NBN Co has reported an operating loss of more than $1.1 billion for the nine months to March.

The company is building the National Broadband Network, and says almost 167,000 Australian properties had an active NBN service at the end of March.

NBN Co's chief executive Bill Morrow has only been in the role for two weeks but he says, in that time, it has become clear the firm's performance has to improve.

"We are a young start-up company which has had to skill-up faster than most any other company in the nation's history," he explained.

"This means working with third parties to build adequate supply of services that quite frankly don't exist today, and it means using a myriad of existing and new infrastructure to piece together the mosaic that will be the backbone of a new economy."

NBN Co says it will speed up its delivery of the network to combat competitive threats.

Earlier this week TPG Telecom launched its NBN retail prices, and last year it announced plans to roll out a fibre-to-the-basement network into high-density urban areas.

Mr Morrow says the rollout of the NBN to apartments and office buildings will be brought forward in order to compete.

"There was never any intent to say 'we're actually now going to extend fibre to beyond where we were already intending to do it'," he said.

"The idea behind that is that we are going to offer a competitive response to do it in a faster manner than what was currently on our schedule to be able to respond to the competitive information that we've received, namely TPG."

Mr Morrow also says he has established a good relationship with the Federal Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull, and they speak to each other regularly.

"He's actively engaged, I'd say there's a couple of interactions a day. I would categorise my relationship with him as good - I hope it remains that way," he said.

"So, right now, I am more optimistic and feeling good about the team spirit that we have to get this thing done than I had ever dreamed of."