Somerville Business Group Inc was established in July 2021. One of the main objectives was to work towards better NBN for Somerville in the Industrial area and the Retail areas of Somerville.
We have spoken and emailed over the last 15 months and finally with the help of our local MP Zoe McKenzie we have had the following response from Ben Bulmer, Senior Advisor, Government Relations, NBN Co.-:
Great to chat on Friday.
As discussed, nbn’s business website is - https://www.nbnco.com.au/business This includes a check your address function, so businesses can check eligibility directly via that page.
As discussed on Friday, the non-BFZ parts of Somerville are still eligible for the $0 fibre build and flattened Zone 1 pricing, with many retailers offering the same pricing in the BFZ and Zone 1 footprints, so there shouldn’t be much difference between cost or access to the business grade products, despite that part of Somerville not being included in the Business Fibre Zone.
You can also learn more about the business grade products via this link provided. As mentioned, this is not for your mum and dad type fish and chip shop, they are better to remain on our residential network, where the monthly costs will be much lower. Also, Somerville has been included in nbn’s FTTN to FTTP upgrade program, so they will soon have the options of higher speed tiers, above 100mbps, up to 1Gbps once that is made live (most likely before end of 2023 TBC).
Please see the below map which includes the nbn fixed line footprint (FTTN) in Somerville in blue. As discussed, the whole Somerville FTTN footprint is eligible for the $0 fibre build and Zone 1 pricing. I have marked on the map with orange dots the section of the footprint which was initially outside nbn’s cost per premises parameters, so could not be included in the BFZ. I have spoken with the BFZ team, and they have said this whole footprint, is now eligible, including the section around Pearcedale.
Finally, I have a meeting with Fiona this week. I will ask her to make someone available to come and speak at one of your meetings so any interested businesses can ask some questions and learn more about it.
In the interim, if anyone is interested and hits any hurdles, don’t hesitate to contact me.
Kind regards,
Ben
This is great news for the larger businesses that need higher speeds and the cost is around $200 per month. This fits into the extension of the Business Fibre Zone to Somerville (previously only Hastings and Tyabb!!!). As above $0 fibre build and flattened Zone 1 pricing.
Even better news is that smaller businesses such as fish and chip shops, hairdressers and restaurants, can expect an upgrade of their existing service to be upgraded from Fibre To The Node (FTTN) to Fibre To The Premises (FTTP), hopefully by December 2023, which will result in better speeds. This applies to all households in Somerville also.
Ben is happy to speak directly to anyone (please send an email to somervillebusinessgroup@gmail.com and I will send the details) or got to https://www.nbnco.com.au/business
5th October, 2022.
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