The programme is set to deliver faster speeds to thousands of homes and businesses across semi-rural, regional and remote Australia.
The programme is a A$750 million investment in the nbn fixed wireless network, made up of A$480 million from the Australian government and an additional A$270 million from nbn.
The CPE provided by Nokia will support high frequency mmWave bands which are capable of gigabit speeds for premises within a 7km radius of a radio base station.
Jason Ashton, executive general manager for fixed wireless and satellite at nbn said: “We are facing a step-change in demand for broadband in rural and regional areas, with an estimated 300% increase in demand for data on our fixed wireless network over the next ten years.
“Nokia’s 5G mmWave solution allows nbn to better utilise both our sub6GHz and 5G mmWave spectrum allocations to vastly extend the range, speed and capacity of our existing fixed wireless network and improve the end user’s experience.
nbn uses a mix of technologies across its network and currently covers 650,000 homes across Australia.
The upgrade programme will extent its fixed wireless footprint by up to 50%, enabling around 120,000 former satellite-only premises to access fixed wireless services for the first time.
Nokia’s mmWave solution will introduce an innovative, high gain antenna design that can leverage mmWave to a range of up to 10km to meet nbn’s throughput and capacity requirements.
The CPE comprises an outdoor unit installed on the roof of the premise and an indoor unit providing user interfaces for the customer connecting to an outdoor receiver with a 2.5Gbps power over ethernet connection.
