Information on the first of the nbn™ CPI wholesale price increases.

As you may have seen in the telecommunications news recently, the industry, and in particular nbn™, is currently in quite a state of change.

With rapid advancements on several fronts on the nbn™ side, Launtel has been working hard to update several internal systems and our network infrastructure so that we can take full advantage of the upgrades and provide the fastest possible speeds to our customers as soon as they become available.

These improvements include physical network upgrades on the nbn™ (mainly the rollout of FTTP to replace the copper FTTN and FTTC networks), new network speed capabilities (the wide scale upgrades to Fixed Wireless speeds that are enabled once tower and in house infrastructure is upgraded) and the planned upgrade of FTTP plans to multi gig once product submissions are concluded and then in home and street infrastructure is upgraded. It’s an exciting and busy time.

On the regulatory side, the ACCC agreed with nbn™ and the Retail Service Providers about the rules and standards for the industry over the next several years and this construct has been in place since December 2023.

This has been referred to in the press as the Special Access Undertaking (SAU)

https://www.nbnco.com.au/rsps/special-access-undertaking-sau

And now that the new financial year is about to start, we have new wholesale pricing coming into effect for all existing nbn™ wholesale plans due to the annual CPI increases announced in the SAU.

This is a relatively new phenomenon for the telecommunications industry as generally wholesale prices go down over time as the technology improves, economies of scale are reached and infrastructure investments are paid down. But with the nbn™ being a taxpayer owned asset, there is an expectation that the network long term goal is to cover all costs and provide a return to the Australian taxpayer. With the network rollout now all but complete and the revenue forecasts being refined, the expectation is that the nbn™ will have to take CPI into account each year to ensure future revenue figures meet the forecast.

The first year of these CPI increases is this year, and whilst it does not affect all speed tiers uniformly, it does affect the base level speed tiers equally with a $2.22 ex GST wholesale price increase across the services in this range. Whilst we have moved some prices up and some down across our product mix, this has resulted in a 10c per day increase to our most popular speed being the Home Fast 100/20.

There is also some good news with the nbn™ promoting the utilisation of the higher upload speed tiers such as the 250/100, 500/200 and 1000/400 with large price drops for these services. This has enabled launtel to reprice these services to a much more affordable daily price level of between $4.30 and $6.40 per day and we hope to see a lot more utilisation of these services going forward.

Another notable addition to our service offering is the introduction of higher speed tiers on the Fixed Wireless network. These speed options will be becoming available over the coming weeks and months as towers get upgraded. We’ll notify you if your premises is able to get these higher speed tiers and if your internal nbn equipment will need to be upgraded to do so.

Major Launtel callouts

• CPI increases from nbn™ for the entry level ‘Home Fast’ speed – Adding about 10c per day to this daily price.
• Prices dropping or steady for the nbn™ Home Superfast and nbn™ Home Ultrafast respectively.
• Price Drops in the higher nbn™ speed tiers (250/100 and above) allowing us to reduce the daily price by up to $2.60 per day.
• Removal of the NQFastAF (400/50) as the 1000/50 and 250/100 are now so close in price.

If you have not yet experienced the award winning customer and network experience provided by Launtel and are intrigued by the concept of daily pricing, check out our wide range of service offerings.

New customers get a free 1 week trial in place so that new customers can explore our award winning network and awesome customer service.

We’re sure you won’t regret the move!