Good morning, everyone, and welcome to today's call to discuss Telstra's announcement. It will invest in two major telecommunication infrastructure projects. Telstra would like to begin by acknowledging the rich and diverse stories, cultures, and traditions of all First Nations people across country. I'm joining you today from the traditional lands of the Kulin Nation, and pay my respects to their elders, past, present, and emerging. On the call today are Telstra's CEO, Andrew Penn, Telstra's CFO, Vicki Brady, Telstra InfraCo CEO, Brendan Riley, Telstra Group Executive, Telstra Enterprise, David Burns, and myself, Nathan Burley, Head of Investor Relations. Andy and Vicki will make some opening remarks. We'll then open for Q&A with all the executives on the call, first for investors and analysts, and then media. For Q&A, please note that this call is about the two major infrastructure projects we have announced today.
We will not, we will not be addressing broader business trends or our first half 2022 results, which we look forward to discussing in detail on the seventeenth of February. I'll now hand over to Andy.
Well, thanks very much, Nathan, and good morning, everybody. Thank you for joining us, and, I hope your 2022 is starting safely and successfully for, for everyone. I think, you know, while there remains uncertainty in our world regarding the ongoing impacts of COVID, inflation, geopolitics, and other global dynamics, I think the one thing that we can all start 2022 with, with a degree of certainty about, is that the demand for connectivity is only going to continue to grow, you know, quite dramatically. That the massive increase in digital adoption that we've seen during COVID, the impact of hybrid working and studying, elements of which are clearly gonna be with us, for a very long time, if not forever. Certainly, in the case of Telstra, we're really embracing hybrid working.
The future growth of technology, IoT, the talk amongst the hyperscalers around the metaverse and the types of applications that are gonna become increasingly available, AR and, and VR, et cetera, is all going to drive demand, and I think structurally increase demand for bandwidth, demand for coverage, demand for capacity, demand for speed, for low latency. I think this is the world that we're looking excitedly towards. And against that background, as Nathan mentioned, and as we've announced this morning, we're very excited to announce two major projects today. The first is building the very sophisticated and extensive ground infrastructure and fiber network in Australia for our partner, Viasat, which is clearly one of the world's global leading satellite companies.
This will support their really technology-leading new Viasat-3 terabit-class global satellite system, which is a geostationary satellite, and I'll talk a little bit more about that in a second, with a contract which extends for 16.5 years. That's the first project, and then the second project is a major new fiber build to build state-of-the-art intercity capital dual fiber paths. The investment will add up to 20,000 new kilometers to our network, increase capacity for our already extensive optical fiber network.
So I think, you know, these two projects just really recognize the strengths of our existing infrastructure and capabilities, and they're a very exciting start to our T25 program, which is leveraging our T22 strategy, and in particular, the establishment of InfraCo as a standalone business, which is very, very well advanced and progressed. And putting it in a position to deliver profitable growth and value by improving access, utilization, and scale of our infrastructure. That's what we were setting up InfraCo to do, and that is what we're now further delivering in today's announcement.
I think also importantly, these two projects are gonna be critical to have the largest intercity capital fiber network in the country, which will help future-proof Australia's digital economy and help Australia meet its aspirations to be a world-leading digital economy by 2030, and at the same time, improving further connectivity in regional and rural Australia, which is also crucially important. I'll make a couple of more comments about each of the projects in particular, and then I'll hand over to Vicki to talk you through the financials. Firstly, on the Viasat partnership and project, one of the things I've always been at pains to really communicate and make clear is that to meet the growing demand for bandwidth and for connectivity in the future, we need multiples of different technologies that complement each other.
I can remember, about, three years ago, in the middle of 2019, when we were one of the world's first companies to launch 5G. You know, there was a lot of discussion, and I fielded a lot of questions at the time: "Is 5G gonna replace the NBN?" And questions along those lines. And my comment at the time was, "No, 5G will be an incredibly powerful and beneficial mobile technology and will absolutely provide broadband options for many, many customers, but ultimately, we need all technologies to work together to complement each other." And that's exactly what's transpired to be the case, with 5G and in support and working in parallel with NBN. And in the same way, satellite is another incredibly exciting area of innovation and technology development that will also complement the bandwidths, that are available today through other technologies.
That's both in the GEOSAT space and as well as in the LEOSAT space. Today's announcement is about a partnership with Viasat in GEOSAT. We have got other interesting and exciting initiatives happening in the LEOSAT space, and I hope to talk to you about those at a later point in time. Similarly, these two satellite technologies are going to complement each other over time.
