December 09 2010, 7:46PM

The company building the national broadband network will be responsible for installing optical fibres on land earmarked for housing development from January 2011.

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said connecting homes to broadband during the construction phase would avoid costly retrofitting.

“From 1 January 2011, NBN Co will be responsible for the installation of fibre in all broadacre developments, all infill developments where it has fibre that is ready for service and capable of connection, and newly approved infill developments of 100 or more premises,” Senator Conroy said in a statement on Thursday.

The Urban Development Institute of Australia estimates the policy will save individual new home-buyers $3000.

Infill developments with less than 100 premises would continue to be serviced by Telstra’s existing copper-wire network until the NBN Co infrastructure is installed.

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