NBN Co pulls in AU$5.2m in six months
NBN Co, the government company in charge of constructing and rolling out the National Broadband Network (NBN), has said in the latest government report that it pulled in AU$5.2 million in revenue from customers in the second half of 2012, up from AU$354,000 in the first half.
Based on the figures released by NBN Co in January, with 37,500 connected to the network at the end of December 2012, this means that NBN Co collected an average of approximately AU$140 from each connected customer in that six-month period.
But with the network still in the early stages of construction, the company reported a loss for the six months ending December 31, 2012, of AU$408 million, up from AU$220.5 million in the previous six months.
The biggest cost came through employment, at AU$152 million, up from AU$100 million in the first six months of 2012. As of the end of December, NBN Co reported a headcount of 2,235.
In the last six months of 2012, NBN Co received AU$946 million in Commonwealth equity, bringing the total amount of equity received from the government to AU$3.8 billion.
The report reveals that of the 46,078 existing premises passed by fibre at the end of December, 7,912 of these were in metropolitan areas, while 38,166 were in non-metro areas. For the 26,251 new premises passed by fibre, 15,607 were in metropolitan Australia, and 10,644 were in non-metro areas. However, NBN Co said that as of the end of December, it has received requests to install fibre in 161,721 new premises.
The report also reveals an exact breakdown of the types of services that fibre users are taking up on the NBN. The most popular remains the 100-megabits-per-second (Mbps) down, 40Mbps up service, with 43.4 percent of all users taking up this plan. The next highest is the 25/5Mbps service, at 28.6 percent, followed by the 12/1Mbps service at 20.7 percent, the 50/20Mbps service at 5.7 percent, and just 1.7 percent taking up the 25/10Mbps service.
The company also reported a rise in the number of rollout complaints to 120 for the six-month period, compared to 31 in the first six months of 2012.
A total of 46 retail service providers (RSPs) have signed a wholesale broadband agreement with NBN Co to provide services on the NBN. A total of 38 companies are offering services in brownfields areas, 28 are offering services in greenfields areas, and 12 are offering fixed-wireless and satellite services.