By LACHLAN MOORHEAD
CLOSE to 10,000 Cranbourne properties have been hooked up to the NBN since the high-speed fibre technology first arrived in the area three months ago.
Thousands of Telstra customers in the Cranbourne region, including Cranbourne West, can now connect to the NBN, with both homes and businesses among the recipients.
Telstra Area General Manager for Melbourne South East Vicky Allen said the rollout marked the beginning of a new era for Cranbourne.
“Cranbourne is already a thriving home for families and the arrival of fast broadband will make it an even more desirable place to live,” she said.
“With web use in the home on the rise, the NBN will provide the bandwidth needed to get the entire household online at the same time using a growing range of connected PCs, games consoles, tablets and smartphones.”
In April Star News spoke to Prime Minister Malcom Turnbull, then Communications Minister, when he visited Casey to announce Narre Warren South had been officially added to the Federal Government’s NBN rollout list.
Mr Turnbull had visited Casey Central Shopping Centre to announce the long-awaited development which will see work on Narre Warren South’s NBN begin in the second half of 2016.
It’s understood 13,800 premises will be covered by the Narre Warren South rollout in a designated region that stretches south of Ernst Wanke Road and north of Thompsons Road.
Narre Warren South resident and IT worker Steve Barnes, who works from home and has been advocating for a better internet service in his area for the last 12 years, welcomed the announcement.
Discussing the fact Narre Warren South’s NBN rollout would consist of predominantly fibre to the node set-ups, rather than fibre to the home, Mr Barnes said “beggars can’t be choosers”.
“At the moment we’re lucky if we get to two meg, so getting better than that is fantastic,” he said.
“I would suggest we’d get somewhere around 25 meg, or 50 meg – they’re saying it can go up to 100 but we’ll see.
“It will make a massive difference.”