But essentially, today's announcement is about providing the ground station capabilities for Viasat's new Viasat-3 satellites, which will offer 1 Tbps bandwidth to the ground, which will actually support data and video streaming speeds of up to 150 Mbps, and it will cover, you know, a whole range of different services, not only broadband and internet services, but also air to airlines, IoT, maritime, mining, backhaul, lots of different capacity uses, as well. And I think it's a clear demonstration of the potential that we have when we combine our Telstra Enterprise customer management and service capabilities with Telstra InfraCo's leading existing infrastructure assets and new build capabilities.
What we will be doing is we'll be co-locating Viasat satellite access nodes, their equipment at hundreds of our sites across Australia, and we'll build and manage the high-speed fiber links to each site. The network will connect the SAN sites to multiples of redundant data centers, that will also house the core networking equipment needed to manage the expected increase in data traffic. So this is a really exciting. And Viasat is at the leading edge of technology in the GEO-SAT space, and it's part of a global program that they have to cover the world, and this will be the Asia Pacific link of that program, which comprises three satellites overall. If I then turn to the second project, which is about Telstra's major new fiber investment.
This investment will deliver up to 20,000 route kilometers of ultra-high capacity, low latency fiber, that will enable transmission rates of up to 650 gigabits per second. That's 6 times today's common rate. It'll enable express connectivity between capital cities, routes such as Sydney, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, Sydney. The National Fiber Network project, it's a multi-year build, and it will commence at scale late this financial year, so in the coming months, and early trial and test deployments are already underway. We're also having discussions with key anchor customers for National Fiber Network. That's actually helping us really optimize the design and the execution and the build, including, in particular, the global hyperscalers, which are obviously becoming increasingly important to the telecommunications landscape, as well as local telecommunication companies, and our construction partners as well.
And as I said, these investments really leverage the opportunity that we've built through our T22 strategy and the establishment of InfraCo as a standalone business. They're consistent with that strategy to create value from InfraCo, including supporting our consideration of monetization opportunities over time. And our strong cash flows and T25 growth ambitions provide us the flexibility to make these strategic investments while maintaining the financial outlooks that we've previously committed to. And Vicki can talk to that a bit further now. So with that, I will hand over to Vicki. But look, I just wanted to say thank you for your time, and it's an exciting day for us, and I think the whole point about our T22 strategy is it's put us in a strong position to be able to do this.
As I said, T22 was a strategy of necessity. T25 is a strategy for growth, and that's what these investments will achieve for us. With that, over to you, Vicki.
Thanks, Andy, and good morning to everyone joining us this morning. I'll make a few comments on the financials across both of these projects before we go to Q&A. To deliver both the projects we've announced today, we expect to invest AUD 1.4 billion-AUD 1.6 billion outside our BAU CapEx envelope over the next 5 years. We expect to invest up to 70% of this total commitment across our T25 planning period, or approximately an additional AUD 350 million of CapEx per year over FY 2023 to FY 2025. Both of these projects are significant infrastructure investment opportunities that demonstrate the benefits of establishing our standalone infrastructure business, InfraCo. They are also consistent with our strategy to create value from InfraCo, including considering monetization opportunities over time.
Our strong cash flows and T25 growth ambitions provide us the flexibility to make these strategic infrastructure investments while maintaining flexibility to return excess cash to shareholders. Together, these investments are expected to deliver incremental long-term accretive growth. Telstra continues to expect cash flow to remain ahead of accounting earnings. CapEx, including this investment, is forecast to be approximately AUD 250 million per annum, lower than adjusted depreciation and amortization. Both projects meet our organic investment criteria and are consistent with our capital management framework, including our commitment to balance sheet settings consistent with an A-band credit rating. We expect these investments combined to deliver mid-teens IRR to reach per annum EBITDA contribution of approximately AUD 200 million by FY 2026, and to have a nominal payback period of approximately nine years.
There is no change to FY 2022 guidance, and we plan to complete our on-market buyback in FY 2022, as previously advised. We also remain committed to deliver all of our T25 financial ambitions. I'll now hand back to Nathan for Q&A.
Great. Thank you, Vicki. So just a reminder, to register a question it is star one, and star two to cancel. Our first question is from Kane Hannan, from Goldman Sachs. Go ahead, Kane.
Good morning, guys. Thank you for the update. Just three from me, please. I suppose firstly, just hoping you could talk about what gives you the confidence, I suppose, that this is actually incremental earnings coming through, and that it's not more of a defensive CapEx project, you know, given some of the things we've seen out in the press around competing networks that look quite similar. So I suppose that's for the first question. Secondly, you know, over the years, you know, we had the AUD 3 billion strategic investment, and we've now got this investment, you know, potentially some 6G upgrade by the time this one's done. So just interested how you think about the BAU CapEx and why you're splitting this out from that sort of spend.
