back to article The great and powerful Oz (broadband network): Revs rise, but nbn™'s exec bonuses don't

The company building Australia's National Broadband Network turned in what was mostly a dull but worthy set of financials, and it's put something of a squeeze on its executive bonuses. The boring part of nbn™'s 2018 financials (PDF) were revenue, up to AU$1.98bn from $1bn for 2017; and although its net loss after tax rose from …

  1. john.jones.name

    free data day...

    anyone who remembers what happened to telstra's network when they offered free data for a day (because the network completely failed and billing/CS could not handle the refunds)

    that day the entire network was terrible, the reason was they didn't have the capacity... 5G is great to get to the cell tower but they dont have the capacity in backhaul... they never will since its more profitable to charge HUGE amounts for very little data

    maybe in 10 years time 5G will be some competition but its not going to have any effect in the next 3 to 4 years

    1. Joe Harrison

      Re: free data day...

      Maybe if you look at it from the current perspective where data is used by end-user retail consumers to watch cat videos. The core usage of 5G however will be infrastructure (for example self-driving cars won't work without it) so the cost model will be substantially different.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    5G is in no way a substitute for Fixed line broadband, they just down have the backhaul for that.

    1. fredds

      I would love to have fixed line broadband, but that is never going to happen. Fixed wireless?, no, there are a million trees between me and the tower, so no signal. Satellite, don't make me laugh. However there is a mobile tower 600metres from me, with both optus and telstra, so 5G will suit me nicely. And optus just put in a dedicated fibre line to the tower.

  3. julian.smith

    OZ mobile costs -> zero

    I have an ALDI SIM (uses Telstra's network)

    In JAN 2018 for $15 pm I got:

    - unlimited fixed / mobile / SMS

    - 1 GB data

    In NOV 2018 the offer is

    - unlimited fixed / mobile / SMS

    - 2GB data -< [unused data rolls over] -<[1.5GB]

    FYI I consider Telstra to be a compond word "fucking_Telstra"

    The revenues (to Telstra) haven't risen but the consumer benefits have

    Compared to the previous grotesque costs this is a new reality!

    It will continue - think what the real costs of bandwidth must be!

    Bad news for Telstra shareholders inc. the OZ government

    Not my problem.

    1. Dabooka

      Re: OZ mobile costs -> zero

      I don't know what the prices are like normally over there, but that's almost on par with my UK Giff Gaff deal; I get something like 3gb/ sms / calls for a tenner a month, and sometimes i just use the £7.50 bundle.

      I still can't get over how some folk are paying twenty quid plus for their contract sans handset...

  4. -tim
    WTF?

    Odd maths?

    There are 24 million people in Australia. At an average of 2.4 people per family the nbn should have 10 million homes connected if they are close to being done. That doesn't include the 2 million registered businesses.

  5. Dabooka

    5g Speeds

    Okay okay, assuming it can offer comparable speeds to fixed line, how likely is it to be that you'd remove your hardwired connection? I'm thinking in terms of signal loss and latency, any idea what they'd be like?

    I'm thinking of the PS4 in one room while Netflix etc is streaming in another.

    1. DiViDeD

      Re: 5g Speeds, signal loss and latency

      "I'm thinking of the PS4 in one room while Netflix etc is streaming in another."

      I'm thinking more of the remote surgeon setting the scalpel going just as 300 hospital staff start watching a cat video.

  6. Brad Ackerman
    Facepalm

    Buried lede

    The monthly ARPU for NBN, which is a wholesale network, is about what Bahnof will charge (retail) for real gigabit FTTP (or 10G for MDUs in Stockholm). I don't think Bahnhof will even sell a service as slow as NBN's fastest FTTP.

    NBNCo's shareholders should be fucking ecstatic that they can take such high rents. Or is it they're annoyed the rents aren't as high as in Canada?

  7. Obesrver1
    Mushroom

    kak {coughing up an acid ball}

    When all was 3G it was crap and telco's said 4G,4G

    Now we've got 4G it is also crap, so one churns...

    and Optus for the first month or so was ok so so ..

    but after Optus has just screwed everybody over for a couple of months maintaining & fixing, extending their supposedly all covering mobile network whilst killing user capacity to connect for said period, I get terrible anything-G and 5G won't be any better.

    Telco's corporate behaviour is not 3G, 4G or 5G but 3B(bad), 4B & 5B.....

    and will not change.

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