NBN Co

NBN Co Limited, known as simply nbn, is a state-owned corporation of the Australian Government, tasked to design, build and operate Australia's National Broadband Network as the nation's wholesale broadband provider. The corporation reports to two shareholder ministers: the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Communications.

History
NBN Co was established on 9 April 2009 under the name of its company number, "A.C.N. 136 533 741 Limited". After the establishment, the Australian Government started referring to the company as "National Broadband Network Company", which became the de facto company name. It was officially named "NBN Co Limited" on 6 October 2009. It traded as "NBN Co" until 26 April 2015 when it began trading simply as "nbn".

In 2019, NBN Co announced that by May 2020 retail service providers will be able to pool all their connectivity virtual circuit (CVC) bandwidth nationally.

In February 2020, the company announced that 6.7 million homes and businesses were connected to a plan over the nbn access network – compared with 4.9 million in February 2019.

NBN Co developed a satellite internet program named Sky Muster aimed at rural areas. As of July 2023, $620 million had been invested. However, the program experienced fierce competition from Starlink satellites. Sky Muster consists of two geosynchronous satellites orbiting over 35,000 km above Earth's surface, resulting in latency times around 600 ms (at 25 Mbps), compared to Starlink's latency of below 40 ms (for 100-200 Mbps).

NBN and retail service providers
As a wholesale provider of broadband access through its level two networks, NBN provides broadband access predominantly to retail service providers (RSPs); these businesses on sell access to end users; both residential and business customers to access the internet.

At 30 June 2016, Telstra had 45.5%, TPG group had 24.8% and Optus had 12.4% of all end users connecting to the NBN.

There has been a significant failure of the NBN to deliver nominal performance to end users. There has been contention between RSPs and NBN on the reasons for this. Bill Morrow, then CEO of NBN, admitted in 2017 that 15% of end users received a poor service through the NBN and were 'seriously dissatisfied'. In addition, Morrow indicated that, at July 2017, prices and performance for end users were suppressed through a 'price war' between RSPs.

Contractual arrangements
NBN contracts mainly with RSPs to provide wholesale broadband access, with limited supply of backhaul to other organisations (for example providing backhaul services to Vodafone).

National Broadband Network
Under the Rudd and Gillard governments' NBN Co corporate plan, it was estimated that the NBN construction would require A$27.5 billion in government equity and raise an estimated A$13.4 billion in debt funding without government support; a total funding requirement of A$40.9 billion up to FY2021. Financial forecasts for NBN Co assuming a 7% internal rate of return (IRR) expect the government and debt equity will be fully repaid including accrued interest by FY2040. Following the election of the Abbott government, NBN Co reassessed financial forecasts and progress of the NBN roll-out and published a strategic review in December 2013.

In response to what the Abbott and Turnbull governments stated to be excessive performance specifications and costs they moved from a model which previously focused on FTTP (fibre to the premises) to a multi-technology mix model using FTTx, including FTTP, FTTN (fibre to the node), FTTB (fibre to the building or basement) and most recently FTTdp (fibre to the distribution point); and HFC (hybrid fibre coaxial) in metropolitan areas. Regional and remote areas were mainly unchanged as a result of the strategic review and typically receive a service using either fixed wireless, using LTE technology, or satellite.

The NBN network, at 2022, draws together wired communication (copper, optical and hybrid fibre-coaxial) and radio communication (satellite and fixed wireless networks) at 121 points of interconnect typically located in Telstra owned telephone exchanges throughout Australia. It also sells access for mobile telecommunication backhaul to mobile telecommunications providers.

In February 2017, Bill Morrow (former CEO) stated that there is no significant demand for wired connections above 25 Mbit/s and consideration of upgrading the network will not be undertaken until demand for high-bandwidth services is proven.

In August 2019, Stephen Rue (CEO), announced the completion of the $51 billion National Broadband Network by June 2020. However, some service areas were still being rolled out in late 2020/2021 with FTTP to FTTN/FTTC premises.

On 6th May 2024, CEO Stephen Rue announced his departure from the company to take the CEO position at Optus.