Then finally, just from a dividend perspective, do we now really just need to see the EPS growth come through to grow your franked dividend? Or, you know, is there still scope for off-market buyback, on-market buybacks and sort of unfranked dividends? Cheers.
Thanks very much, Kane. It's Andy. And sorry, I can't remember, Nathan, I can't remember if I heard you mention or not, that Brendan Riley and David Burns are with us on the call today. So David obviously runs the enterprise businesses, and he's the lead on the satellite and the Viasat partnership. And, Brendan, obviously, as you know well, is the CEO of our infrastructure business. And I might, I think in terms of your first point, Kane, why do we have confidence as incremental earnings? I think on the satellite project, obviously, it is a very obvious incremental initiative and major project. And so, that clearly, I think, demonstrably does deliver that incremental nature of earnings as well.
And I think the second point on the fiber side, I would comment on, and I might get Brendan to make a couple of comments as well, and talk about the changing nature and the evolution of some of the customers. As I said in my intro, there's no doubt that we are seeing a structural increase in demand for bandwidth. I mean, yes, of course, our business is about providing connectivity and bandwidth, and we do invest in capacity over time. But the last 2-3 years in particular, not just because of COVID, but COVID I think has highlighted this, is just the rate of digital adoption and the rate of technology innovation, the whole hybrid landscape, working from home, working studying from home.
The adoption of IoT is gonna and we're seeing it with the hyperscalers who are coming through as a very significantly a new customer group within the telco space. We're just seeing that structural increase in demand, and we believe that will translate into structural increases and incremental economics as well. I'll get Brendan to comment on that in just a sec. I think to your question around, you know, how should you think about, you know, long-term capital? I mean, we've endeavored to be, and I think have been incredibly disciplined around our overall CapEx investments. We've brought our CapEx to sales ratio down. We've done that whilst accommodating the rollout of 5G. We said we would do that, and we've done that.
And I believe, you know, we'll continue to be able to do the same, when 6G comes along. Hopefully, 6G's not really on the agenda just at the moment, but certainly as we approach the end of the decade, that will become obviously another technology evolution. I think that part of the thing with 6G is we're also seeing open access radio access networks and also network software design networks as well, which will mean increasingly we'll be able to separate the hardware from the software, which will actually help in terms of improving the efficiency of CapEx and rollout of these new technologies. But these are two very significant structural opportunities for us to build growth in the future, and I think they will deliver incremental earnings to that which is otherwise in our financial aspirations.
I'll hand over to Brendan just to comment a little bit on his, his view on some of the customer dynamics and how that's changing, and then get Vicki to talk about the question on dividends.
Yeah, thanks, thanks, Andy, and Kane, thanks very much for the question. I think if we look at some of the global providers, you know, in the discussions that we've been in, one of the first things is they're moving very much to buying dark fiber as opposed to historically what they've bought as lit services. And their requirements in many parts of the world are now increasing at 100% a year. So when you look at that demand profile going forward, we think that's-
... a very attractive one. We haven't historically been in the dark fiber business, so we've just launched our first dark fiber products last year, and clearly, what we're talking about here, for those global providers, is a true state-of-the-art, you know, dark fiber national network, which provides super fast connectivity point to point. So we think that is absolutely a significant incremental market opportunity for us as a company. And then the second dimension of what we're building is that regional connectivity, the use cases that support David's business, the enterprise business, that Andy touched on. We think that is also incremental to what we have today and what we need to do.
So, I'll sort of pause there in summary, but we definitely see it as a significant incremental opportunity for the Telstra business.
And Kane, Vicki, just jumping in on your third question, around dividends. So as I spoke to-- obviously, with these investments included, we absolutely remain committed to our capital management framework and no changes to our T25 ambitions. You referenced underlying EPS, obviously, that's critical as we look at the dividend. And in terms of our T25 ambitions, as a management team, we're very focused on that underlying EBITDA. So the growth in underlying EBITDA at a CAGR of mid-single digits, that's obviously critical to translating through to underlying EPS growth, so that remains consistent, and as a team, our strategy and how we're executing, obviously very focused on delivering that.
In terms of flexibility, obviously, in our updated capital management framework that we issued last September, under the principle four there, we included investing for growth and returning excess cash to shareholders. As I referenced earlier, even with these investments, given any CapEx, still remains around AUD 250 million per annum below our D&A, we still retain flexibility from a cash point of view. And so, with these commitments and investments included, we remain, as I said earlier, committed to the capital management framework, which includes that maximizing our fully franked dividend and, seeking to grow it over time, and absolutely still committed, again, under principle four there, the ability to invest for growth and return excess cash to shareholders. Hopefully, that addresses that question. Back to you, Nathan.
