NBN chief Bill Morrow later revealed that it would only infill the HFC network in areas where there is already high take up, relegating other homes in HFC suburbs to FttN. This was still the plan when Morrow launched fibre to the kerb trials back in 2016, according to Morrow, even though today those premises are still earmarked for HFC on the NBN rollout map.

Around 70 per cent of the 340,000 premises now switching across from HFC to fibre to the kerb are in HFC infill areas. It is unclear how many of them were actually destined for FttN rather than cable.

While initially limited to 300,000 premises, the fibre to the kerb rollout was expanded in 2016 after NBN abandoned plans to incorporate the poorly-performing Optus HFC cable network; shifting across another 700,000 premises to FttC.

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The latest expansion will now see 1.5 million homes and businesses relying on FttC when the nationwide network is complete in 2020. The NBN rollout map will be updated later this month to reveal which premises are now moving to fibre to  the kerb.

The troubled HFC rollout remains on hold as NBN works to upgrade the cable network it acquired from Telstra, with plans to resume connecting homes in late April.

"We are pleased with the improvements seen from the additional work undertaken while sales have been paused on the HFC network," Morrow says. "We expect to see an uplift in customer experience as a result of these improvements."

The further expansion of the fibre to the kerb footprint is not intended to replace poorly-performing sections of the Telstra HFC network, even though NBN's engineers have deemed only half the cable network as "high-performing"; primarily in areas with a high number of existing cable connections.

These high-performing HFC areas will be declared Ready to Connect first when NBN resumes the sale of wholesale services to internet retailers from April 27, starting with 1000 premises in Melbourne and Sydney. This will ramp up to 40,000 by the end of June, in major cities across the country, and reach around 100,000 premises per month in July, with around 2.5 million premises now destined to rely on the HFC network.

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The expansion of the fibre to the kerb network is a win for Australian consumers, says telecommunications analyst Paul Budde.

"Any addition to fibre to the kerb is a great improvement as this makes it very easy to update the last bit from the curb to the house if so needed by the people themselves. We see that in some countries, people pay the extra $300 to $500 for a full fibre to the home connection," Budde says.

"Unfortunately this doesn't do anything for most of the millions of premises connected to FttN, which are the real problem areas. The HFC network that fibre to the kerb replaces covers, in general, premises that already had a better connection than FttN."

Former CEO of Internet Australia, Laurie Patton, also welcomed the fibre to the kerb expansion.

"On the one hand that’s good news for those lucky punters," Patton says.

"What about all the unhappy NBN customers now stuck with FttN and no sign they’ll get this improved service? We are just entrenching the digital divide."