Around 250,000 homes and businesses have already connected to the NBN according to the Government-owned business charged with rolling out the network, although more than 650,000 premises are theoretically capable of connecting.

Despite a take-up rate of only around one in three, NBN Co is ploughing ahead with the roll out.

The company this week announced the first 140 suburbs which will have fibre-to-the-node (FTTN) technology rolled out in NSW and Queensland. These suburbs will be used to test the planning, design and construction of the FTTN technology which marries fibre optic cables with Telstra’s copper lines in a street side node cabinet to deliver broadband to homes and businesses.

NBN Co is planning a wide-scale commercial rollout of the network during 2015, but this remains subject to reaching agreement with Telstra on changes to the Definitive Agreements which had been signed by the previous government, and which related to a much faster (but also more expensive and slow to rollout) fibre to the premises (FTTP) technology.

The original NBN plan called for FTTP technology and speeds of up to 100 Mbps. The current Government’s goal is to provide at least 25 Mbps broadband access for all Australians by 2016, and by 2019 for at least 90 percent of consumers with access to the fixed line network to have access to broadband speeds of 50 Mbps or more.

The 140 suburb roll out is part of a technology test that was agreed to by NBN Co and Telstra. NBN Co says that these FTTN services should be available for internet service providers to sell to consumers by this time next year.

According to NBN Co, “on average it takes around 12 months from the start of construction until residents and business owners can receive NBN services from phone and internet providers”.

To roll out the FTTN network across Australia NBN Co and Telstra still need to rework and agree to a new Definitive Agreement.