Thanks, Vicki. Thanks, Kane. Our next question comes from Eric Choi from Barrenjoey. Go ahead, Eric.
Thanks, Nathan. I had three as well. First one for Brendan. Can I just drill into that dark fiber demand a little bit more? I wonder if you can give us some metrics on, say, how many dark fiber pairs or just fiber pairs you have on those routes today, maybe what these hyperscalers are asking for, and then where this investment will potentially take you to, and also how that sort of compares to, say, a HyperOne or a Vocus. The next question is for Vicki or Brendan. I guess your commentary around a mid-teens IRR and nine-year payback suggests that that EBITDA will escalate above that AUD 200 million you've called out. So can you just give us an idea of what you're projecting that fully ramped up EBITDA to be?
And then sorry to harp on this point, Vicki, but just back to the dividend, it sounds like there's no change to your dividend growth aspirations. So just to be crystal clear, in a scenario where Telstra delivers EPS above 16 cents in FY 2023, is it still on the table for Telstra to lift the dividend then, and maybe with the potential for an unfranked dividend as well? Or does anything from today in terms of free cash flow impacts change your willingness to do that? Thanks.
Sounds like that's you, Vicki, and Brendan, so I'll let you maybe lead, Vicki.
Yeah, thanks for that, Andy. Maybe Brendan, do you wanna talk to the fiber demand side first, and then I can address the last couple?
Yeah, thanks. Thanks very much, Eric, for the question. In terms of our current intercapital network, we really haven't been in the dark fiber business with that network, in terms of some of the use cases that we're talking about. So building a new state-of-the-art network that really services that dark fiber opportunity, we think is pretty important. What we're being asked to design and build is obviously massive capacity, low speeds, very, very low attenuation. So as Andy mentioned before, you're gonna see a sixfold increase in speed, a sixfold increase in capacity, and in terms of the fiber strands, you know, an increase probably a little bit beyond those multiples.
So the reason that in terms of the potential customer conversations we're having, what obviously they're looking for is the ability to engage in long-term commercial arrangements with the latest technology that provides substantial headroom for growth. Because deploying the infrastructure, the control mechanisms they wanna have on these networks, to support all of the services that we consume, you know, the switching costs, you know, are reasonably considerable. So that's why we've designed what we have. That's why we're going to build and deploy what we're talking about. It is a competitive market, Eric, so there's a lot more detail we have, and maybe we can get into that in a little bit more detail, in sort of more private investor discussions. Thank you.
Thanks, Brendan, and Eric, let me now address your second to the other two questions. So firstly, on the mid-teens IRR, and then, yes, I spoke to FY 2026, we would expect EBITDA contribution to be around AUD 200 million across these two projects. You're right, it does grow beyond that. Obviously, these are very long-term investments. The Intercity Fiber project, you know, we've looked at over a 25-year period, so it's a strategic long-term investment. And I thought the FY 2026 number was an important marker, Eric, just to give a sense of where we expect to be by FY 2026. And yes, we would expect growth on that, but I won't go into exactly all of the assumptions. I think based on the mid-teens IRR, I suspect you'll have some estimates of your own on that.
Then on the dividend, again, just to be really clear, there is no change on our position on dividend. It absolutely remains consistent, and as I said, as a management team, absolutely focused on underlying EBITDA, which can translate into underlying EPS growth. And as I said, we retain flexibility in terms of our cash flows are strong. We remain inside all of our credit metrics for that A band rating. So there is no change as a result of these investments. And, really, you know, I think that's because we're in a position now, having executed on T22, we do have the cash flows in a good place, and obviously, we've got the T25 growth ambition. So no changes in our view in terms of dividend.
We did address in the capital management framework, we put that principle four into the updated framework to make it clear that, you know, we would look at investing for growth and returning excess cash to shareholders, and that could happen in a number of ways. So, Nathan, I'll hand back to you.
Thank you, Vicki. Our next question is from Lucy Huang from Bank of America.
Thanks, Nathan, and thanks, Angie, Vicki, and team, for taking questions. I've just got three. So firstly, in terms of that AUD 200 million EBITDA number by FY 2026, just wondering if you can give us a sense as to whether that majority of the number is coming from that Viasat contract, or are you expecting some substantial commitments to come through from the Intercity Fiber project? And then just secondly, with the Intercity Fiber, just I guess, how early do you think we can get some commitments from some of the hyperscalers or even, you know, potentially the NBN? And then just thirdly, with the Viasat project, just wondering if you can give us some color into, I guess, the tender process. Were there other bidders for the project, for example?
Just wanted to get a sense as to how competitive it was. Thanks.
