| NBN Co Limited | |
| Type: | State-owned enterprise |
| Location City: | Melbourne[1] |
| Location Country: | Australia |
| Key People: |
|
| Industry: | Telecommunications |
| Services: | Wholesale data network |
| Revenue: | 5.3 billion (2023)[2] |
| Operating Income: | 133 million (2023) |
| Net Income: | −1.1 billion (2023) |
| Assets: | 37.94 billion (2023) |
| Num Employees: | 4,690 (2023) |
| Owner: | Australian Government |
NBN Co Limited, known as simply nbn, is a state-owned corporation of the Australian Government, tasked to design, build and operate Australia's National Broadband Network (NBN) as the nation's wholesale broadband provider. The corporation reports to two shareholder ministers: the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Communications.[3]
NBN Co was established on under the name of its company number, "A.C.N. 136 533 741 Limited". After the establishment, the Australian Government started referring to the company as "National Broadband Network Company", which became the de facto company name. It was officially named "NBN Co Limited" on . It traded as "NBN Co" until 26 April 2015 when it began trading simply as "nbn".
In 2019, NBN Co announced that by May 2020[4] retail service providers will be able to pool all their connectivity virtual circuit (CVC) bandwidth nationally.
In February 2020, the company announced that 6.7 million homes and businesses were connected to a plan over the nbn access network – compared with 4.9 million in February 2019.[5]
NBN Co developed a satellite internet program named Sky Muster aimed at rural areas. As of July 2023, $620 million had been invested.[6] However, the program experienced fierce competition from Starlink satellites. Sky Muster consists of two geosynchronous satellites orbiting over 35,000 km above Earth's surface, resulting in latency times around 600 ms (at 25 Mbps), compared to Starlink's latency of below 40 ms (for 100-200 Mbps).[7]
In February 2017, Bill Morrow (former CEO) stated that there is no significant demand for wired connections above 25 Mbit/s and consideration of upgrading the network will not be undertaken until demand for high-bandwidth services is proven.[8]
In August 2019, Stephen Rue (CEO), announced the completion of the $51 billion National Broadband Network by June 2020.[9] However, some service areas were still being rolled out in late 2020/2021 with FTTP to FTTN/FTTC premises.
On 6th May 2024, CEO Stephen Rue announced his departure from the company to take the CEO position at Optus.
The NBN network, at 2022, draws together wired communication (copper, optical and hybrid fibre-coaxial) and radio communication (satellite and fixed wireless networks) at 121 points of interconnect typically located in Telstra owned telephone exchanges throughout Australia. NBN Co{{Clarify}} also sells access for mobile telecommunication backhaul to mobile telecommunications providers.[10]
As a wholesale provider of broadband access through its level two networks, NBN provides broadband access predominantly to retail service providers (RSPs); these businesses on sell access to end users; both residential and business customers to access the internet.
At 30 June 2016, Telstra had 45.5%, TPG group had 24.8% and Optus had 12.4% of all end users connecting to the NBN.[11]
There has been a significant failure of the NBN to deliver nominal performance to end users. There has been contention between RSPs and NBN on the reasons for this. Bill Morrow, then CEO of NBN Co, admitted in 2017 that 15% of end users received a poor service through the NBN and were 'seriously dissatisfied'.[12] In addition, Morrow indicated that, at July 2017, prices and performance for end users were suppressed through a 'price war' between RSPs.[13] [14]
NBN Co contracts mainly with RSPs to provide wholesale broadband access, with limited supply of backhaul to other organisations (for example providing backhaul services to Vodafone).[10]