The Federal Opposition is launching a survey to help a future Coalition government decide which areas to prioritise for faster broadband services.

The Coalition says it will not be able to provide a fully costed broadband policy by the next election, but says its plan will be cheaper and completed sooner than the Government's National Broadband Network (NBN).

Opposition communications spokesman Malcolm Turnbull says the survey, which is being launched today, will be used to help people judge the speed of the internet they receive.

He says the Coalition recognises people want fast broadband.

"There is no question of demolishing the NBN. We actually support the objective of the National Broadband Network [and] what we're seeking to do is make it better targeted, make it more cost-effective and deliver it sooner," he said.

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Mr Turnbull says the Government's rollout of the NBN so far has been "absolutely woeful".

"Let's not kid ourselves, they are proceeding so slowly," he said.

"There are thousands of people living in new greenfields development where the NBN is meant to have connected them who have no broadband or indeed no wireline connections at all.

"They originally promised that there would be 511,000 households on their fibre network by next June. Now they say they're only expecting there'll be 54,000, and most people don't think they'll even get that far."

'Fibre to the node'

NBN Co has a rollout timeframe of about 10 years to deliver a fibre network that reaches most premises.

But Mr Turnbull says a Coalition government could deliver its own broadband rollout in less time which rolls out fibre to local nodes rather than directly to premises.

"NBN Co's... target is 10 years, [but] there are many people in the industry very close to the NBN who believe it is more likely to take 20 years," he said.

"The approach that we will take in most of the built-up areas is what's called fibre to the cabinet or fibre to the node.

"The experience around the world is that takes around a third of the time of fibre to premises, sometimes even less."

Mr Turnbull says the Coalition's survey will be open for several months.

But he says the Coalition is not in a position to be able to fully cost its policy before the next election.

"Our policy will be costed in the sense that we can provide very hard, reliable estimates of the relative cost of our approach, but we are not in a position to provide an alternative, if you like, to the NBN Co's corporate plan because we simply don't access to the contractual information," he said.

"We don't know the extent to which they have made commitments or the terms on which those commitments are made."

Mr Turnbull says NBN Co's own costings have already proven to be unreliable.

"The NBN Co's policy is not costed. They have provided one set of estimates at the end of 2010 which 18 months later had to be junked," he said.