Do you want to, Vicki or Sandy, do you want to take the, the first one and then pass over to Brendan on Intercity Fiber, and then David can make some comments on the Viasat project?
Yeah, absolutely. And Lucy, thanks for the question. I'm not—I won't break up EBITDA across the two projects, because obviously there's a number of dynamics going on in the build and operate phases of both projects. But maybe just to give you a sense, if it's helpful, over that T25 planning period, where we've talked of spending up to 70% of the total commitment, which is around AUD 1 billion of CapEx, if you look at that, a little under a third of that relates to the Viasat project, with the remainder going into the Intercity Fiber build. But so that gives you a sense, and then combined, FY 2026, we see being at around AUD 200 million of EBITDA contribution across the two projects. Andy, back to you.
Maybe go to me-
Oh, sorry, Brendan.
Just on the second question, Lucy. Yeah. So yeah, we've—look, we've been working for a little while now under confidentiality arrangements with a number of parties on opportunities. Obviously, today's announcement changes that, so we're able to talk a lot more openly about it. But yeah, certainly our intent to progressively sign, you know, major, major anchor tenants and customers to the project. And we'll certainly look forward to updating you in the weeks and months ahead on that. Thanks.
David, do you wanna make some comments on the Viasat partnership?
Yes. Yes, please. Lucy, to your question—This has been quite a long engagement with Viasat. They did undertake their own assessment of the Australian marketplace and providers, and we have been working with Viasat for about the last 12 months to complete the design, the commercial discussions, and ready for today's announcement. So, that, that's what the process has been. Given the significance of the hundreds of network points that they need across Australia, it's quite an engineering discussion and design and feat, and so it's taken a little bit of time to put that together, but we've been working one-on-one since then.
Thank you. Our next question is from Tom Beedle from UBS. Go ahead, Tom.
As well, just following on Kane's question, just around cannibalization, maybe just asking it a bit differently. I mean, to what extent will your new fiber network replace or upgrade existing fiber networks? And then how much capacity on this new network might be used by your existing customers on existing services? And does that AUD 200 million EBITDA number include an assumption that maybe existing customers might upgrade their services or buy new services, just given you've you know built this new network? The second question is just on the IRR assumptions and around fiber as well. What type of utilization rates are you assuming there?
And just finally, on CapEx, you know, once these projects are all complete, what type of maintenance—what level of maintenance CapEx might these projects require once it's completed? And also, I guess if there is some replacement of existing networks, you know, how much might you save on maintenance CapEx on existing infrastructure? Thanks.
Brendan, do you want to maybe just talk to the, you know, the first and third points, which is really to what extent is there potential for cannibalization? And to what extent, you know, is there incremental demand, both from new customers and existing customers, I think is, if I interpret Tom's question correctly, and then, the related or the additional point, which is, which I think, you know, may help address the question on utilization rates as well. And then I think the second part is really: What's the post-build CapEx implications, both incrementally and/or, efficiencies and savings? And then I don't know, Vicki, if you've got any other comments on the IRRs.
Yeah. Thanks, Andy. And thanks for the questions, Tom. The way that I like to think about it is, if you're looking at everything we consume, and given most of it comes from different parts of the world, you have to get all of the data and information from another part of the world to, you know, major sites in Australia. So data center to data center, as fast as you possibly can. And that's predominantly a dark fiber opportunity, and that's an incremental opportunity, fundamentally for us. So there isn't much cannibalization there. The second thing we need to do is once all of that information and data is in the country, then we have to reticulate it and get it to all of us, get it to homes, get it to businesses.
And there's clearly continued growth in fiber demand to support that, just like we've got growth in our mobile network, and we need to build new networks, and that drives incremental growth. It's certainly true that we will be retiring parts of our existing intercapital network once the new network is built. And to your point, that'll help us address what potentially could be life cycle management headwinds if we try and stick with the existing network for too long. We haven't disclosed the specific maintenance CapEx in detail, but typically, you know, that's a low percentage of the total CapEx that's required to operate and build networks.
But we, we think it's a combination of complete new workloads, servicing growth on the existing workloads, and being very, very efficient in life cycle managing and replacing, some of the, existing aging networks that we have. I'll pass back to, Andy or Vicki.
Yeah. Was there any other comments you wanted to make, Vicki, on?
Yeah, I mean, just, just a comment. I know, Tom, you asked specifically about utilization assumptions. I won't go into those, but as you would expect, any, any investment of this magnitude, you know, strategic infrastructure business case, we've applied a lot of discipline and rigor in putting those assumptions together. And you know, I think there's huge opportunity here, as Andy has spoken about, in terms of just how structurally demand requirements are changing. And so, it's a very rigorous business case, and as I said, confidence in those mid-teens IRR across these projects. Nathan, back to you.
