[AusNOG] NBN Review shows FTTN blowout of 12bn, FTTH blowout of 29bn

[francisfides at mailup.net]

A review of the National Broadband Network says the Coalition's plan
will be billions of dollars more expensive than promised before the
election.

The strategic review states the Government's proposed
fibre-to-the-node-based network would require around $12 billion more
than estimated in the Coalition's April 2013 policy.

Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull said his policy assumed NBN Co
was doing better than it actually was.

"We assumed they would be able to meet their forecasts and a year
earlier than has been assumed in the study," Mr Turnbull said. 

He said the Government would not pay any extra to NBN Co and that the
extra funding would come from debt.

The Coalition's policy promised to give most Australians the option to
connect to a 25 megabit per second network by 2016, but the review found
that was extremely unrealistic.

It found less than half of the country would have access to those speeds
by 2016.

The Coalition's policy also promised to have 50mbps available by 2019
and the review supports this, with 91 per cent of premises expected to
have access to those speeds.

The report also found Labor's fibre-to-the-home approach would cost an
extra $29 billion in capital expenditure and take an extra three years
to rollout.

The review found that the current corporate plan had "blind faith" in
the achievability of the targets. 

"The Independent Assessment concluded that ... it is extremely
optimistic and very unlikely to be achieved," the report said.

It also canvassed a scenario looking at the cheapest possible fibre to
the home option, which was still assumed to be $20 billion more
expensive.

From:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-12-12/coalition-nbn-plan-to-cost-billions-more-than-promised/5152246

Link to the report here:
http://www.nbnco.com.au/about-us/media/news/strategic-review.html

-- 
  
  francisfides at mailup.net