NBN Co focused on momentum and morale

NBN Co today reinforced its momentum, confirming it had exceeded nearly every major forecast set by the company’s Board of Directors for the first time. 

NBN Co Chief Executive Officer, Bill Morrow said: “Our goal is to deliver fast and reliable broadband to all Australians enabling the nation to benefit from an increasingly digital future. 

“We are proud of the momentum and the progress we have made to stabilise the rollout. At 30 June 2014, the network had been made ready for service for 658,000 premises, we had activated more than 210,000 homes and businesses and had made substantial steps in our transformation strategy.”

Mr Morrow noted some of the key progress made in the second half of the Financial Year:

• the appointment of a new leadership team; 

• a reinvigorated focus on customer-supplier relationships;

• a robust governance  tracking and decision making program; 

• individual accountability for decision making with well-defined performance metrics; and 

• a systemic approach to process management.

NBN Co met its forecast of more than 380,000 brownfield premises Ready for Service, (passing more than 422,000 premises under the old measure) and activating more than 105,000 services.

NBN Co had also overcome earlier issues in the New Development area such as housing estates and shopping centres passing more than 111,000 premises with near 46,000 of these premises activated. 

Mr Morrow noted the team had also quadrupled its efforts in Fixed Wireless over the 12 months. NBN Co closed out the Financial Year by switching on 366 fixed wireless facilities in the year, enabling access for more than 112,000 premises with more than 16,000 Australians already using the network.

"While there has been an ongoing effort throughout the year, these achievements are a result of the hardworking employees, contractors and third party partners under the direction of a new leadership team.

"We have seen a significant uplift in performance and morale in the past several months. This is important not only because we have surpassed our forecast, but because the team has done so in a year of incredible uncertainty and change,” Mr Morrow said.

Further evidence of momentum includes the NBN Co and Telstra construction pilot to trial 1,000 nodes in the Fibre-to-the-Node deployment across Queensland and New South Wales announced last month. 

"We are heading in the right direction and are very focused on creating an environment for our people that engenders success and translates to quicker access for all Australians to a fast, affordable NBN,” Mr Morrow said.

Improvements had also been made in customer experience as measured by satisfaction scores.

"While we still have a way to go on customer satisfaction during the installation process in particular, I believe we have identified some of the root causes behind some of the more common poor customer experiences. We will work hard to bring our scores up. At year end we achieved a customer satisfaction score of 6.4, just shy of a 6.7 target.

The financial details will be shared later in the year in NBN Co's annual stakeholder update. Mr Morrow noted: “I'm pleased to say revenue targets have been met and our expenditure has been managed within targets.”