Thanks, Vicki. Our next question comes from Entcho Raykovski from Credit Suisse. Andre?
Thanks, Nathan, and morning, all. I'll go with three questions as well. The first couple should be pretty straightforward. I guess firstly, can you give us some guidance on the depreciation profile of this investment, just, I guess, number of years that we should be thinking about depreciating it? Secondly, how should we think about the expected margin of these projects once they're up and running? I appreciate you've given us an EBITDA number, but is it a similar EBITDA margin to InfraCo fixed at around 65%? And the third one, I mean, this has been asked already, but if I can ask it in a different way. It's around the deployment of intercity fiber.
I'm just conscious that you have spoken over the years about pressure in that wholesale and enterprise space, and there being pressure on margins, and I appreciate your comments around dark fiber. But I guess, how do you think about the risk that your competitors deploy the same infrastructure and erode the mid-teens IRR that you've spoken about today? I guess what I'm trying to get to is, what gives Telstra a competitive advantage to roll out this fiber and be successful in generating those returns?
Thanks very much, Enzo. I think, you know, Brendan can talk very clearly about our strategic differentiation, so we might get him to do that on your last point. But Vicki, do you want to take the first couple of questions-
Couple of questions.
- depreciation guidance and, margin?
Yeah, absolutely. And thanks, Enzo, for those questions. On the first one, what we're investing in here is largely infrastructure, very long life infrastructure. So, in terms of depreciation profile on this investment, very long asset lives. So, you know, well beyond 20 years, 20-30 year asset life, so long term. So that's how I'd be thinking about depreciation profile. And then on the second question around the expected margin, yes, I referenced EBITDA because I thought that would be the most useful in terms of that FY 2026 expectation of AUD 200 million. These will be high margin, high EBITDA margin revenue streams, just by nature, given obviously their big infrastructure investments, higher on CapEx, and then high EBITDA margins.
So, yeah, the way you're thinking about that, looking at sort of InfraCo's EBITDA margins, I think is a good way to think about it. They will be very high margin revenue streams. I'll hand over to Brendan.
Yeah. Thanks, Enzo. So the way we're designing the network, the technology, and how we're deploying it will give us competitive advantage. So we'll have an all-terrestrial dual-path network. We'll be using the latest high capacity, high speed, low attenuation fiber tech. We'll have paths which service that super fast need for point-to-point as well as regional. And I think if you put all of that together and look at what others have announced or what others have, I think that'll be a material differentiation point. The feedback that we're getting on this design and on this point, deployment from potential customers is extremely positive, and I remain very confident about our ability to you know to drive the differentiation and compete and win.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you, Brendan, Enzo. Our next question is from Darren Ng, from Macquarie. Darren.
Good morning.
Go ahead, Darren. Darren, have we lost you? Okay, looks like we've lost Darren. We'll go to Roger Samuel from Jefferies. Roger.
I'll stick with three as well. Firstly, just-
Operator, it looks like we've lost Roger as well.
Hmm. Can you hear me?
Yep, we can hear you. Go ahead.
Oh, sorry. Yep. Yep, sorry. Yeah, first question is on the Viasat contract. And I'm just wondering how secure that contract is for 16.5 years. Can they terminate the contract halfway through? And, you know, volume and pricing as well. Second question is just on your CapEx. If, yeah, if we look at HyperOne, they are building like similar distance of intercity fiber as well, and I think their CapEx budget is AUD 1.5 billion. So what you announced today, AUD 1.4 billion-AUD 1.6 billion for two projects. And yeah, so I'm just wondering if you're confident with that number.
Thirdly, from memory, back in 2016, you announced that the CapEx would increase by AUD 3 billion over the following three years. Yeah, I'm just wondering what, you know, what happened then, and wasn't it enough to upgrade your network, and now you have to spend another AUD 1.4 billion-AUD 1.6 billion to upgrade the network? And I'm just wondering if there's any risk in the future that you may need to increase your CapEx again, perhaps to upgrade your metro fiber networks, for example?
Thanks, Darren.
Yes, that's okay.
Andy, why don't I respond in the-
Oh, Roger here. Yeah. Yeah.
Oh, sorry. Sorry. Sorry, Roger, we lost Darren. My apologies. Let me respond in the first instance. I mean, regarding—and I'll take your questions in reverse order. You're correct, in 2016, which is six years ago now, we did announce an AUD 3 billion investment. That was basically in digitizing the business and our core network. That was the platform that we needed to be able to launch our T22 strategy, and through that, as you know, we have completely rebuilt and built new BSS systems, so CRM, billing, provisioning systems. That's what's actually enabled us to support taking, or we will have taken out by the end of this year, AUD 2.7 billion cumulatively in cost.
