back to article nbn™ tops AU$400 million half-year revenue

Australia's National Broadband Network is closing in on a million active fibre-to-the-premises users and topped AU$400 million for the first half of its 2017 financial year. First-half results for network-building company nbn™, announced here, also reveal nearly 450,000 active fibre-to-the-node (FTTN) users as of December 31, …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Chance would be a fine thing

    Oh wait....it's Malcolm's Fraud-band, no, I'll pass thanks.

    1. mathew42
      FAIL

      Re: Chance would be a fine thing

      Fraud was Labor promising 1Gbps FTTP just prior to the 2010 election without mentioning that they expected less than 1% to be connected at that speed in 2026. Labor's predictions in the NBNCo Corporate Plan on take-up of the speeds tiers has proven to be optimistic with the exception of 25Mbps plan. If Telstra had offered at 12Mbps plan, then it is likely that for all speeds except 12Mbps take-up would have been lower than forecast by Labor.

      The IT community should share significant culpibility for not calling Labor out on the inevitable result of building an NBN with speed tiers. Instead most were blinded by the shiny fibre, like a 2 year old can be distracted by a lolly.

      1. trashsilo

        Re: Chance would be a fine thing

        Politically hijacked broadband at affordable prices, pah.

        A broken business model, broken promises and broken is what it is.

        NBN charges for bitstream products, faster speeds and more data then you pay more.

        The retailers are offering a completely different business model with data allowance plans and pushing 'unlimited' plans that are woeful.

        I signed a business property lease and a 2 year NBN contract with a certain vendor on such an unlimited plan. 8 months in and the connection is untenable, slow with dropouts and traffic shaping. It is dire and unfortunately I cannot blame the vendor

        I can only really hope to get out of the contract by becoming a 'high volume data user' and being kicked off, but believe me its not easy to become even a 'medium volume data user'.

        NBN / vendors clearly need measures on consumer quality of service and strict mandates to deliver said quality of service to a customer. Ideally some tool the customer can use to determine the level and report it back.

        Please save us the political jibes.

  2. Rattus Rattus

    All the reports I'm hearing indicate that many (most?) people on nbn can't even get half the speeds they currently pay for, and often enough not even close to the speeds they did have on their previous service at the same premises. So why would they pay for a higher speed tier?

  3. JJKing

    people on nbn can't even get half the speeds they currently pay for

    Silly man, they are only required to provide the connected speed for 1 second in a 24 hour period. A commentard posted that the fftn box he was connected to was 1km from his house. What a great speed that will provide the poor sod.

    1. mathew42
      FAIL

      83% selecting 25Mbps or slower

      The problem is that only a small number of Australians (13% and falling) are willing to pay for fast internet speeds. Labor created the current situation by choosing to implement speed tiers (AVC) and also charge for data (CVC). If Labor had made the sensible decision of providing 1Gbps FTTP on all connections, then FTTN & HFC would not have been possible. Instead Labor planned that less than 1% would have 1Gbps in 2026! It would be reasonable to assume that only the elite could afford the 1Gbps connections.

      Note that the 31% on 12/1Mbps is artificially lower because Telstra are not offering this speed tier. I would expect that if Telstra offered 12/1Mbps that it would most likely be the most popular plan.

      1. Rattus Rattus

        Re: 83% selecting 25Mbps or slower

        That's one way of interpreting the data. Another way, which is implied by all the anecdotal evidence I've heard, is that 13% of Australians (and falling) still believe that they will get a connection speed remotely approaching the one they've paid for. Though yes, Labor shouldn't have planned speed tiers in the first place, it should have been gigabit from the start.

        You're right about Telstra though. They KNOW everybody would buy their cheapest plan because they fail spectacularly at delivering the service they advertise. I'm paying for a 50mbit plan at the moment - FTTP, though not yet nbn. It might approach 50mbit at 3AM, perhaps. During the times I'm awake and home, though, I get speeds ranging from 0.5mbit to sometimes as high as 3mbit. And this is all because Telstra haven't provisioned nearly enough capacity for peak times, in order to save a few pennies.

  4. mathew42
    FAIL

    NBNCo Inflated Higher Speed Tiers

    Starting on 1 November 2016 and ending on 31 March 2017, NBNCo offerred RSPs a Step Up AVC Credit, which made if free for RSPs to upgrade customers to the next hightest speed tier. I expect we will see the number on 100Mbps fall further when the figures at 30 June 2017 are released.

    Still no mention of FTTP speeds faster than 1Gbps when these have been available since December 2013. Meanwhile Telstra are promoting 1Gbps 4G services.

  5. TheOtherMe
    Pirate

    Too dear for tiers

    Why do they feel the need to price gouge for higher speeds? It costs no more to operate or maintain the network once the roll out is complete... I have FTTP but I do not see the value in paying at least $60/mth more just to have a faster network experience.

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like