About one quarter of Australian homes and businesses will have direct fibre-optic cable broadband internet connections once the revised National Broadband Network is complete.
The company building the National Broadband Network, NBN Co, says it will continue connecting fibre optic cable to homes during 2014 before switching to building the coalition government's cheaper, fibre-to-the-node (FTTN) and other technologies network next year.
NBN Co said it would start building the mixed-technology network, which will have slower peak speeds than fibre-to-the-home, in 2015 after two trials of technology using existing Telstra copper cables to connect homes on the NSW central coast and in Melbourne's northern suburbs.
NBN Co executive chairman Ziggy Switkowski said the final NBN network would have about three million premises on all-fibre connections, with the remaining nine million on a mix of satellite, wireless, hybrid fibre pay TV cables and FTTN.
Confirmation of the trial came as NBN Co reported it had 130,759 customers connected at the end of 2013, with users spending an average $36.50 a month for their high-speed internet.
Only 80,000 of those customers are on fibre-optic cable connections, with the remainder on wireless or satellite links.
Reporting its half-year results for the first time, NBN Co revealed it lost $715 million in the six-months to December 31 after raising $47.8 million in revenue.
Capital expenditure in the period was $1.19 billion, with total "life to date" spending on the network - including plant, equipment and intangible costs - now at $7.3 billion.
Dr Switkowski, who was appointed as chairman last October after the federal election, said the NBN rollout is only three per cent complete after five years' work.
"Today's results, while showing incremental progress, are indicative of the complexities inherent in the original approach," Dr Switkowski said.
The company expects to lose money in coming years until user numbers and resulting revenue increases.
Dr Switkowski said the review of the NBN, which includes new negotiations with Telstra on access to copper cables, would accelerate the project.
NBN Co had 2,949 employees at a cost of $189 million at the end of 2013, up from 2,235 six months earlier.
Chief financial officer Robin Payne said there would be no further increase to headcount while the review of operations is under way.
There were an estimated 3,450 additional external workers on the project.
