Ventia has become one of the chosen contractors to execute NBN Co’s final phase of work for the overbuild of the fibre-to-the-node (FTTN) and fibre-to-the-curb (FTTC) footprints.
The company announced that the contract is anticipated to be valued at approximately $134 million over the next two-and-a-half years, as outlined in their ASX announcement [pdf].
Operating within NBN Co’s Fibre Connect program, this initiative aims to expand fibre connectivity to various communities across Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania, and Western Australia. The project is set to commence this month.
Ventia joins a group of four other recently selected companies to undertake new construction contracts under the Fibre Connect program. In July, NBN Co disclosed that Enerven Energy Infrastructure, Genus Services, UGL, Downer EDI, and Service Stream were among the recipients of these contracts. Additional announcements were indicated to follow at that time.
This series of construction agreements focuses on the final 500,000 premises of the Australian government’s $2.4 billion investment in the overbuild. Plans to announce premises eligible for full fibre upgrades are scheduled for the 2024 financial year.
The endeavor will extend NBN’s eligible FTTN-to-FTTP footprint to approximately 3.5 million premises, along with the previously disclosed 1.5 million FTTC-to-FTTP upgrades.
NBN Co initially introduced the concept of deploying FTTN to half of its network in 2020.
The adoption of the fibre offering, which requires customers to order a service of 100Mbps or higher and maintain it for a minimum of 12 months, is expected to gain momentum in the latter part of the year after a slower uptake than anticipated thus far.
