Title page
Contents
Membership of the Committee 3
Acronyms and Abbreviations 7
List of recommendations 9
Chapter 1. Introduction 13
Establishment of the Committee 13
Conduct of the inquiry 13
Acknowledgements 14
Note on terminology 14
References to Hansard 14
Structure of the report 14
Context of the inquiry 15
Broad overview of the NBN rollout 17
Statement of Expectations 23
Chapter 2. NBN Rollout Progress 24
Introduction 24
Stated goals of the rollout 24
Status of the rollout 25
User demand, usage patterns and trends 35
Rollout timetable and prioritisation 37
International comparisons with the NBN rollout 44
Committee view 47
Chapter 3. Overview of the NBN Customer Experience 49
Introduction 49
Process of getting NBN services connected and established 50
Issues with NBN service speeds and performance faults 62
Complaints processes and resolution 69
Committee view 74
Chapter 4. Sky Muster 77
Introduction 77
Customer experiences on Sky Muster 78
Opportunities for improving the Sky Muster service 89
Committee view 96
Chapter 5. Improving the NBN Customer Experience 99
Introduction of broadband service or performance guarantees 101
Role of the TIO in resolving customer complaints 104
Misleading information provided to customers and consumer education 110
Chapter 6. Data collection about customer satisfaction and network performance 123
Introduction 123
Customer satisfaction data captured by nbn 123
Complaints data collected by the TIO 126
Research on the customer experience by the ACMA 132
Committee view 134
Chapter 7. Industry, market and regulatory characteristics of the NBN rollout 136
Introduction 136
Industry characteristics 136
Market and regulatory characteristics 142
Chapter 8. Opportunities for the NBN to provide economic and social benefits 151
Introduction 151
Opportunities for economic growth and innovation 151
Expanding and developing the delivery of telehealth services 157
Improving digital inclusion 163
Participation in education and training 165
Committee view 169
Chair's dissenting report 171
Introduction 171
Performance measurement 171
Rollout progress 173
Meeting financial forecasts 176
Activations and service take-up 176
Upgrade paths 176
Sky Muster satellite services 177
Global comparisons 178
Serviceability of premises 181
Consumer experience 181
Appendix 1. Submissions received 183
Appendix 2 188
Tabled documents 188
Additional information 190
Answers to questions on notice 191
Appendix 3. Public hearings and witnesses 194
Table 1.1. Roles and responsibilities in the telecommunications industry 15
Table 1.2. NBN rollout-network technology 18
Table 2.1. Premises Ready for Service and activated-technology type 26
Table 2.2. Premises Ready for Service by technology type 28
Table 2.3. Premises activated by technology type 29
Table 2.4. Percentage of users on available speed tier plans 37
Table 3.1. Current attainable Rate Downstream (Mbps, Layer 2) 65
Table 4.1. Australian satellite services since 2005 77
Table 4.2. Cumulative active end users and premises ready for service 78
Table 4.3. Sky Muster premises covered and activated by jurisdiction (as at 31 August 2017) 78
Table 4.4. Sky Muster speed tier mix (Mbps) 84
Figure 2.1. Cumulative premises RFS and activated 27
Figure 2.2. Cumulative premises ready for service by quarter (by technology) 27
Figure 2.3. Cumulative active end users by quarter (by technology) 28
Figure 2.4. Cost per premises 30
Figure 2.5. Revenue projection published in Corporate Plan 2017 31
Figure 2.6. Revenue projection published in Corporate Plan 2018-21 31
Figure 2.7. Total revenue by quarter (by technology type) 32
Figure 2.8. Progress of rollout by jurisdiction 33
Figure 3.1. Connection delay complaints vs. number of newly activated premises per quarter 51
Figure 3.2. TIO fault complaints for NBN services vs number of premises activated over time 62
Figure 3.3. Factors affecting internet speed and performance 64
Figure 4.1. Sky Muster equipment 80
Chair's dissenting report Figures
Figure 1. (Omit) 172
Figure 2. demonstrates the rapid rollout since switching to an MTM model 173
Figure 3. Speeds required to support typical household and office applications (Mbps) 175
Figure 4. (Omit) 179