It also enabled us to put in the platform for, basically moving to much more network functioned, software-defined network rather, and a lot of core resiliency in our broader network. And, that we committed to produce or deliver, annualized, I think, or was it cumulative? I can't quite remember, now. I think it's AUD 540 million. Was it cumulative? Annualized. I'm looking at Vicki. Anyway, we committed to provide an economic return for that, which we did, and that was an audited return, so I believe we delivered on that well. Since then, we've obviously been very disciplined as well in terms of how we've managed our CapEx, including bringing our CapEx down while funding the rollout of 5G.
We've also said, though, that, you know, as part of our capital management strategy, we need to look for opportunities to invest in growth in the future, and, this is one that we believe is very significant. And as I said earlier, I think we're seeing a structural change in demand, so, this is very much taking advantage of that opportunity. So we'll continue to manage our CapEx in a, in a very disciplined way, but if there is opportunity for incremental growth, then I think you'd be disappointed if we didn't take it. In terms of our confidence at around the level of build cost, firstly, can I sort of say, with HyperOne, it's, it's not for me to comment on HyperOne.
I know Bevan well and have utmost regard for HyperOne, but you know, I can't comment on other people's projects and numbers. I remember when TPG announced they were going to build a new mobile network for AUD 600 million. Candidly, I never believed how they could do that, and history has shown that it couldn't be done, and they weren't able to do it. So I think you know, in the end, it's a function of what you deliver. And we've got I think as Brendan said, we've got the experience, we've got a lot of existing infrastructure. So networks of this nature, they require a lot of ground infrastructure, things like repeater sites, amplifiers, you know, existing ducting, routing.
And so we've got a very, very significant existing set of infrastructure across the country that's going to give us both the experience, speed to build, and it gives us a lot of synergies in terms of the build as well. So that may explain some of the differences that you may see. And then finally, in relation to the Viasat contract, how secure is it? I can't specifically talk about the terms of the contract. As you can imagine, they're subject to a confidential T&C arrangement between us. But you can imagine, and I think David said this, you know, we have spent a lot of time on this project with Viasat.
This is part of a major, major, program by them to launch three new Series 3 state-of-the-art geos satellites across the next period of time, one in the Americas, one in EMEA, one in Asia Pacific. This is all of the ground infrastructure work and, network to support that one in Asia Pacific. These are decades-long investments and commitments, and then you should therefore assume that the major contract to provide all of the ground station... Let me be clear about this: So this isn't just about providing the ground station for Australia. What they're doing is they're choosing to locate their ground station, major ground station capacity for the satellite in Australia, which will then enable them to basically broadcast that and cover the rest of the Asia Pacific region.
So I think, you know, given the nature of the contract, you can assume this is pretty much a commitment to a very long-term partnership. It's not the sort of thing you're going to choose to change every two or three years, if that makes sense. So, I was just looking at sort of Brendan and or Dave, if there's... Vicki, is there anything more you'd like to add on your side? No, I'm getting a shaking of the head. So, thanks, Roger, and back to you, Nathan.
Okay, I think we've got Darren back on. Go ahead, Darren.
... You guys hear me?
We can.
Oh, good. Thank you. Apologies about before. In the interest of time, I might just keep it to two, actually. So, the first one was just in relation to capital fundings. Obviously, there's a bit going into the ground. In your initial discussions with your capital partners in relation to the monetization of InfraCo, have any of those discussions sort of mentioned incremental projects and whether they'll be funded by Telstra or, you know, the capital partners, if they were to come in? And then the second question was more on a high level, that the ROIC on the project in FY 26 looks to be sort of mid-teens. InfraCo Fiber looks to be in, like, the low twenties. Any reason for sort of the difference there, please?
I'll get Vicki to maybe— It's Andy. Hi, Darren. I'll get Vicki to comment on the second point. On the first point, I think what you were asking is: have we discussed this project with our capital partners on InfraCo Fixed? To be clear, we don't have any capital partners on InfraCo Fixed. InfraCo Fixed is 100% owned by Telstra. We are going through the process of finalizing putting it in through into an independent— well, sort of, independent, through a new group restructure, which will give us the opportunity to take advantage of monetization and value-adding partnerships, if that's what we choose to do. But to be clear, we have not done that to date. We obviously have on the tower side.
You can imagine, as we've sort of thought about this and as we've, you know, taken advice and as we've continued to proceed with the setting up of InfraCo, you know, we are very clear in our minds that these sorts of investments will only increase the attractiveness of InfraCo to, you know, potential third parties when we consider monetization. But at this stage, that's all I can say on that. I'll pass over to, maybe Brendan may want to add a comment on that, and then I'll also get Brendan then maybe to pass to Vicki on the ROIC question. Yeah, sorry, the ROIC question.
