http://www.afr.com/p/technology/nbn_co_accused_of_creative_accounting_YVAv0cdvM6...

More than 30,000 homes and ­businesses counted as part of the national broadband network are un­able to order an NBN service, prompting criticism that rollout statistics for the project are being artificially inflated.

NBN Co will announce within days if it met its crucial milestone of passing at least 155,000 existing homes and businesses with fibre optic cabling by June 30. It will be the last key rollout metric released before the federal election.

NBN Co’s 2012 corporate plan says a premise is “passed” when all design and construction in an area has been completed and a consumer can “order and purchase a broadband service”.

Sources close to the project said NBN Co was likely to scrape through on its “premises passed” figure, but said ­“creative accounting” has inflated the publicly available numbers by including premises that cannot immediately receive a connection.

These include apartments, town houses, shopping arcades and industrial complexes that form part of what NBN Co labels “service class zero”, which means “a premises that is not NBN serviceable . . . but is in the footprint of the NBN Co fibre network”.

A telecommunications industry executive, who did not wish to be named, said that as of June 22 there were around 142,000 premises counted as “passed” by NBN.

Of these, 33,371 premises were counted as “service class zero” according to a database seen by The Australian Financial Review.

An NBN Co spokesman confirmed that, while included in the footprint, these premises would not receive a broadband connection until extra work was completed, in some cases 12 or 18 months in the future.

I favour a half baked scheme that delivers nothing..you know..the same one as Mr Abbott is offering 

adelcrow wrote on Jul 7^th, 2013 at 6:21pm:


And Rudd's paying $100B for a 3/4 baked scheme

philperth2010 wrote on Jul 7^th, 2013 at 6:52pm:


That's "capital expenditure"

How are they putting the cables into the ground?

philperth2010 wrote on Jul 7^th, 2013 at 6:55pm:


Of coiurse I do phil

It's the same credible link that all the other lefties use to make accusations about Abbott

Maqqa wrote on Jul 7^th, 2013 at 6:54pm:


Capital expenditure is putting it in the ground.  Its not an expense.

Explains why you dont understand the construction of assets and just think everything is an expense.

adelcrow wrote on Jul 7^th, 2013 at 7:16pm:


That smell would be you sniffing Rudd's @r$e

Maqqa wrote on Jul 7^th, 2013 at 10:54pm:


No its not, the labour cost is capitalised as well as it is a cost of producing the asset.

If you dont understand simple accounting methods no wonder you have no idea about whether something is on budget or not.