This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Hundreds of thousands of Australians could be forced to wait months longer than expected to be connected to the national broadband network via pay television cables.

NBN Co on Monday announced it was temporarily suspending the rollout of the hybrid fibre-coaxial (HFC) network to “improve customer experience”. It warned of delays of six to nine months in new areas.

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“While the good news is that we are working on a better experience for the internet providers and end users, the improvement efforts will take additional time,” the NBN chief executive, Bill Morrow, said. “We remain confident of reaching our goal of completing the build and connecting 8 million Australian premises by 2020.”

Nearly 1m premises are ready to connect via HFC, with 370,000 having already done so.

Morrow said too many Australians were not having the experience they deserved when getting connected over the HFC network and some were not experiencing its full potential.

Internet providers have been told of the changes and the NBN website will be updated in coming weeks so people can check their address to see if there are any changes to their connection date.