Cost of National Broadband Network to government up to $30 billion, says Quigley

The cost of the new national broadband network to taxpayers will be around the $30 billion mark, according to the NBN's CEO.

NBN CO chief executive Mike Quigley has said taxpayers will pay up to $30 billion to build the national broadband network.

The network, due for construction over the next seven years, has been widely estimated to cost $43bn, reports The Australian.

Mr Quigley said NBN Co's three-year business case -- which was to be delivered to the government by May 31 but NBN Co has been granted an extension to factor in the $11bn deal with Telstra -- would show that the fibre-optic network would come at a cost to the government of below $30bn. The rest of the money required to build the network will come from debt markets.

"When people say that the NBN is going to cost $43bn of government money and then we have to add the $11bn from the Telstra deal on top of that, well, it's just nonsense," Mr Quigley told The Australian.

"For the record, the amount of money that the government will need to put into this project, which comes from our business case and aligns closely with the implementation study, will be south of $30bn; $43bn is a different number."

The $25 million implementation study on the NBN earlier this year found that without Telstra's involvement, the plan to lay fibre to more than 90 per cent of the country would require the government to raise its initial equity injection of $4.7bn to $26bn over the eight-year construction life of the project.

The report said that during its construction period, NBN Co should be generating enough cash from customers to gradually pay the government back $20bn -- as well as paying interest on borrowing for the rest of the expected $43bn total cost.

Read more at The Australian.