The company running the National Broadband Network has stripped information from its website that allowed Australians to see which type of broadband technology is expected to be delivered to their street.
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The website, updated in the days before Christmas, now provides information about when the NBN is expected to be available in various suburbs but not which technology they are scheduled to receive under the Coalition's "multi-technology mix" model.
Just over a year ago, in October 2015, NBN launched a new three-year construction plan that gave an estimated start date for construction for suburbs around the country. The plan also included details of which technology was expected to be used for each suburb - including fibre-to-the-premise (FTTP), fibre-to-the-node (FTTN), hybrid fibre coaxial (HFC) or fixed wireless.
The three-year construction plan page on the NBN website (still visible in archived form here) has been removed and replaced with a new "check your address" page.
Residents in some areas who were previously told construction was scheduled to begin in the first half of this year are now told only that the NBN is "committed to completing the rollout by 2020".
Under the three-year construction plan, residents in Frankston, Victoria, for example, were told they were expected to receive a HFC rollout with construction commencing in the second half of 2016.
Frankston residents are now told the NBN is expected to be available in the first half of 2019, but the website does not say which technology is expected.
Residents in the Sydney suburb of Berowra were previously told they would receive a FTTN rollout with construction beginning in the second quarter of 2016.
They are now told the NBN is expected to be available in their area from July to September this year but not which technology is expected.
Residents in areas where the NBN is expected to be available as early as April, such as Mount Gravatt in Queensland, are not told which technology they are expected to receive.
Labor's acting communications spokesman Mark Dreyfus said the change showed "absolute contempt" for Australian consumers seeking information about the NBN.
"Does the Turnbull government really believe Australians don't care what technology they will be connected with?" he said.
"That quality of broadband is just an afterthought for Australians buying a house or choosing a place to rent?"
A spokesman for the NBN said the company had always been clear that "we are tech agnostic" and that rollout technologies can change depending on speed and cost.
He said the new site offered more up-to-date and specific information about broadband availability than the previous construction plan.
"The actual question we get is not what technology I am going to get, but more simply - when will service be available?" the spokesman said.
"This change answers that question."
Potential NBN customers will be able to find out which technology is being used in their area by asking their retailer.
NBN last year made a major change to the scheme by announcing it would abandon its planned rollout on the Optus HFC network and instead deploy a new technology, fibre-to-the-distribution-point (FTTdp), to up to 700,000 premises.
Fairfax Media understands the NBN decided the long-term information on the three-year construction plan was so subject to change it had become virtually useless.
A separate interactive map of the rollout on the NBN site lists only where the NBN is available, construction has commenced, construction is being prepared or where another fibre service is available.
