News: Optus cautions NBN costs could rise

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Singapore Telecommunications Ltd (ASX:SGT) wholly owned subsidiary Optus, and Internode, have cautioned costs could rise if the National Broadband Network’s controversial wholesale pricing model is launched, according to The Australian Financial Review.



The internet service providers say that consumers and businesses will be struck with higher internet charges and that flat-fee packages would no longer exist if the model is introduced.



According to the paper, the NBN Co’s model will make internet service providers pay a baseline connection fee for customer’s connected through the high-speed network, and, a usage-based fee to carry aggregated traffic from groups of customers over the network.



In the first six months of the 2011 financial year, dual-listed Singapore Telecommunications posted a profit of $1.4 billion.