Yeah, I was just gonna sort of say, Darren, InfraCo Fixed is a really diverse portfolio of different assets. So we've got the pits and the darks, we've got data centers, we've got all the fixed network sites, we've got fiber. And, you know, obviously, you know, particularly in, in the fixed network sites, we've got two very, very large anchor tenants in, in Telstra and NBN. The IRRs we're looking at for, the fiber project in terms of mid-teens, we think that's, a healthy IRR, IRR, and it compares very well to projects of a similar nature, around the world. So yeah, that will probably be my, my, my explanation. But Vicki may have something else to add on that as well. Thanks.
Yeah, no, look, Brendan, spot on. It is a portfolio. And also, the other comment I would make, Darren, is obviously taking FY 2026 on this pro- these projects, obviously, with infrastructure projects, big investment up front, and as I spoke to, yes, AUD 200 million EBITDA contribution is where we're aiming for FY 2026. We would expect it to grow over time, and obviously, as you look at InfraCo Fixed, it is that portfolio. It has assets that were built, long-term assets built a while ago, so I would expect, you know, you see a difference in those profiles, just taking that snapshot of FY 2026 in the way you did. And as it- as Brendan said, it, it is a big portfolio of, varying assets, in there. So, Nathan, I'll hand back to you. Okay.
We'll take one final question from Nick Harris from Morgans.
Thank you. I'll make it boring and just ask one final question, like you suggested. I'm just trying to get my head around the ramp-up in that EBITDA. Appreciate you said it's AUD 200 million in FY 2023, but does that sort of gradually ramp up into that number as you gradually build out the network? So would it be sensible to say AUD 100 million EBITDA, perhaps in FY 2025? Or do we have to wait till the network is 100% built, and then it starts, 100% billing?
Do you want to take that, Vicki?
Yeah, sure. And Nick, just to clarify: so the AUD 200 million EBITDA contribution is FY 2026. I think you might have just said FY 2023, so just-
I'm sorry. Yep, 26, yes.
Yeah, it's FY 26. That's right. So because we will be obviously in construction phase-
Yep, all understand.
... which Brendan and Andy have spoken about. Yeah, so we've put the AUD 200 million. I thought that would be a helpful marker for FY 2026. We've obviously talked to the mid-teens IRR, and as I said, we expect growth on the 200, but I haven't broken down exactly how that ramps up. But I think if you put those pieces together, you can probably come up with some estimates. So Nathan, back to you. In the interest of time, we're gonna close the call now. I know there is some questions in the queue. We have your names and numbers, and we will follow up with you later in the day. Andy, I'll hand over to you if you've got any final remarks.
Yeah, no, look, I will. Thanks very much, Brendan. And firstly, just again, thank you, everyone, for making yourselves available to dial into the call. I wanted to say personally and very clearly that, you know, we're acutely conscious of getting the balance right between making sure we take advantage of the opportunities to invest in the future, and support the further growth and success of the company. And I do think, you know, we have seen, you know, very significant ramp-up in demand, which is leading to a bit of a structural change in demand, and we see an opportunity for incremental investment to deliver incremental return, and we will be very, very disciplined about that.
I think through our T22 program, we've also shown that we can be, and are disciplined in terms of delivering efficiencies in CapEx and efficiencies in productivity, and so we're very focused on that. But we're also incredibly focused, and we've made a commitment as well, that we believe we can deliver the company's performance sufficient, that it will create opportunities for us to invest in the future, but also, at the same time, generate opportunities to deliver excess returns to shareholders as well. And I know things such as our potential to increase the dividend over time is incredibly important, and also other returns to shareholders, such as we have been through the share buyback, are important as well.
And our commitment is we will continue to balance those two things very thoughtfully and in a very disciplined way, and make sure that we are delivering on both sides of growth and value return to shareholders. And meanwhile, taking forward into T'25, all of the disciplines that made T'22 a great success. So I appreciate your support in dialing in. I think this is an incredibly exciting opportunity, but I know also you'll be acutely concerned to make sure that we deliver the CapEx execution as efficiently as possible and within the parameters that we've set, as well as delivering those excess returns to shareholders, as well.
And so we will hold ourselves accountable and report that to you in the same way as we have, the broader progression of the business, and I look forward to, with Vicki, Brendan, and David, and others, speaking to you more about that, in results in a couple of weeks' time. So Brendan, so Nathan, thank you, and I think that covers everything I wanted to say.
Thank you, everyone. Look forward to talking to you on the seventeenth of February with our results. Bye-bye.