Tullimbar: NBN said the house didn't exist. The fibre was in the pit the whole time

The house was built in 2016. The fibre was in the pit out the front. The pipe from the pit to the house was in the ground with a draw string in it. And for four months, nobody could order the internet there, because as far as NBN’s system was concerned, the house did not exist.

The job

Tullimbar is a newer estate near Albion Park, south of Wollongong. The customer had moved into one half of a duplex, ordered an NBN plan in January, and started paying for it. Nothing got connected.

While he waited he went onto mobile data, then a satellite service, so the household could get online. That meant two bills every month, and one of them was for a service he did not have.

What the customer had been told

It depends who turns up, and on this job two different NBN technicians turned up and left.

• The first had a job sheet that said fibre to the curb. He opened the pit, found fibre to the premises, decided it was not his job, and went.
• The second told the customer he was already connected, and showed him a photo of an NBN box on a garage wall. It was not his garage.

His provider’s answer was to wait while NBN looked into it. When the customer typed his own address into NBN’s system, it came back with a different address, up the road in the next suburb.

What we found on site

We drove down from Sydney on a 40-degree day in February to look at the physical side first, because that tells you whether the problem is in the ground or in the paperwork.

• The pit out the front had fibre to the premises in it.
• The lead-in conduit, the white pipe from the side of the house to the pit, was there, with a draw string in it, ready for an installer to pull the fibre through.
• The other half of the duplex was connected and working, with its NBN box on the garage wall. That was the box in the second technician’s photo.
• Inside, we ran the cable path from the garage up to the bedroom where the customer wanted his modem, so the house would be ready the day the fibre went in.

Everything NBN needed was in the ground. The job should have been an installer pulling the fibre through and fitting the box. So the problem was the record, not the network.

The question that cracked it

We spent about 40 minutes with NBN’s support line, working through what we had found. Their system put things opposite the house that were not there: across the road is a paddock. Then a supervisor asked the right question. Is it a subdivided duplex?

It was. A Torrens title duplex, not strata: two separate homes on two separate titles. And his half had no location ID. Every place NBN can connect has one, and a provider can only order against it. The customer’s power and gas accounts still showed the original block’s lot number from before it was split, which was one more sign the address had gone wrong somewhere between the council and NBN.

Pick a record

The land title NBN's records May 2026

His homeNext doorNo NBN boxNBN boxNBN boxConduit and draw stringFibre in the pitNBN pitStreet

Lot 1No recordConnected

Lot 2Lot 1Connected

The land title

The NSW title has the duplex as two lots on one plan: his home is Lot 1, next door is Lot 2. Two homes, two addresses, two titles.

NBN's records

NBN had next door down as Lot 1, and nothing at all for his home. No location ID, so no provider could order a service there, with the fibre a few metres away.

May 2026

NBN logged the connection under the right address, and an installer pulled the fibre through the pipe that had been waiting since 2016.

NBN offered two ways forward. The provider could lodge a missing address request, which would take as long as it took. Or the customer could put in a new development application, as if the house were a vacant block, with weeks before anyone even came to look.

Watch: NBN Says This House Doesn't Exist (But He's Still Paying The Bill!)

The title search

Our field report, written the day after the visit, suggested a faster route: give NBN the lot and plan numbers from the title, not just the street address, so its address team can match the house to the land. The customer pulled the property reports for both halves of the duplex from the NSW Planning Portal himself.

They showed the whole problem. On the title, his home is Lot 1 and next door is Lot 2. In NBN’s records, next door was Lot 1, and his home was missing. The lot numbers had been shifted. Correcting it properly meant NBN fixing its own records, which may be why the answer kept coming back as a new development application instead.

Watch: EXPOSED - This The Biggest NBN Mistake We've Ever Seen (Part 2)

Getting it fixed

1. 1

   A written report the customer could use

   Our field report set out what was in the ground, what was missing from NBN's records, the two options NBN gave and what to ask for. The customer sent it to his provider with the title reports.

2. 2

   A formal technician's report to the provider

   A second report went to the provider's case manager: the house was built, the pipe and fibre were in place, and the request was for NBN to correct the address, not to treat a 2016 house as a new development.

3. 3

   The Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman

   The customer lodged a complaint with the TIO in February, with both reports and the videos as evidence. It went to the TIO's dispute resolution team at the end of the month.

4. 4

   A complaint to the ACMA

   In March we wrote to the ACMA, the regulator, setting out the same facts and the rules about NBN connecting premises on reasonable request.

5. 5

   The TIO went to NBN

   In May, with the provider still saying a new development application was needed, the TIO took the address problem to NBN itself. Within a week NBN said the connection should be logged under the customer's correct address.

The outcome

The service was installed on Friday 15 May 2026, through the pipe that had been sitting in the ground since 2016. Four months after the first plan charge.

The money came back too. Once the TIO had it, the provider:

• credited every plan charge from January to May, the months he had no service;
• paid back our investigation in full, the site visit, the report and the cabling;
• paid back the cost of installing the satellite service he had used to stay online;
• and sent a new modem, at no charge.

Not everything was covered. The provider would not pay NBN’s new development charge, saying it was NBN’s to set, and the monthly satellite fees were not refunded, only the installation. Whether NBN has corrected the lot numbers for the rest of the street, we do not know.

What this job shows

• Check the ground before the paperwork. A pit with fibre and a pipe with a draw string mean the network is ready. If nobody can order, the fault is in the record.
• An address is more than a street number. NBN’s system works from location IDs. A duplex, a subdivided block or a renumbered street can leave a house without one, while the house next door is fine.
• The title settles it. The lot and plan numbers on the title are what the land is, legally. They are the strongest thing you can hand a provider.
• Write it down. Two technicians’ visits left nothing in writing. A report with photos, video and the title search gave the provider, the ombudsman and NBN the same facts to work from.
• Ask for the money back. Months of plan fees for no service, a backup connection and a technician’s investigation were all paid back on this job, because the customer asked, in writing, with receipts.

If this sounds like your place

If your home is built and the street is connected but NBN cannot find your address, start with the checks in moving into a new home with no NBN: search the address on NBN’s address checker, try your neighbour’s, and pull your lot and plan numbers from your title or rates notice. Then ask your provider to raise it with NBN as a missing address, with those numbers. If the provider stalls, how to complain about NBN sets out each step to the ombudsman.

If you want someone to prove what is in the ground, write it up and stay on it with you, that is the work of an independent technician who works out where an NBN connection is stuck.