NBN Co will not say what number of fiber lead-ins it has constructed within the first 9 months of a multi-billion greenback community improve, making it arduous to trace the progress of the scheme.
Quarterly numbers on lively providers which might be collected by the ACCC point out prospects are dropping fiber-to-the-node (FTTN) and fiber-to-the-curb (FTTC) providers.
Nonetheless, it isn’t doable to establish what number of of those prospects are shifting off their FTTN/C connections to take up a completely fibre-based service beneath NBN Co’s FTTN/C overbuild programme, which is named ‘fibre join’.
NBN Co continues to speak concerning the fiber overbuild program solely by way of the variety of premises it’s passing, not truly constructing lead-ins for and activating providers.
In paperwork filed with the ACCC this week, NBN Co stated that it “has accomplished native fiber community builds to allow FTTP connections for roughly 535,000 premises at the moment served by copper entry applied sciences.”
“Constructing is underway to cowl greater than 694,000 extra FTTN premises, with an extra 732,000 premises within the design section, and with an extra 707,000 FTTC premises in a position to improve to fibre,” it stated.
“This excludes the 1.5 million premises introduced for FTTP overbuild in October 2022, with the native fiber community construct for these premises anticipated to be delivered by the top of 2025.”
When requested by iTnews what number of of those premises had positioned orders and had a fiber lead-in constructed, NBN Co indicated that it was too early to say publicly.
“Whereas we’re making good progress on the ‘fibre join’ native construct and making premises prepared for order, it’s nonetheless early days on the gross sales and advertising and marketing facet as main RSPs [retail service providers] come onboard and in addition develop and refine their affords to the market,” an NBN Co spokesperson advised iTnews.
“We’ve got a wholesome movement of orders coming by means of every week and are seeing excessive ranges of buyer satisfaction all through the connection course of.
“We count on the amount of orders to extend considerably in 2023 as advertising and marketing exercise will increase.
“As soon as we now have extra retailers in-market and a steady-state quantity of orders, we’ll be in a greater place to touch upon progress.”
Whereas NBN Co will not be forthcoming about progress, it can turn out to be partly apparent through the ACCC’s quarterly wholesale market indicators stories.
These stories ought to present some apparent actions – for instance, a discount of consumers with 25-50/5-20Mbps FTTN providers, and a corresponding rise in FTTP customers on the 100/20Mbps tier, what NBN Co manufacturers as ‘residence quick’.
It’s because to set off a free improve of entry know-how from FTTN/C to fibre, prospects should place an order for the next tier than they already pay for, with the minimal being 100/20Mbps.
Since March 2022, when NBN Co began taking its first improve orders, the corporate has seen 53,188 FTTN subscribers with 25-50/5-20Mbps providers exit.
About 11,674 FTTC customers with 50/20Mbps providers have additionally vacated them.
In the identical interval, NBN Co added about 61,840 fiber customers on 100/20Mbps, and one other 11,684 fiber customers to greater tiers.
It is not clear what quantity of those actions is attributable to the improve program or to different components; the FTTN/C numbers embody folks leaving altogether for “substitutable” mobile fastened wi-fi providers, for instance. A not insignificant variety of FTTN/C prospects are expected to leave NBN Co altogether over the next two years.
Likewise, FTTP activations would come with new premises in greenfields areas, which additionally makes it troublesome to find out what number of new FTTP customers got here from the FTTN/C footprint.
Regardless of this, the stories point out that the variety of profitable upgraders to this point can be someplace within the mid tens of 1000’s.
This might not be narrowed down any additional by iTnews by the point of publication.
