''Our new approach to the future is an NBN for the future - the other lot are saying they will disconnect the NBN,'' Mr Rudd said. Later he added that ''we will connect [broadband] to people's homes and businesses for free''. Degrees: Statement by Malcolm Turnbull found 'mostly true'. Mr Turnbull hit out at both claims at a news conference in Sydney on Tuesday afternoon. ''That is a lie. It is not free,'' he said. ''If you want to be connected to Labor's NBN or any NBN, whether it's completed under a Labor government or a Coalition government, you are going to have to buy a plan from a telecommunications company - Telstra or iiNet or Optus or somebody like that. So it's not free.''

Mr Turnbull said new fact-checking website, Politifact, had found "that statement, which Labor has made again and again, to be false". However, Politifact actually checked Mr Turnbull's statements about connecting to the broadband network, not Mr Rudd's. Politifact concluded that ''at the risk of getting existential, it comes down to what you think a 'connection' actually is. Turnbull is talking about getting online. Turnbull says 'connection to the NBN is not free'. Regardless of Labor's investment, on being told they need to pay a retail service provider to get online many consumers would probably agree. We rate Turnbull's statement mostly true.'' But while the politicians split hairs over the meaning of a 'connection' the website of NBN Co explains that ''a standard installation of NBN Co equipment is free of charge''. Communications Minister Anthony Albanese on Wednesday morning said Mr Turnbull's ''credibility on the NBN is in tatters'', after Mr Turnbull told ABC radio that residents and businesses in fibre-to-the-node areas would have to pay to upgrade to a fibre-to-the-home connection. ''If you wanted to have a fibre connection to your house ... I don't think many, if any people will want this by the way, but let's say you do, that would cost you several thousand dollars,'' Mr Turnbull said.

Mr Albanese's statement said: "The facts are that the Rudd Labor government’s NBN is delivering fibre direct to Australian homes and businesses for free. The Coalition’s fibre on demand policy is based on BT in the UK, which charges individuals as much as $5000 to connect with fibre.'' Politifact also found that repeated claims by Labor politicians that households would be charged $5000 under a Coalition government for the fibre connections that would be provided under Labor were ''mostly false'', because it was based on estimates of maximum charges to customers in Britain. Mr Turnbull also said the Coalition would build the network faster and for less than $30 billion. He said using fibre to the node technology would allow a faster and cheaper roll out because it avoids construction to millions of households. ''What we are proposing to do is add an additional technology which is fibre to the node, so that you replace most of - generally 90 per cent - of the copper with fibre cables but that last two or three or four or five hundred metres to the house in that built-up residential areas we continue to use the existing copper network. So it will still be a network, it will still be the same national broadband network. It will still have the same wholesale product. But you've added one additional technology to it.''