Referring to concerns among ISPs the OECD said NBN's wholesale offerings appeared to be based around maximising revenue from its monopoly position, rather than giving multiple appealing options for ISPs.

"NBN is not only the owner and maintainer of much of the access network but also practically the only provider of wholesale products to retail providers," the report says.

"[Its offerings] might be attractive in terms of providing a return to fiscal investment, but may be forcing consolidation (and discouraging entry) in the market for internet service providers."

Despite government claims that its NBN policy is providing high-speed broadband to Australians quickly, the report found that of 32 OECD nations listed, the country ranks fourth last in terms of speed and penetration, ahead of only Mexico, Chile and Greece.

Australia ranks fourth last in the OECD in terms of broadband speed and penetration, ahead of only Mexico, Chile and Greece. OECD

Upgrading FTTN to FTTC

In order to demonstrate its increasing ability to be flexible with technology NBN has recently announced that 700,000 homes will receive superior fibre to the curb technology, which delivers fibre to the end of individual driveways instead of a street corner. These were previously forecast to predominantly receive HFC technology.'

This in turn has led to criticism that NBN is acknowledging the inferiority of the FTTN technology it is continuing to deploy elsewhere.


In a blog post to be published on Wednesday, NBN's chief network engineering officer Peter Ryan says FTTN can easily be upgraded to the newer option in the future, and insisted that it would not be a waste of money installing outdated nodes across the country.

"Those cabinets are an extremely valuable asset once they are in the field as we will have a fully powered asset connected with high-capacity fibre which can be used for a range of purposes by NBN in the future," he said.

"You only need to look at how many operators around the world have turned their old phone boxes into new Wi-Fi hotspots to see how in-field assets can be repurposed."

Mr Ryan, meanwhile, says that it would not be feasible to ditch its FTTN plans and refocus on FTTC across the country straight away, as it would involve tearing up 18 months of design, planning and construction work.

"If we were to do this we would have to tell residents in several million premises that were scheduled to get NBN services over the next 18 months via FTTN that they would not now be getting connected for another two to three years as we'd have to restart the entire design, planning and construction process," he says.

"The NBN is like an enormously long train, you can't just bring things to a complete stop and change direction, it just doesn't work that way and never will."