the future, it is NBN’s aim that our 500Mbps wholesale speed tier becomes Australia’s most popular NBN plan,” she said.
NBN Co was established in 2009 as a government business enterprise to design, build and operate a wholesale broadband access network for the nation.
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