NBN Co strategic review inaccurate and unreliable

The Senate Select Committee on the NBN has raised concerns about the accuracy and reliability of the strategic review.

The committee has found that the revised outlook includes financial manipulations and other irregularities, including the exclusion of approximately $4 billion in incremental architecture savings, assumptions of delay in the revised deployment schedule that is at odds with NBN Co’s current run rate, assumptions on higher unit costs for the fibre build that add $14.4 billion in capital expenditure and overly pessimistic revenue assumptions.

The committee has also rejected the deployment of higher-quality broadband (FTTP) to high-value suburbs and the deployment of inferior broadband (FTTN) to low-value suburbs. As a Government Business Enterprise, the NBN Co should not have a rollout strategy that favours one suburb over another, says the committee.

The committee makes five recommendations, including submission of a revised strategic review with details of only two scenarios: an optimised FTTP rollout and a revised multitechnology mix rollout that is based on actual costs for FTTN and HFC derived from discussions with Telstra, Optus and vendors. “This scenario should also include all costs to undertake the flagged upgrades to 100 Mbps by 2023, 250 Mbps by 2028 and 1000 Mbps by 2030.”

Prior to submission, the review, says the committee, should be scrutinised and verified by an independent advisor engaged by the Department of Communications and the Department of Finance.

In the meantime, the NBN Co should accelerate the rollout and “proceed free from political interference”.

The report further recommends investigation of the governance processes between NBN Co and the Minister to determine how a document with the deficiencies evident in the strategic review was produced and signed off by the NBN Co Board and the Minister