NBN Co says 9 million homes by 2018: believable?

After previously promising 8 million homes by 2020, NBN Co now says at least a million more homes will be connected two years sooner - do we believe it?
 

nbn, the company building the NBN network, which has already built itself a new logo, says in a media release today that 9.1 million homes and businesses will be ‘ready for service by 2018.’

The news comes as part of its ‘comprehensive corporate plan’, which iTWire colleague Graeme Philipson also wrote about this morning in terms of nbn, the company, unsurprisingly hitting its ‘revised’ targets.

The company explains that ‘the introduction of additional technologies, a projected boost to the size of the construction workforce and newly-signed agreements with the construction industry are anticipated to see the total number of premises that are able to connect double over each of the next three years to 9.1 million.’
It also advises there will be an eight-fold increase on today to 4.4 million activations 2018, a ten-fold increased to $1.7 billion in annual revenue for FY18, and that construction is set to be ‘complete in Tasmania and the Northern Territory.’
nbn says these forecasts ‘are contained in the company’s first comprehensive Corporate Plan, which was published today’, but at the Corporate Plan page of the nbn site, it’s not there yet at time of publication.
The plan that is there at the moment, surely soon to be replaced, is the Corporate Plan covering 2014-2017 released in November 2014 - so keep a look out at the link above for when the old plan is replaced by the new plan.
nbn’s CEO, Bill Morrow said: “This is a bold plan that puts us in striking distance of our ultimate goal of delivering better broadband to every Australian by 2020.
“The steps we have taken over the past 12 months have already delivered increases in revenue, activations and serviceable premises. The work to date has also given us a more accurate picture of the actual costs of the build.
“This enables us to set the course for the move to the exponential growth of the rollout.”