How Malcolm Turnbull connected to superfast NBN

Details emerge about Malcolm Turnbull’s Point Piper mansion receiving top shelf broadband after his department intervened.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull speaks on his phone at his home in Point Piper. Picture: Tim Hunter.

Malcolm Turnbull’s Point Piper mansion received a superfast NBN connection after the intervention of his department, narrowly avoiding a delay of up nine months affecting other customers.

A Senate committee heard the Prime Minister’s Point Piper home, and his official Sydney residence, Kirribilli House, now have 100mbps connections on the hybrid fibre coaxial (HFC) network.

The Point Piper connection occurred on December 8 — 11 days after NBN announced a halt to the HFC rollout for everyday customers, due to problems with some connections on the network, which utilises cable TV infrastructure.

The Lodge, in Canberra, will get an NBN connection “shortly” using fibre-to-the-kerb technology, Senate Estimates heard on Monday night.

The Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet had ordered the connection prior to the HFC halt, announced on November 27.

PM&C Assistant Secretary Paula Ganley told a Senate Estimates hearing on Monday night that the department wanted to ensure the installation did not affect the residence’s security system or other web-enabled facilities.

“We were already in discussions when we were here last time with NBN, because the Prime Minister asked us to make sure it was connected to Point Piper but our office just had to make sure that everything proceeded smoothly,” she said.

“It only took one discussion and one appointment for the connection to take place. The connection went ahead quite quickly after that and it was on the 8th of December that the connection actually took place.”

The 100mbps connections are the fastest available for NBN customers. Taxpayers will foot the bill for both connections, paying $120 per month at Point Piper and $95 per month at Kirribilli House.

NBN’s November 27 decision to halt the HFC rollout “effective immediately” followed a poor experience for some customers due to the lower frequency NBN signal.

There are currently about 370,000 active NBN connections on the HFC network, from about three million earmarked to receive the technology.

Details of the Prime Minister’s NBN connections came as Communications Minister Mitch Fifield released a report finding only 2 per cent of Australians would need connections of more than 49mbps to meet their internet needs by 2016.

Minister Fifield said the Coalition’s NBN rollout would ensure 90 per cent NBN fixed-lines would deliver download speeds above 50Mbps, and all premises would be able to receive peak wholesale speeds of at least 25Mbps by 2020.

“Today, Australians are using between a third and a half of the NBN’s capacity for entertainment services such as on-demand video. Netflix recommends a connection speed of just 5Mbps to stream high-definition video, and 25Mbps to stream large‑screen 4K video,” he said.

“Thanks to the Coalition’s more affordable rollout, the NBN is providing Australians with more broadband bang for their buck and higher bandwidth than the majority of users require.”

Bill Shorten attacked Mr Turnbull for rolling out a “second-rate copper” connections to everyday Australians while he enjoyed the fastest connection.

“We learned last night that the Kirribilli and Point Piper residences have 100 megabit NBN,” Mr Shorten said.

“But there are whole suburbs of Western Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane having to make do with a second-rate copper network operating at one quarter of this speed.

“Mr Turnbull says that Australian families and businesses do not need a first-grade NBN but he’s happy to use taxpayer money to look after his own suburb and make sure they do.”