In an interview published by CommsDay, NBN Co CEO Ellie Sweeney noted that residential average revenue per user (ARPU) has reached $52, finally surpassing the long-standing $51 benchmark that earlier NBN leadership regarded as necessary for sustainable operation of the network.
After more than a decade, this is a symbolic milestone. The $51 figure dates back to the original NBN planning period and was later reaffirmed under subsequent leadership. Yet while the number itself has now been reached, the economic assumptions behind it warrant closer examination.
What does $51 mean in today’s dollars?
The $51 ARPU target was formulated around 2010. Adjusted for inflation, that benchmark now equates to roughly $75 per month in today’s terms. Viewed through that lens, the current $52 ARPU represents real progress, but it also shows that the NBN remains well below the revenue level originally envisaged as financially sustainable in real economic terms.
This is not a failure. It is a reminder that nominal targets lose meaning when separated from the economic context in which they were set. Meeting a headline number 15 years later is not the same as meeting its original intent.
Fibre is delivering the efficiencies long anticipated
The CommsDay interview outlines clear operational improvements: reduced truck rolls, lower fault rates, declining operating expenditure, rising EBITDA, and improving free cash flow before financing. These gains are closely linked to the steady replacement of legacy copper infrastructure with fibre.
That trajectory should not come as a surprise. During the early years of the NBN, including the period when I acted as a strategic adviser to then Minister for Broadband Stephen Conroy, I argued publicly and consistently that a predominantly fibre-based network would, over time, prove more effective for Australia’s economy and society. The case was not about technological purity, but about long-term efficiency, resilience and total cost of ownership.
When the NBN was later reconfigured from an all-fibre model to a mix of technologies, I also warned that apparent short-term savings would likely be offset by higher remediation, upgrade and operating costs. The data now emerging — fewer faults, fewer site visits, and structurally lower operating costs as fibre penetration increases — aligns closely with those earlier assessments.
This is not about reopening old political debates. It simply reflects a recurring reality of infrastructure economics: design choices made for short-term reasons tend to reassert themselves over time.
ARPU growth: demand versus regulation
NBN Co attributes recent ARPU growth to increased uptake of higher-speed tiers and CPI-linked wholesale pricing under its regulatory framework. Both factors matter, but they are not the same.
Migration to faster services reflects genuine demand as households and businesses rely more heavily on cloud services, streaming, remote work and digital platforms. CPI-linked pricing, however, is a regulatory mechanism designed to preserve revenue in an inflationary environment.
From a policy perspective, it is reasonable to ask how much of the ARPU uplift reflects organic value creation, and how much is driven by regulated price pass-through. This distinction matters, particularly in a period of sustained cost-of-living pressure, where wholesale price increases inevitably shape retail affordability and digital inclusion.
NBN as national investment, not a profit machine
It is also important to be clear about what the NBN was — and was not — designed to be. From the beginning, I have argued that it should be understood as a national investment in Australia’s economic and social foundations, not as infrastructure expected to maximise financial returns in a conventional commercial sense.
This view aligns with a long tradition in public-utility economics, articulated most clearly by economists such as Michael Hudson, who argue that essential services are most productive when they are provided at cost, or with modest public support, rather than treated as rent-yielding monopolies. When core infrastructure is “sweated for yield”, it raises costs across the economy, weakens competitiveness, and ultimately undermines living standards.
Seen in this light, broadband is not an asset to be optimised for revenue extraction, but a foundational input into productivity, innovation and social participation. Its greatest returns sit outside the NBN’s balance sheet — in lower transaction costs, wider market access, better public services and a more resilient economy.
A broader measure of success
Much of the public debate around the NBN has remained fixated on whether it can be judged a financial success or failure using narrow accounting measures. That framing increasingly misses the point.
As I have argued in earlier articles on the NBN, broadband infrastructure now underpins almost every dimension of economic and social life. Measuring its success primarily against a revenue benchmark conceived in a very different technological and economic era risks understating its real contribution.
Reaching $52 ARPU is an important operational milestone and a sign that the NBN is finally benefiting from structural improvements that should have arrived earlier. It is not, however, a conclusion.
The more meaningful question now is whether Australia has aligned its regulatory, pricing and investment settings with the strategic role that digital infrastructure plays in a modern economy. Judged on that basis, the economic and social returns from a robust, future-proof national network are likely to outweigh the NBN’s own financial outcomes many times over.
Paul Budde