<html><head><base href="x-msg://1583/"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><br><div><div>On 12/08/2010, at 2:30 PM, Tim McCullagh wrote:</div><br><blockquote type="cite"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-size: medium; "><div bgcolor="#ffffff"><div><font face="Arial" size="2"></font> </div><div><font face="Arial" size="2">I really think a lot of people need to sit down and add up the costs of building an NBN. Not that many would have any idea of the costs. I have been told that tas nbn cost $300 million for 4000 homes past with less than 50% taking up a "free connection" with less than 100 connected. If this is correect it tells me it is a financial disaster in the making.</font></div></div></span></blockquote><div><br></div><div>According to Quigley in Commsday today:</div><div><br></div><div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11.5px/normal Times; ">"NBN Co CEO Mike Quigley also told media that the project in Tasmania had come in at between 5- 10 percent under budget, with the total budget of the project reportedly around A$37 million."</div></div><div><br></div><div>That, for a fairly small set of builds (5000 houses in 3 sites) with obvious fixed costs which would be amortised over more houses in a larger set of builds. </div><div><br></div><div>It's only just been launched so the take up rate is a bit moot at the moment.</div><div><br></div><div>MMC</div></div><div>
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