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April 9th, 2013 
THE opposition says its broadband policy will offer the same internet speeds as Labor’s national broadband network (NBN), but will be rolled out much faster and at half the cost.
The coalition’s alternative NBN policy, expected to be released on Tuesday, will come with a $29 billion price tag and a delivery deadline of 2019, News Limited reports.
The federal government owned-NBN Co Ltd is pushing ahead with its plan to roll out a NBN by mid-2021 at a cost of $37.4 billion.
But coalition analysis suggests the final cost of the NBN could push up to $90 billion and take an extra four years to complete.
Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has rejected these claims, and challenged his opposition counterpart Malcolm Turnbull to come clean on the coalition’s plans.
News Ltd claims the coalition policy will deliver broadband at a comparable speed to the NBN, but charge households $66 per month by 2021 instead of $90 as anticipated by the government.
The coalition also claims it will deliver the scheme first to regions with the worst internet services.
Mr Turnbull confirmed the coalition would unveil its policy on Tuesday, and stood by the $29.5 billion price tag.
“Our approach is likely to save about $60 billion to taxpayers,” he told ABC radio on Tuesday.
The opposition favours rolling out fibre optic cable to the node, or street corner, rather than all the way to the home as NBN Co is doing.
Mr Turnbull said the further the household from the node, the slower the maximum internet speeds.
But the coalition would ensure all Australians had access to at least 25 megabits-per-second, about six times faster than average speeds now.
“While most Australians would have access to considerably higher speeds than that, 25 megs will enable everybody in residential situations to do everything they want to do or need to do,” he said.
NBN Co is rolling out fibre optic cable capable of delivering speeds of up to 100 megabits per second to 93 per cent of homes and businesses across Australia by 2021.
Mr Turnbull said a “much smaller percentage” of premises would be connected under the coalition plan, and it would deliver slower maximum speeds than Labor.
But the reality was the government wouldn’t be able to deliver on its promises because the NBN was in a state of “near collapse”.
Liberal frontbencher George Brandis said the coalition’s NBN plan would be just as fast as Labor’s in terms of broadband speeds, but it would be cheaper and rolled out much sooner.
“I saw Senator Conroy on TV last night and he said that by the 30th of June it will have passed 220,000 houses. In the plan it was meant to be 1.7 million,” he told Sky News.
Senator Brandis blamed that on the communications minister.
“Stephen Conroy doesn’t have a business brain in his head,” he said.
Later, Senator Conroy said the coalition’s plan to use Telstra’s old copper network to link internet connections between between nodes, or street corners, and premises was dumb.
Under Telstra’s current agreement with NBN Co, the copper network will progressively be retired as NBN Co’s fibre optic cable is rolled out.
“I can’t find a dumber piece of public policy than buying the copper off Telstra,” Senator Conroy told reporters.
“I mean, come on down, Alan Bond. Kerry Packer would be laughing all the way to the bank if he found a mug willing to buy Telstra’s copper network.”
Senator Conroy said the copper network was ageing, decaying and unable to deliver the speeds Mr Turnbull was proposing.
“The speeds he is going to claim today are defying the laws of physics and the quality of the copper in the ground,” he said.
Senator Conroy also estimated the copper network would cost $1 billion a year to maintain.
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