NBN Co is starting to show signs of scale and consistency in its fibre connect program, completing connections for over 100,000 premises in the first 17 weeks of the year.
CEO Stephen Rue said yesterday that “concerted efforts” from NBN Co and retail service providers (RSPs) meant that “more than 300,000 … customers have already ordered and received an upgrade to the NBN full fibre network” under the program.
The company previously reported 197,000 connections as at the end of calendar year 2023.
Hitting over 300,000 in the first 17 weeks of the year puts it on a run rate of about 6050 a week - aligning with what Rue has previously said the company was capable of meeting.
Earlier this year, NBN Co indicated it received more orders for upgrades each week than it could fulfill - about 7000 a week, compared to up to 6000 completions.
It appears that the number of orders being received is now equal to the number of completions.
“Each week, around 6000 customers are placing orders to upgrade to full fibre higher speed tiers,” chief customer officer Anna Perrin said in a separate statement yesterday.
The fibre connect program is enabling many customers with fibre-to-the-node (FTTN) or fibre-to-the-curb (FTTC)-based connections to initiate an upgrade.
To do so, they must place an order for a certain tier of retail service and stay with it for at least 12 months.
“For the most part, fibre lead-ins are delivered to the premises when customers place an order for an eligible higher speed plan,” Rue confirmed yesterday.
However, there are some exceptions to this, with NBN Co seeking to prioritise the migration of certain FTTN customers off poorly performing infrastructure.
He called this subset of infrastructure a “CX irritant” - causing the customer to consistently see speeds of below 50Mbps or “multiple dropouts in a month”.
About 200,000 FTTN customers are in this category and are being offered an upgrade to fibre with no other pre-conditions of eligibility.
“We want to upgrade them to NBN full fibre,” Rue said.
“This upgrade to FTTP technology will have no requirement on customers to upgrade to a higher speed tier.
“Fibre results in lower fault rates, less dropouts and greater speed predictability, and improves customer experience.”
Rue said that NBN Co is taking a phased approach to these upgrades “to keep up with demand and the availability of technicians.”
“Approximately 85,000 of those [200,000] identified households are now available to upgrade to full fibre with no requirement on customers to upgrade to a higher speed tier, and we expect another 35,000 households to become available in coming weeks,” Rue said.
“This means that eligible customers can upgrade to fibre, stay on the plan they are on if they choose to, and experience the benefits that fibre brings such as a more reliable and consistent connection.”
Another cohort of users to get fibre lead-ins are those that have never previously connected to the NBN.
A small-scale trial of that scenario is now being run, with results expected “in due course”.
“This is not just a more efficient use of capex given the future-proof nature of rolling out new fibre rather than new copper, and greater reliability of fibre, meaning fewer future truck rolls, it will also deliver better customer experience.” Rue said.
NBN Co also yesterday published a three-year pricing roadmap [pdf] showing proposed price increases, tied to inflation, between now and 2027.
The roadmap shows indicative pricing for 12Mbps, 25Mbps and 50Mbps services when they transition from a bundled pricing structure to a flat-rate charge after FY26.
