ITNEWS, 8 November, 2016 – NBN Co has passed a milestone for premises connected to its fibre-to-the-node and fibre-to-the-basement networks, with more than 1 million homes and business now able to take up a service.
At its first quarter results briefing today, NBN Co revealed it had passed 338,000 total premises during the three-month period, and welcomed 280,000 new active end users.
It brings NBN Co’s total number of premises ready for service to 3.2 million as at September 30, and total number of active users to 1.4 million.
NBN Co said the increase in the number of premises ready for service had grown as a result of its fibre-to-the-node and fibre-to-the-basement rollout, which began in earnest throughout last year.
It had 926,624 premises able to order FTTN/B services at the end of the quarter, which since September 30 had surpassed one million, it said today.
The current count of total ready for service combined FTTN/B premises stands at 1.03 million, with 138,684 specifically on FTTB.
Around 278,000 homes and businesses have active services on the FTTN/B network, compared to 375 at the same time last year.
NBN Co revealed it would move around 1.2 million premises out of its HFC footprint and onto its FTTN network in its new three-year corporate plan in August.
“We are now 30 percent complete in terms of current premises able to order a service, with the company able to bring on whole suburbs in a month due to the MTM approach,” NBN Co Bill Morrow said in a statement today.
Its cost per premise for rolling out FTTN/B fell from $2257 six months ago to $2198 as at the end of September.
NBN Co’s average revenue per user was stable at $43, and its operating expenses grew 67 percent to $682 million as construction increased.
The network builder brought in $181 million in revenue during the quarter, compared to $73 million in the same quarter of 2015.
It is targeting revenue of $900 million and 2.3 million active and 5.4 million connected premises at the end of its current financial year.
NBN Co today declined to confirm how it plans to access more funding once its current pool of funds from the federal government’s $29.5 billion cap runs out at the end of the 2017 financial year.
It will need to raise around $10 billion within 12 months to meet funding requirements for FY18.
The network builder is expecting the entire rollout to cost at least $49 billion by 2020, but is planning for a maximum of $54 billion.
It said it had received private credit ratings – the first step in raising debt funding – from Standard and Poor’s and Moody’s but said it would not make those ratings public.
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Coyne, A (2016), NBN passes 1 million FTTN/B premises, iTnews, viewed 8 November 2016, <http://www.itnews.com.au/news/nbn-passes-1-million-fttn-b-premises-440904>.