NBN farce extends and pretends

A week after it was revealed that Australians pay the highest broadband costs in the OECD and ranks 67 out of a wider list of 83 countries:

Embattled NBNco has admitted that it is running way behind schedule in connecting homes to the NBN network:

Half a million homes will have to wait longer to connect to the ­National Broadband Network…

NBN Co has downgraded the total number of homes with active NBN connections by June 30, 2020 from 7.5 million to seven million…

The revision in the number of active connections isn’t the only change in NBN Co’s latest corporate plan, with the company also pushing out the deadline for when it becomes cash-flow positive by a year, from full-year 2022 to full-year 2023…

FTTC cost-per-premises (CPP) had risen from $3058 at the end of 2018 to $3129 by the end of June this year. Meanwhile, HFC costs have ticked over from $2466 CPP to $2590.

Not only is the rate of connections slowing, it’s data speeds are slowing, with consumers shelling out more for basic internet access under the NBN than they were for ADSL plans that provided the same speeds.

The sad reality is that the situation facing Australian consumers won’t change until the federal government writes-down the value of the NBN, thus enabling NBN Co to lower wholesale access prices, which can then be passed onto end-users.