“Trust us,” said Morrow when wrapping up today’s presentation of the nbn half yearly results for 2016 as he detailed the work going on towards having  8 million premises across the country connected to the nbn by 2020.

“The nbn is an important part of Australia’s future and there are a million different ways to get it done,” Morrow said, while expressing confidence that his team would get it done and bring fast broadband to every premise.

And, the figures presented today seem to support Morrow’s confidence that the nbn is indeed making progress towards the 2020 goals. In the six months to 31 December 2015:

•    The number of premises that can order an nbn service reached nearly 1.7 million, adding 450,00 homes and businesses to the nbn footprint

•    The number of homes and businesses with an active nbn service increased to 735,000, with nbn breaking the 10,000 activations per week threshold in December last year and will continue to climb

•    Total revenue earned in the half was $164 million, an increase of 152% compared to the prior corresponding period (6 months to end December 2014, with an average revenue per user (ARPU of $43 per month.

Morrow and the nbn’s chief financial officer Stephen Rue both said the results for the half year are on target with the corporate plan, and they are confident that by 2020 the nbn will start to pay for itself.

As Morrow and Rue pointed out, nbn has achieved growth across all key metrics, including end-user activations (up 128%) and total revenue (up 152%) to “set the course for another full year of successfully meeting its targets”

“Today’s result solidifies 2015 as a year where we met or exceeded every target the Board set for the company, and is a clear signal we will reach our fiscal year goals.

“There is accelerated growth across all areas of the network, while important milestones are continually achieved with customers, industry partners and the nbn workforce,” Morrow said.

“The organisation is focused on delivering our full year commitments and on bringing the benefits of fast broadband to more and more communities across Australia.

“We are now seeing the early signs of the network being built at scale, with the construction of Fibre-to-the-Node rapidly extending the footprint to homes and businesses.  We are also encouraged by the end-user demand in our initial launch areas.”

Morrow said the positive experience of connected end-users continues to build advocacy for services over the nbn network, with advocacy rates above 70% for all products including the recently launched FTTN technology.  

“Although it’s early stages for the latest inclusion to the multi-technology mix, research to date shows the same high percentage of FTTN connected end-users are likely to recommend the nbn network as those with an FTTP connections (both 70%).

Morrow points out that in the same initial research findings, the experience of FTTN connected homes and FTTP connected homes are the same high levels of satisfaction, with both groups scoring at 7.7 of out 10 for use of the technology - with fixed Wireless customers scoring their service even higher, at 8.1 out of 10.

“While we build out the network, we are also focused on improving all touch-points our customers have with nbn,” Morrow said.

“While it is early days for Fibre-to-the-Node, the positive experience is great progress as is the rate at which we can complete the build. Enhanced processes, greater efficiency and strong relationships are priorities for the company as a whole.”

According to Morrow, the performance across the company was complemented by a number of milestones in the multi-technology mix, including the commercial launch of the FTTN product - more than 120,000 premises are now ready-for-service (RFS), with demand strong in initial launch areas such as Bundaberg, QLD and Belmont, NSW.

Morrow said more than 600,000 premises are currently under construction and a further 1,289,000 in design and preparation, with nbn on track to meet the full year RFS footprint target of 500,000 FTTN premises.

And, he said the accelerated results for nbn in deploying FTTN is becoming evident, with approximately 34,000 premises being added to the footprint in January 2016, at a rate of 8,000 per week (12-week rolling average). This rate of growth was achieved four months after the product launch in late September 2015.