The NBN has announced hundreds of thousands of Australians will be forced to wait another nine months for their services to rollout – the latest chapter in the network’s nightmare saga.
On Monday, the government-funded scheme announced it could take until August next year for new areas to have access to the internet service, as they are ‘introducing new initiatives aimed at raising the standard of service quality’.
‘There will be a delay of the current rollout timing of new HFC areas while the company undertakes this work in both the existing footprint and areas not previously declared ready for service,’ the statement reads.
The NBN has announced hundreds of thousands of Australians will be forced to wait another nine months for their services to rollout
The Malcolm Turnbull brainchild was founded in 2013 with promises of bringing Australia’s archaic internet speeds into the 21st century.
The 2013-founded enterprise has regularly promised to be available to all eight million households around the nation before 2020, but that now seems a pipe-dream with further delays to the struggling company.
The 2013-founded enterprise have regularly promised to be available to all eight million households around the nation before 2020, but that now seems a pipe-dream with further delays to the struggling company
‘While the good news is that we are working on a better experience for the internet providers and end users, the improvement efforts will take additional time,’ Bill Morrow, the NBN CEO, said in a statement.
‘We remain confident of reaching our goal of completing the build and connecting eight million Australian premises by 2020.’
So far around one million premises have access to the service, and about a third of that number have connected.
Customers predictably reacted with fury and outrage, describing the company as a ‘shambles’ and blaming the government for false promises.
‘So what does that mean for me who has been waiting 8 months for a connection and has had no internet at all for the same period? Absolute shambles,’ one person posted to Twitter.
‘@TurnbullMalcolm screwed it up completely. Far to (sic) interested in his mates n s****ing with all Labor plans,’ another said.
Labor have responded to the news by labelling the NBN as ‘dud’ technology and slammed Turnbull for his (lack of) involvement.
‘This was supposed to be the game-changing technology,’ Labor’s communications spokeswoman Michelle Rowland said.
‘This was supposed to be future-proofing technology that would save four years and $30 billion by switching to the multi-technology mix. It has utterly failed.’
Turnbull himself last month admitted it was a ‘big mistake’ starting the company from scratch and blamed Labor for the situation
Turnbull himself last month admitted it was a ‘big mistake’ starting the company from scratch and blamed Labor for the situation.
‘The NBN was a calamitous train wreck of a project when we came into government in 2013,’ Mr Turnbull said.
He said there is a reasonable ‘question mark ‘the NBN will never make a profit.
Australia currently ranks 51st slowest for average internet speeds out of 108 countries around the world, lagging behind underdeveloped nations such as Kenya and Sri Lanka.