NBN Co says consumer demand for higher-speed internet continues

As readies to flip back to fibre, NBN Co says that demand for fast internet access first spurred by COVID shows no signs of abating.

NBN is ramping up its rollout of fibre. Picture: Supplied.

The company building the National Broadband Network says bumper demand from the COVID-19 pandemic has not subsided, with 80 per cent of Australians selecting superfast plans of 50 megabits-per-second and above.

In its first-quarter results, the company reported on Monday that 7.66 million Australian premises were connected to the network, with 388,000 added in the three months to September 30. It said 11.82 million premises were deemed “ready to connect”.

NBN Co posted total revenue of $1.07bn, up 22 per cent on the same period a year earlier, while earnings before interest, tax, deprecation and amortisation (EBITDA) swung into positive territory at $102m, up from a year-earlier loss of $435m.

The company’s capital expenditure for the three months to September 30 came in at $772m, while it also paid $2.4bn in so-called subscriber costs to Telstra and Optus, which it said would be the highest annual level of the payments.

“These costs will significantly reduce from the 2021 financial year, with payments totalling approximately $1.5bn due over FY21-24, until such payments cease,” a spokesman said.

Optus this month renewed a push to change the way NBN Co charges retail internet service providers for bandwidth, telling the competition regulator that the social and economic benefits gained from the network are at risk.

The update came as the company kicks off the next phase of its build, a $4.5bn full-fibre upgrade that will give customers speeds of up to 1 gigabit-per-second.

Those works will give 75 per cent of homes and businesses speeds of up to 1Gbps by 2023. NBN Co has so far revealed 17 locations in which about 100,000 premises will receive a free fibre upgrade, including Castle Hill, Liverpool and Charlestown in NSW, and Lyndhurst and Narre Warren in Victoria.

NBN Co also last month kicked off a national “Focus on Fast” campaign to encourage consumers and retailers to take advantage of higher-speed plans, including additional free data inclusions for retailers.

“We continue to see strong, sustained demand for NBN’s higher speed tiers. Approximately 80 per cent of new customers connecting to the network for the first time are selecting retail plans based on NBN wholesale download speed tiers of 50 Mbps and above,” NBN co-CEO Stephen Rue said.

“During the quarter, NBN Co continued to invest heavily to support customers and the industry through the COVID-19 crisis, maintaining a number of targeted measures, such as the offer of additional CVC capacity at no additional cost to internet retailers.

“NBN Co is making good progress on its Hybrid Fibre Cable (HFC) network upgrade program and is working to ensure that by the end of November 2020 more than 25 per cent of premises in the HFC footprint will be able to order NBN Ultrafast broadband.

“We expect that by June 2021 over two-thirds of premises in the HFC network footprint will be able to order NBN Ultrafast broadband, and by the end of 2021 we anticipate that nearly the entire HFC network footprint of some 2.5 million premises should be able to order NBN Ultrafast broadband, capable of achieving wholesale download speeds of 500Mbps to close to 1 Gbps.”