NBN Co chalks up $400 million loss

NBN Co ended 2012 with a $406.5 million net loss and 72,329 premises passed with fibre, according to the latest ministerial performance report.

Senator Penny Wong.

The report, released this week by NBN shareholders finance minister Penny Wong and communications minister Stephen Conroy, provides rollout and financial details for the six months ending December 31, 2012.

Unaudited financial results for the period show NBN Co earned $29.3 million in revenue, down from $29.7 the preceeding half year, and received $946 million in funding.

Total expenses of $428 million saw NBN Co's net loss fall to $406.5 million, compared to $220 million in the January to June 2012 half year.

NBN Co entered into commitments totalling over $4.4 billion, an increase of $475 million thanks to new satellite contracts and fibre deployment and support activities, while total equity value rose from $1.9 billion to $2.4 billion.

Fibre rollout

NBN Co passed 72,329 premises in the half year, with an uptake of services at 10,802.

It passed 46,078 brownfield premises and 15,607 metro and 10,644 non-metro greenfield premises, with 161,721 requests to connect greenfield premises received. 

The total number of metro premises passed was 23,519, including brownfield and greenfield areas, while 48,810 non-metro premises were passed.

The most popular plan for fibre customers was the 100/40Mbps plan, which accounted for 43 percent of the total, the report stated. The average provisioned speed on the fibre network stood at 56Mbps.

As of December, 46 retail service providers had come on board the NBN Co wholesale broadband agreement, with 31 currently offering services.

The Government-owned wholesale telco dealt with 120 complaints regarding the national broadband network in the six months to December, up from 31 in the previous six months, resolving three-quarters of complaints within five working days. 

NBN Co's headcount as of end of December last year was a total of 2235, most of which is concentrated in NSW and Victoria.

The report was delivered to the chair of the joint committee on the NBN, Rob Oakeshott. Oakeshott in February slammed both political parties for being unwilling to focus on the oversight task at hand.

He said at the time if the two parties could not transcend party politics and provide audited financial results and targets to track performance rather than political statements, the latest report may be the last.

The comittee had previously asked to receive the shareholder ministers' NBN Co performance report one month ahead of the biannual hearings, but was instead delivered it just two weeks' before the next hearing on April 19.

Full text of the report below.

Report to Joint Committee on the National Broadband Network on NBN Co