NBN Co has rallied for its need to earn enough profit to cover its investment requirements. This was because approximately $2.5 billion was already spent on capital expenditures last financial year. This was from its $3.1 billion earnings after opex. This push was made days before the re-activation of a revised Special Access Undertaking process which was expected to place downwards pressure on its pricing.

CEO Stephen Rue said that “The NBN underpins our global competitiveness and economic future of our nation and the economic future of our nation in no small way rests on the success of the NBN.” 

“The measure of this success hinges on our ability to grow the capability and capacity of our network. To keep ahead of the nation’s digital demands, we are rolling fibre deeper into communities and expanding our fixed wireless coverage and capabilities to support the current and future digital needs of customers. The job is not finished. All networks worldwide require continuous investment just to keep pace with the digital needs and data demands of today.”

“And today, the average customer buys a service that is 100 times faster than the average speeds of 2004: as recently as 2016, less than 20% of customers were on plans based on wholesale download speeds of 50Mbps. Now 76% of customers are on 50Mbps or above, and 18% are on 100Mbps or above,” he further added.

Rue also said: “I think you’ll see demand for higher speeds will grow next year because of that program, as well as the ongoing need for greater and more reliable digital services over time.”

He then added: “In time, we will consider the best way to manage what effectively is two networks. And how do we best think about that in years to come, but that’s not for the next few years’ consideration. One of the things that we do want to do is ensure that we manage our capital expenditure in the most efficient way possible. And some of that may well be thinking about, rolling up homes that are in similar locations into a piece of work that can be done more efficiently than going in and out of areas.”

Rue proceeded by saying: “So we face competition around, you know, fixed wireless, mobile services, LEOsats, multi-dwelling units, new developments, and business fibre services. I look at this as an asset that has been built over a decade and will continue to enhance over the decade in order to ensure that we deliver economic benefits to the nation and, and provide social equity as well.”

“So in other words, to enable entrepreneurs to start and run a good business, to enable productivity in, in manufacturing, in agriculture, in small and medium business to enable Australia to be globally competitive and to enable things like health and education, government services to be delivered online. So our balance always is meeting that competition, but also ensuring that what we do is in the benefit of national interest.”