Aussie Broadband Limited has announced a new five-year deal with Telstra Wholesale to provide backhaul capacity between 42 nbn POIs and data centres in the remaining areas not covered by Aussie's own fibre network. The deal is complementary to Aussie Broadband's own fibre network build. It brings forward savings from Aussie Broadband's own fibre network and legacy Telstra Wholesale leasing agreements by an estimated $1 million for FY22, and $15 million per year from FY23 onwards. The deal comprises both inter-capital and NBN POI capacity through the use of dark fibre and wavelengths and allows for significant capacity increases across the network. Upgrades will be rolled out over the next nine months and are expected to be completed by April 2022. All 121 NBN Points of Interconnect (POIs), through both Aussie Broadband's own fibre and through Telstra Wholesale fibre, will be upgraded from current 10G or 20G connections to 100G minimum capacity at each POI. The combination of the Telstra Wholesale deal and Aussie Broadband's own fibre network will provide fully diverse and protected capacity to all 121 NBN POIs connecting each POI to two separate capital city data centres along with equipment diversity at both the POI and data centre level. This increased protection will significantly reduce the potential of customer impact should a link or piece of equipment fail. The deal will also allow Aussie Broadband to upgrade its inter-capital links, which connect major data centre sites around Australia, with 400G fully protected links on major routes and multiple 100G paths to all remaining capital cities.