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NBN Co plans 1 million premises passed in FY15

With NBN Co reporting revenues of AU$60 million for the last financial year, the company is targeting passing 1 million premises by the network at the end of June 2015.
Written by Josh Taylor, Contributor

NBN Co is aiming to have 1 million premises in Australia able to order a service on the National Broadband Network (NBN) by the end of June 2015.

CEO Bill Morrow said at the company's annual results presentation (PDF) that the target is part of NBN Co's new corporate plan that has yet to be approved by the Australian government, but said that over 1 million homes would be able to connect to the network by the end of the financial year, up from 552,000 "premises serviceable" as of the end of June 30, 2014.

NBN Co is also aiming to have approximately 480,000 customers on the network across the various technologies, up from 210,000 at the end of June this year.

In the first 15 NBN launch sites where the copper network has been disconnected, NBN Co was reporting a 70 percent take-up rate of services, something that Morrow said would need to be replicated for the rest of the rollout, with 8 million customers connected in order for the company to meet its return rate.

In what had been a year of "radical change" for NBN Co, with the change of government moving NBN Co from a 93 percent fibre-to-the-premises rollout to a fibre-to-the-node, hybrid fibre-coaxial (HFC), and fibre-to-the-premises rollout, NBN Co had seen AU$60 million in telecommunications revenue, with AU$31 million from fibre services, AU$2 million from fixed wireless, AU$12 million from satellites, and AU$15 million from capacity charges.

NBN Co reported a negative EBITDA of AU$1.004 billion, and operating expenses of AU$1.065 billion.

In spite of the NBN cost-benefit analysis indicating that most Australian users would not need more than 48Mbps by 2023, 20 percent of early NBN users on the fibre are taking the highest 100Mbps plan. Average data throughput on the NBN is 77GB per month.

nbn-co-plans-1-million-premises-passed-in-fy15
Image: Screenshot by Josh Taylor/ZDNet

Contracts have been issued for construction of the network out to over 1 million premises, as NBN Co continues trials of alternative technologies, including fibre to the basement and fibre to the node.

There were 50 premises across eight sites in Melbourne connected to the NBN via fibre to the basement, achieving average speeds of 100Mbps down, and 45Mbps up.

On the 10 nodes in Woy Woy, initial speed results varied between 95Mbps and 97Mbps down, and 28Mbps and 34Mbps up.

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