nbn has made ZERO fibre-to-the-node and cable connections

Australia's national broadband network continues apace with nbn^TM announcing that it's adding more than 12,000 premises per week to its serviceable footprint.

Over the 12 months to March 2015, the network more-than-doubled the number of premises connected to its fibre network, to nearly 390,000 (compared to just under 167,000 at March 2014), with fixed wireless activations tripling to 34,627.

The overcrowded satellite network lost around 4,000 customers, finishing the March quarter at 38,841 customers compared to 43,934 at March 2014.

The government's now-abandoned 2013 election promise that its fibre-to-the-node (FTTN) strategy would blanket all of Australia with 25 Mbps or better by 2016 is now a historical curiosity, since the FTTN network has yet to connect commercial services and the basement fibre to service multi-dwelling units is only now activating customers (but not enough to figure as a reporting line).

nbn^TM says (PDF) there are currently around 400,000 premises in its “preliminary fibre to the node” construction footprint after builds were added in Western Australia, South Australia and the Northern Territory.

The big leap in the network's footprint will come when the company gets Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) approval for hybrid fibre coax (HFC) usage agreements with Telstra and Optus, letting it tip a few million punters into the “serviceable” footprint (preferably, from the government's point of view, in time for the 2016 election).

With activations rising, the company was able to report a handy boost to its telecommunications service revenue, to AU$106 million for the last nine months. This puts the utility on track for to reach its $150 million full-year revenue target.

Naturally enough at this stage of the project, capex remains far ahead of income. The $2.2 billion in the period and opex of $893 million result in a total EBITDA loss of $785 million. ®