NBN chief talks up Tassie take-up

NBN Co chief Mike Quigley has revealed data on Tasmanian take-up rates in the state's three stage-one sites, with 600 premises holding an active connection to the network and over 740 services ordered by the end of May.

Almost 40 percent of the services were between 20 Mbps and 100 Mbps, he told a Senate Estimates hearing last night.

NBN Co was scheduled to start billing the customers for services from August 1.

“As a trial, we believe these are very positive outcomes,” Quigley said.

Construction off Senate radar

While Quigley confronted sustained questioning from Opposition senators on his time with Alcatel-Lucent and its bribery scandals, no questions were raised concerning NBNCo’s surprise cancellation of its second-stage tender roll-out back in April this year and the surprise departure of its head of construction, Patrick Flannigan.

Following eight weeks of negotiations, NBN Co sealed a new deal with a single construction company Silcar.

“I am pleased to say the design and construction pricing is now in line with NBN Co’s original assumptions, underlying the corporate plan," Quigley said.

“There is a keen willingness of many construction companies to opt in to a competitive process for the award of this work.

"Finalisation of this [negotiation] work over the coming months will enable NBN Co to speed up the roll-out.”