[AusNOG] $300 NBN Connection Fee for FTTP?

[Mark Delany]

On 19Mar18, George Fong allegedly wrote:
> So embarrassment. I should have known about this. Thanks for the responses ppl.

A point that may not be obvious is that this newish fee is part of the
policy change that came with Turnbull's MTM. The goal is to offload
costs onto consumers to reduce the apparent cost of the NBN.

Originally there was no such thing as a new development fee imposed on
consumers - which is where your confusion may have originated.


Similarly, another cost that has been offloaded onto consumers as part
of the MTM is the cost of the NTD, more usually now a VDSL modem.

There is no reason why the MTM version of NBNCo could not have
continued direct funding of the NTD by providing a
standard/managed/suported VDSL modem for FTTN/FTTC technology... just
as it provides a fibre NTD for FTTP. But shuffling costs from NBNCo to
consumers has political benefits.


Between the modems, the RSP support implications and the new
development fee, the MTM strategy has probably shuffled $2-3billion of
indirect costs into direct costs on consumers and RSPs. A tidy sum
when your goal is to make the apparent NBN cost appear lower, albeit
at the expense of making the total cost higher.


So George, make sure that fee gets paid as it makes the NBN look $300
cheaper than it actually is.


Mark.