TURNBULL AND FRIENDS NBN IS NOW KICKING SERIOUS BUTT

MALCOLM Turnbull might be gone but his (and former NBNCo CEO Bill Morrow’s) National Broadband Network lives on – and indeed is now kicking serious butt against customers.

The latest NBNCo update shows that the Turnbull MTM – Multi-Technology Mix – NBN is pretty much a ‘done deal’.

That’s ‘done’ in terms of actually connecting every premise in the land. At the end of December 8.1 million premises were ready to connect – up a thumping 32 per cent in just one year. And 4.7 million were connected – up an even more impressive 38 per cent.

That’s also ‘done’ in terms of the tech-mix. At December it was 49 per cent FTTN, 21 per cent FTTP, 14 per cent HFC, 3 per cent FTTC, and 13 per cent fixed wireless and satellite.

The share that will grow is FTTC – Fibre-To-The-Curb – which is a cost-sensible and tech-effective compromise between FTTN and FTTP, precisely because it still uses the copper hated by the ‘gigabit geeks’ who’d presumably demand a fourlane driveway to every house only been around 85-90 per cent all-fibre.

I say ‘at least’ because the FTTP connections have been biased towards those easy to do. The $4403 per FTTP connection cost would rise sharply if the NBN had to go to all premises.

All premises? What do the ‘gigabit geeks’, who demand we have to have an all-fibre NBN, say about the 1 millionplus, heading to 1.5 millionplus that are connected by fixed wireless or satellite?

That have to be connected that way, if we are not to lose all touch with reality, because 25 million people are spread all over a very large land mass?

Presumably, their answer would be: lay fibre everywhere! Who cares about the cost, when you are living in a fantasy virtual reality parental basement, PJ boy-style.

This NBN is on track to be completed by next year and generating $5 billion of revenue by 2022.

Would an incoming Labor Government really go back to a Rudd fantasy (semi) all-fibre future?

Adding billions to the cost? Pushing completion out past 2025? Delaying revenue? And all to no practical user-benefit?