It has been a pretty common refrain from Malcolm Turnbull that the management of the National Broadband Network project by the previous government was “pathetic” – both before and after the previous election in September 2013.

Count how many times he uses that exact word in this transcript.

Morever, how about this quote?

“This is a project that they said when they published their corporate plan at the end of 2010 they said that by June 30 this year they would have passed and been able to connect by June 30 this year, 950,000 premises in brown field areas, built-up areas.”

“They in fact passed about 160,000 of which only a bit more than two thirds are able to get a connection if they actually asked for it. So there’s 33,000 customers connected to the fibre after four years I mean it’s pathetic.”

Turnbull promised us an NBN that would be “faster, cheaper, and sooner”, should the Coalition have come to power in the 2013 election.

Oh really?

“Malcolm Turnbull’s NBN plan is in tatters after revelations in a Senate hearing today that not a single user has been connected to its Fibre to the Node trial, despite announcing the pilot nine months ago.”

Not one?

Not even ONE?

Surely even 33,000 is a far better result than a big fat zero?

There have also been plenty of technical hurdles, that have yet to be overcome:

“In Senate Estimates last month, NBN Co chief operations officer Greg Adcock explained that a delay in the Epping trial was due to power supply issues for the nodes.”

“”The Epping trial in Victoria has slowed down a bit, while we work with the utility there to find a power solution. We’re working through that,” he said.”

“Close to a month later, a spokesperson for NBN Co told ZDNet that discussions with a utility in Victoria to gain sufficient power supply for the nodes were still “ongoing” with no timeline provided for where the trial will commence.”

No timeline?

Ouch.

One should remember that the previous fibre-to-the-premises model would not have had this issue, as there would have been no powered elements in the distribution network – (the fibre cables in each and every street) – but Turnbull’s move to the technically inferior fibre-to-the-node model has introduced this problem to an already complicated system.

If they can’t get power for just a single trial in a single suburb without striking difficulty, how many issues are they going to have getting power to 80,000 or more nodes across the entire country?

Does he really think this will be an isolated occurrence?

It won’t be – and the previous model would have completely avoided it – not to mention the cost involved with actually having his nodes consume power over the life of the network.

Turnbull has failed his first test on delivering his “faster, sooner, cheaper” NBN.

Dismally.