4 years ago
NEW ZEALAND SPEED DATA CRUSHES SPIN FROM PAUL FLETCHER & NBNCO
MICHELLE ROWLAND MP
According to the AFR, NBNCo executives have claimed it didn’t occur to them that Australians might want or need fast internet until COVID-19 arrived:
“NBN Co chief executive Stephen Rue says the surprise decision to spend $4.5 billion upgrading the older parts of the national broadband network to fibre was entirely based on the sudden shift in demand brought on by the pandemic.”
What a mind-bending claim from NBNCo, given Chorus in New Zealand published these demand figures about New Zealand’s Fibre to the Premise network in December 2019:
“NBN Co chief executive Stephen Rue says the surprise decision to spend $4.5 billion upgrading the older parts of the national broadband network to fibre was entirely based on the sudden shift in demand brought on by the pandemic.”
What a mind-bending claim from NBNCo, given Chorus in New Zealand published these demand figures about New Zealand’s Fibre to the Premise network in December 2019:
| New Zealand (Dec-19) | Australia (July-2020)
100 Mbps take-up | ~70% | 11%
1000 Mbps take-up | ~9% | < 0.1 %
100 Mbps take-up | ~70% | 11%
1000 Mbps take-up | ~9% | < 0.1 %
In other words: demand for the higher speeds that only fibre could deliver was soaring well before COVID-19 existed.
After spraying $51 billion on second-rate copper NBN, Australians deserve some straight answers about why their money and time has been wasted — not revisionism.