Telstra profit tumbles as nbn continues to drain revenue

The NBN company is under pressure to find its legs with new customers, but it has found nowhere to land.

The NBN’s biggest losers over the last few years have been customers who have switched to Fibre-to-the-Node (FTTN) or NBN Co’s fibre-optic cable networks.

Total revenue from FTTN/NBN Co over the last three years has been around $500 million, but customers who are upgrading to the Fibre-to-the-Node network have suffered massive losses.

The NBN revenue decline is due to Fibre-to-the-Home (Ftth) customers buying a bundle of fibre to the node and Ftth cables, which then go to businesses and home owners in the home rollout, rather than the customers switching fibre to their business premises.

But despite FTN customers switching to Ftth, it will have little effect on the average customer.

Overall Ftth penetration of 4.5 per cent of premises is still far below the peak rate for fibre to the premises (FTTP) in 2000, when it was 9.2 per cent of premises.

Overall in the year to June 2010, it stood at 9.4 per cent.

“Ftth deployment was largely driven by existing FTTP and FTTP+ network customers opting to move away from copper to fibre,” NBN Co’s Chief Operating Officer Rob King said.

“While fibre penetration is rising, the average customer does not see that increase.”

However, Mr King pointed out that many FTTN/FTTC customers simply don’t upgrade because they know they won’t see any financial benefit o텍사스 홀덤ver the life of their Ftt호 게임h contract.

Meanwhile, NBN Co’s chief executive Bill Morrow said the government, NBN Co and Telstra were in agreement that “annexation will continue”.

“I don’t think the [government and NBN Co] think ab로투스 홀짝out any change,” Mr Morrow said.

Mr Morrow also dismissed reports that NBN Co would take the financial hit of its Ftth/Fcntl contract after the government announced it would drop its opposition, saying the only option would be the company’s own Fcntl/fibre-to-the-node option.

“We are not doing any expansion, but we will be continuing to run a strong Ftth/FTTC [competition] and we have many strong Fibre-to