NBN results: Losses dip, government spends $1.19bn to upgrade Australia's internet network
Chief executive Ellie Sweeney says NBN Co's strategy of upgrading its network to full fibre is 'delivering for customers, businesses and the nation'.
She said the number of homes and businesses connected via fibre to the premises surged 23 per cent to 2.665 million, making it the dominant fixed-line technology on its network.
'We are on track to complete the initial five-year fibre-connect program on time by December 2025, and on budget. Almost 9.8 million premises can now order our highest-speed residential products, and by the end of December this year that will grow to more than 10 million premises, or 90 per cent of our fixed-line network,' Ms Sweeney said.
NBN Co trimmed its losses by 10 per cent to $963m over the year to June 30. Overall revenue firmed 4 per cent to $5.7bn, while underlying earnings jumped 8 per cent to $4.2bn.
It cut its debt ratio from 9.9 to 9.3 times EBITDA, despite total debt increasing from $26.89bn to $27.16bn.
Taxpayers buoyed the result, with the commonwealth providing NBN Co $1.19bn in equity funding, a 54 per cent increase on 2024.
Ms Sweeney said Australians were continuing to embrace 'faster speeds and full-fibre connections', upgrading from 'copper-based technologies in record numbers'.
'With seven out of 10 Australian homes and businesses connected to the NBN network, our focus is on lifting customer experience, delivering a resilient network that supports digitisation and AI (artificial intelligence) workloads, while ensuring the benefits of connectivity are delivered across our communities, homes and businesses, now and into the future,' she said.
'We take great pride in delivering a reliable, high-speed and high-capacity network to Australians, and it is our investment in the network that is enabling us to 'accelerate great', as we say, which will lift our 100Mbps wholesale speed tier to offer wholesale download speeds of 500Mbps in September.
'These investments are also enabling the launch of our first multi-gigabit wholesale
residential products, via participating retailers, to eligible customers connected to the NBN network. Looking to the future, it is NBN's aim that our 500Mbps wholesale speed tier becomes Australia's most popular NBN plan. And thanks to our investments in the latest technologies and network upgrades, we expect to lift average fixed broadband speeds across the nation.'
From mid-next year, it will offer low earth orbit satellite broadband services via Amazon's Project Kuiper, replacing its much-maligned geostationary offering, Sky Muster.
Project Kuiper will offer speeds of about 400Mbps. This compares with Starlink offering speeds of up to 220Mbps, still 10 times faster than Sky Muster.
But NBN Co's upgrades has attracted criticism, with commercial rival, Vodafone owner TPG Telecom, accusing it of overbuilding its network in Canberra.
NBN's Canberra upgrades are costing almost $6600 per premises, mainly due to challenges such as backyard power poles and rocky terrain. About 97,000 businesses and homes in the ACT are included in the upgrade, lifting its total cost to more than $640m.
TPG argued such works were unnecessary given commercial wholesaler Vision Network – which TPG sold to Macquarie-backed Vocus for $5.25bn – was already available in Canberra and can provide up to 1Gbps connection speeds.
'Fundamentally, that $6600 needs to be recouped. It's an investment that any business would need to recoup over time, and the way they're going to recoup that is with high pricing. 'Vision would have already spent that cost, and then able to punt that back to their independent retailers, and in turn get great pricing for customers already,' TPG general manager of fixed-line product Andrew O'Connor said.
NBN Co defended the Canberra upgrades, saying it was 'supporting competition' and delivering faster internet speeds.
NBN's total revenue growth was driven by a 6 per cent increase in telecommunications revenue, with residential average revenue per user up $3 to $50 per month.
Ms Sweeney said the higher residential ARPU was attributed to growing customer demand for higher-speed products and the application of regulated wholesale price changes, in accordance with the Special Access Undertaking Variation that was accepted by the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission.
'The NBN network is delivering and Australians are responding. It is our responsibility and privilege to deliver the digital infrastructure today that will be critical to the way Australians work, learn, connect and grow in the future,' she said.
'Our goal is to turn investment into impact, innovation into inclusion, and infrastructure into opportunity for the economy, communities and families in every home and business across Australia.'
Originally published as NBN cuts losses as Albanese government forks out $1.19bn for internet network upgrade
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