NBN has reported first quarter revenue of $405 million, up 124 per cent year-on-year. However, average monthly revenue per user — ARPU — has remained steady at $43.
The company is aiming for to achieve ARPU of $52 in FY21, seeking to boost the figure through increased download volumes, encouraging the uptake of higher speed broadband plans and greater revenue from small and medium businesses. The growth in ARPU is necessary to achieve NBN’s target revenue $5.4 billion in FY21.
Network charges, including the NBN’s Connectivity Virtual Circuit (CVC) capacity charge and Network to Network Interface (NNI) charge, overtook revenue from fibre to the premises (FTTP) connections in Q1.
For the three months ending 30 September, CVC and NNI delivered revenue of $124 million, compared to $54 million for the same period in 2016.
Of the access technologies used in the National Broadband Network, FTTP continues to deliver the most revenue, bringing in $106 million for NBN, followed by fibre to the node (FTTN), with revenue of $99 million for Q1.
Discounting payments to Telstra and Optus for migrating customers to the National Broadband Network, NBN reported negative EBITDA of $778 million (versus negative $501 million in the comparative quarter).
At the end of September, some 2.96 million premises had active NBN services, with more than 6.4 million households and businesses able to connect to the new network.
On the fixed line portion of the network, the company reported 2.83 million FTTN premises as ready for service, compared to 1.56 million FTTP premises and 1.07 hybrid fibre-coaxial (HFC) premises.
NBN CEO Bill Morrow said that the company is engaged in the “the biggest deployment year in NBN history”. By the end of FY18, NBN intends to have connected three-quarters of all premises planned to eventually be hooked up to the network.
“We have demonstrated our ability to scale and deliver, and with the same determination we seek to further improve the end-to-end experience for households and businesses, from migration to use of the network,” the CEO said.
Shadow communications minister Michelle Rowland, described the results as “quite disappointing.”
"Over the past twelve months 1 million new services have been activated on fibre to the node — more than all the other NBN technologies put together,” the Labor MP said.
“Yet the flatlining revenue figures show consumers are giving copper a thumbs down. With every passing day, Turnbull’s poor judgement on his second-rate technology-mix is being exposed.”