The map of the National Broadband Network rollout in Wollongong might seem confusing.
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Construction began in the Wollongong CBD and then leapfrogged Berkeley and Unanderra to land in the Dapto area.
From there, construction moved back up the coast, skipping Berkeley and Unanderra again, as well as suburbs like Fairy Meadow and Towradgi, to start work on an area including Corrimal up to Russell Vale.
So the map of the region shows three islands where construction has started surrounded by gaps where residents are still waiting for broadband work to start.
Trent Williams, general manager of external affairs with NBN Co, the company charged with setting up the network, said the decisions of which suburbs went first was determined by "the path of least resistance".
Those suburbs based around a "point of interconnect" or POI, which is a hub where the retail and service providers access the NBN, and with an exchange that's ready to go have been the first areas in the Illawarra to see the NBN work begin.
"If you think about the old telephone network, each town or suburb would have one exchange so they could service a certain amount of houses and businesses in an area," he said.
"So the way the NBN is designed, in some respects, is based on where the POI is and where we have exchanges that we can build into.
"If there's an exchange we can build into today, then it's a lot quicker. If we have to build an exchange because the power was wrong, it doesn't have the right internal infrastructure or it's not in the right place, it can take from 18 months to two years to build."
Mr Williams said they tended to start construction at those suburbs with a viable exchange and then build out from there.
He said that now construction in the Illawarra had begun, the company would not be leaving until it was finished, which was expected to be in three years.
A closer look at the rollout map for Wollongong reveals instances where some people will have NBN access while their neighbours will have to wait.
The border for the Dapto rollout cuts across Darkes Road, and Woonona residents on the western side of the Princes Highway have to wait another year while homes across the road are seeing work begin.
The zoned rollouts are designed around a "fibre-serving area module".
"Our fibre-serving area module is our basic building brick and that will cover about 2500 premises. And we'll have multiple building blocks in each area that we're building.
"So when you see a boundary going along a street, that will be the edge of the 2500 premises in that building block. It also means that there will be another building block placed next to it to continue on.
"So we'll draw lines around streets and in some cases one half of a street will be within the building block and the other half of the street will be in the next building block."
As for the speed of the new network, Mr Williams said it was twice as fast as the internet connection most people in the Illawarra now had. That and its reliability would be noticeable.
"Not only is it a new network but it's transferring data over fibre optic cable at light speed. You're going to be able to get more data with less problems in terms of reliability compared to what people have experienced to date."