The condition of millions of copper wires the Coalition will rely on to deliver its broadband policy is unknown, and it will take months to uncover how many are functional and how many are beyond use.

Telstra has never revealed how much it spends maintaining the network each year and its own descriptions of the life span range from three to 100 years.

Malcolm Turnbull was all smiles at the Faceboat campaign launch for Sailors with disABILITIES at Darling Point on Sunday. Credit:Dominic Lorrimer

The state of the customer access network, as it is known, directly affects the cost and speed of implementing the proposed fibre-to-the-node network because unusable sections of copper must be repaired or replaced with fibre.

Fault rates have increased in the past seven years from about 13 per cent in 2006-07 to 18 per cent, or 1 million faults, in 2011-12, according to figures published by the communications regulator.