NBN Co won’t try to up average revenue this year

afr.com:

NBN Co will not seek more revenue per user this year despite increasing inflation, as it prepares its fourth attempt at setting new pricing for retailers including Telstra, TPG and Optus.

Its annual results filed on Thursday showed marginal revenue growth as it faces slow upgrades to fibre connections and declining satellite subscribers because of Elon Musk’s Starlink business taking regional customers.

NBN Co chief executive Stephen Rue has defended the corporation’s satellite offering. Alex Ellinghausen

Under the Coalition, the NBN had been desperately trying to hit a revenue target of $52 per user per month so that it could be sold off to private investors. But the Albanese government junked that goal, freeing up NBN Co chief executive Stephen Rue to declare that residential revenue per user for this financial year will not increase beyond the $47 that the network earned in 2023.

The move could help the government-owned broadband company to have its pricing approved after three failed attempts. And if the flat revenue is a product of flat or decreased wholesale pricing, it could also provide cost-of-living relief to people as spending on other basic household services surges.

NBN Co sets pricing and access conditions for retailers via an agreement called the special access undertaking, which is overseen by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.

The NBN lodged a variation to that agreement in early 2022 but withdrew it in the middle of that year after Communications Minister Michelle Rowland declared privitisation was off the table for the foreseeable future. It tried again in November 2022, and proposed further changes in an attempt to help get that version across the line in March. But the ACCC knocked