As millions of Australian homes wait for the NBN to reach their door, Lightning Broadband is deploying a wireless network promising fibre-like download speeds to suburban users.

Starting in Melbourne's inner suburbs with plans to extend to other state capitals, Lightning Broadband is connecting homes and businesses via 5.8 GHz microwave links capable of delivering 100 Mbps download speeds. The links also support 100 Mbps upload speeds, outpacing uploads on the National Broadband Network's fibre connections.

The service has already signed up its first customers in Melbourne's inner east and the rollout will be guided by demand, with the telco accepting registrations of interest online from potential customers, says Lightning Broadband's Australian founder Jeremy Rich.

"There's huge interest in high speed broadband but the NBN was announced back in 2007 and we got sick of waiting for it to arrive," Rich says. "I think a lot of people are disappointed by the NBN, not just with the speed of the rollout but also the performance — some people get very high speeds because they're close to the nodes but other people are very disappointed."