ITWire

Two of the ISPs participating in the trial - iiNet and Internode - have both announced that they have two initial customers connected and one of them told iTWire he understood they would be restricted to connecting "a couple of existing customers" each week until the end of September. Vodafone has also confirmed that it will use the NBN in Armidale to offer fixed network services to its customers.

NBN Co said it had the network available to about 2900 homes and businesses, plus about another 2000 premises within the University of New England.

A spokesman told iTWire "Each of the first four RSPs have a couple of end-user connections in place today. We will then make approximately 900 new connections between now and the end of September. We will apportion those connections amongst the RSPs who are participating in the trial (currently 13) based on the forecast connection volume requested by each RSP."

Assuming an even distribution, this would allow each RSP to connect about four customers each week.

For the duration of the trial NBN Co is not charging for connectivity and ISPs are not charging customers. iiNet spokesman, Anthony Fisk, said iiNet was wearing the cost of data usage by its trial customers.

Matthew Dunstan, general manager retail at iiNet, said: "We've always welcomed the speed and competition that a ubiquitous fibre network will bring our customers, which is why we have partnered with the NBN to roll-out this service in every first-release site,"

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