NBN 'on track for WA now'
The new head of NBN Co has urged WA residents to remain patient with the rollout of the high-speed network, saying it is a simple reality that not everyone will get the NBN at the same time.
With three months in the top role behind him, former Vodafone chief executive Bill Morrow said mistakes had been made but guaranteed the NBN was rolling out as "quickly and soundly as possible".
In Perth to visit providers such as iiNet and about 100 Perth-based NBN Co employees, Mr Morrow said he recognised there was confusion and frustration surrounding the network and it was his job to turn that around.
"The most common type of question and set-up that I get is . . . why haven't I got it at my house?" Mr Morrow said. "And I recognise we've been talking about this (the NBN) for four or five years. But the reality is we've been a bit disorganised. But we now know the root issues and we're addressing those."
In many ways, the NBN Co chief is hamstrung on the speed of the rollout.
On one side the NBN is being held up by new negotiations with Telstra over the connection to Telstra's existing copper network for the "last mile" to the home, under the coalition's fibre-to-the-node model.
The negotiations - which one industry expert said could be worth as much as $98 billion over the next 55 years - were due to be wrapped up this month but industry insiders now expect a result towards the end of the year.
Mr Morrow said the Telstra negotiations were progressing well but declined to go into detail. Another spanner in the works is the impending cost-benefit analysis of the NBN by Michael Vertigan, expected "mid this year".
The NBN has so far passed 34,768 established or "brownfields" homes in WA, yet only 3599 have connected to the service.
