NBN Co upgraded “more than 217,000” premises to full fibre in the back half of last year, a significant increase equivalent to three-quarters of what it achieved in the previous financial year.
The company today reported that it had upgraded “more than 594,000 premises” to fibre under its fibre connect program as of December 31.
It had made around 375,000 upgrades at the end of June last year, meaning it added somewhere between 217,000 and 219,000 upgrades in just six months to wrap up calendar year 2024.
That places NBN Co well ahead of its 300,000 upgrades a year target for FY25 and FY26 – and could see the company trouble its elevated target of 500,000 upgrades a year, which it had not expected to do until FY27.
The company attributed the result to a confluence of factors, including its progress with deploying fibre into streets, as well as greater awareness among users of who can order an upgrade.
In addition, a portion of the growth reflects a program by NBN Co to get customers off chronically underperforming copper lines and onto fibre.
“We have seen all of the major retailers in this market become extremely competitive in the fibre space,” chief customer officer Anna Perrin said.
“There’s an absolute understanding amongst our retailer base that a fibre customer has a better experience, and all of our retailers are looking to offer the best experience possible to their customer base.
“Over the last few months, there are a number of things that we’ve done in-market in partnership with the retailers to help improve the process and increase demand, but mainly the focus has been on making sure we’ve got the right information out there in-market about what’s available.
“One of the key things that we’re seeing through our research is that sometimes Australians simply don’t know that fibre is now available at their home, so we’re really working closely with the retailers on that awareness piece.”
Perrin also noted that the decision to fast-track customers on underperforming copper is now being reflected in the fibre connect program numbers.
This cohort of customers does not have to order a minimum 100Mbps service in return for an upgrade, which is a condition that applies to other would-be upgraders.
However, Perrin said that once customers on underperforming lines had fibre, they often opted for a faster plan anyway.
“One of the really pleasing things in that program is we’ve seen that even though we’ve taken away the requirement, 41 percent of all those customers are choosing a higher speed tier even though they don’t have to,” she said.
Perrin said that overall demand for fibre upgrades is now averaging “about 8000 orders per week”.
In response to a question from iTnews, chief network officer Dion Ljubanovic also revealed that the fibre overbuild work program is also tracking ahead of schedule, which has flow-on benefits for NBN Co and retailers in being able to offer upgrades to more people.
“We are trending very well in regards to the fibre construction program compared to where we expected to be,” Ljubanovic said.
“The volume of activity that we’re doing in the street, unlocking fibre where copper exists today for customers is ahead of plan, and that just means there’s more marketability and opportunity for retailers to provide that product to customers.”
In its first-half results for FY25, NBN Co said that residential average revenue per user (ARPU) climbed $2 to $49, due to regulated price increases and higher uptake of faster services.
New CEO Ellie Sweeney said the company is on track to meet its FY25 guidance.
Total revenue for the half was $2.87 billion, up four percent on the corresponding half in the last financial year.