Government promises $480m for NBN upgrade in next week's budget

The National Broadband Network's fixed wireless network will receive a $480 million upgrade in next week's Federal Budge$480 million upgrade in next week's Federal Budge.

The network will also receive an additional $270 million from NBN Co, for a total of $750 million investment. It is aimed at providing faster speeds to up to one million homes and businesses across regional and remote Australia.

Communications Minister Paul Fletcher told Today this morning that more than 750,000 premises will be able to get a speed of up to 100 megabytes per second and 85 per cent will be able to go to 250 megabytes per second.

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Mr Fletcher said the package was aimed at delivering "blazing fast broadband" and improved speeds at times of peak demand.

"There will also be greater speeds at what is called the 'busy hour', typically around 8 at night."

Mr Fletcher dismissed Labor's election pledge to spend $2.4 billion to fix broadband.

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"We took Labor's train wreck of a program and fixed it up," he said.

"This amount today is about regional and remote Australia."

Labor Communications Shadow Minister Michelle Rowland was taking the government's announcement with a grain of salt.

"Labor has already announced its plan to expand full-fibre access to a further 1.5 million premises on NBN copper, which includes up to 660,000 additional homes and businesses in regional areas," she said.

"There are questions as to whether it's counter-productive to permanently load more households onto NBNCo's existing fixed-wireless towers, and this should be examined rationally."

She said she welcomed proposals to improve regional connectivity.

Australia's broadband is ranked 65th in the world, according to the Speedtest Global Index. 

The fastest in the world is Chile, followed by Singapore and Monaco.