Australians are all too familiar with the ‘challenges’ associated with the rollout of the national broadband network and NBN Co today have announced a change to address customer experiences. The company is launching a new monthly progress report to allow Australians to track its performance in improving services delivered on the nbn access network. Right now you may be thinking, what about the weekly progress report, how is this different?
Before we get to that, lets talk about this new #1 priority. Ensuring customers have a great experience transitioning to the NBN is a difficult task, with multiple parties involved (nbn, retailer, contractor to do the installation), but surely the first priority for the project should be rolling it out, followed closely by ensure all users have a great experience.
Now the new report documents NBN Co’s performance in improving its service quality, co-operation with industry partners and progress with the network rollout. It includes key measures such as the number of homes and businesses which can connect to the nbn access network, but also covers network congestion levels, the percentage of homes and businesses on a 50mbps (download) wholesale speed plan or higher, installations completed right the first time and the average number of faults.
NBN Co’s Chief Customer Officer – Residential, Brad Whitcomb said,
We have listened to the community’s feedback and want to assure all Australians that end-user’s customer experience is the number one priority of every employee working at NBN Co. Our team has been working very hard over the course of the last 12 months as the network became available to a critical mass, to help ensure the experience of connecting and using services over the nbn™ access network is meeting and exceeding end-user’s expectations.
Significant progress has been made to improve the speeds delivered during peak hours, with internet and phone providers now provisioning more bandwidth on the network than before we announced our new wholesale pricing options. This has helped to relieve bandwidth congestion on the network from an average of around four hours to 12 minutes per week and to deliver improved broadband services for millions of Australians.
We’ve also demonstrated we will prioritise the experience of people who have connected to the nbn™ access network, over the pace of rollout, by temporarily pausing sales on our HFC network until we can ensure the network delivers the optimal service it is capable of.
The rollout of the nbn™ access network is an industrywide transformation of our nation’s telecommunications services and impacts every Australian – it’s critical that we continue to strengthen our systems and processes with our retail customers and delivery partners to ensure we are collectively prioritising customer experience.
We will continue to keep the Australian public abreast of the initiatives being undertaken to ensure continued improvement and commit to demonstrate our progress by making our results available to the public.
The rollout of the nbn™ access network is now more than halfway built with around one in three Australian homes and businesses already connected. NBN Co remains on track to complete the rollout of the network and connect eight million homes and businesses by the end of 2020.
CEO Bill Morrow is also talking about the change and features in the NBN’s latest video.
NBN Co’s February 2018 monthly progress report includes:
| Measure | Description | February 2017 | August
2017 |
November
2017 |
February 2018 |
| Homes and businesses ready-to-connect | The number of homes and businesses that can connect to a plan over the nbn™ access network by ordering via a phone and internet provider. | 4,200,000 | 5,800,000 | 6,500,000 | 6,300,000 |
| Homes and businesses connected | The number of homes and businesses connected to a plan over the nbn™ access network through a phone and internet provider. | 1,900,000 | 2,800,000 | 3,300,000 | 3,600,000 |
| Right first time installations | The percentage of homes and businesses that have their nbn™ equipment installed without additional work from NBN Co the first time the installation is attempted. | 87.00 | 87.00 | 87.00 | 89.00 |
| Meeting agreed installation times | Performance against agreed connection service levels: the percentage of homes and businesses that NBN Co connects to the nbn™ access network within its agreed service levels with phone and internet providers. | 91.00 | 90.00 | 92.00 | 92.00 |
| Average network bandwidth congestion
|
The average number of minutes of bandwidth congestion per week per service. | 290 (4 hours 50 minutes) | 297 (4 hour 57minutes) | 231 (3 hours & 51 minutes) | 12 |
| Fixed Line network congestion
|
The estimated monthly average percentage of homes and businesses who experience nbn™ access network congestion. | 0.034 | 0.100 | 0.168 | 0.119 |
| Uptake to higher wholesale plans | The percentage of homes and businesses on a
50Mbps (download) wholesale speed plan or higher; and
25Mbps (download) wholesale speed plan or lower, purchased from a phone or internet provider. |
16.00
|
16.00 | 16.00 |
25.00
|
| 84.00 | 84.00 | 84.00 |
75.00
|
||
| Network availability | Percentage of time the nbn™ access network is available and operating. This is calculated per NBN Co’s agreed service levels with phone and internet providers. This excludes planned network outages.
|
100.0 | 100.0 | 99.9 | 99.9 |
|
Closure of NBN Co faults within service levels |
The percentage of time NBN Co resolves faults within its agreed service levels with phone and internet providers. | 72.00 | 77.00 | 80.00 | 85.00 |
| Faults per 100 connected homes and businesses | The number of faults on the nbn™ access network per 100 homes or businesses per month. | 0.90 | 1.10 | 1.20 | 1.00 |
For more information, head to nbnco.com.au
