The head of the NBN Co, Bill Morrow, appears to be a trifle confused about what speeds the network he is in charge of building can actually deliver. He is also confused about how many people reside in Australia.

In February, Morrow said that the current NBN build — which includes fibre-to-the premises, fibre-to-the-node, fibre-to-the-distribution-point, wireless, satellite and cable — cannot provide speeds of 1Gbps at an affordable price.

But on Monday, Morrow told the American Chamber of Commerce that, "2,144,210 million families and businesses are now using the NBN network’s multi-technology mix to access the internet at speeds of up to 1Gbps".

These stats may serve to wake up the right-wing elements who campaign for a lessening of the immigration quotas; even I was under the impression that we have just 24 million people within the borders of this vast brown land.

But, as Americans say, Dad knows best, with the dad in question being Bill.

Reading through his address, it is evident that Morrow has decided to throw caution to the winds and say whatever he wants because he knows that no government minister will hold him responsible.

According to what Morrow told the American Chamber, Australia's mongrel NBN "has been recognised as a world leader by international observers".

In support of this, Morrow cites an Ovum study that was paid for by — no prizes for guessing — NBN Co itself, a case of the donkey praising its own tail.

Among those who have attempted to connect to the NBN, there are some who have been unable to do so due to technical issues. NBN Co has put these cases on the backburner and said it will tackle their issues only after the network is completed.

Yet, on Monday, Morrow was out there claiming that by 2020, the NBN would be completed and Australia would be the world's first fully connected continent. But what about those poor souls who have been put on a long waiting list due to technical issues?

There is a mighty lot of waffle in the speech and it's possible that midway through the audience wondered what on earth this man was going on about.

I, too, was left confused as to what he was talking about – but one sentence caught my attention. And that was Morrow's claim that the NBN would help Australians conquer the tyranny of distance.

Sure, with speeds that are at times slower than the ADSL many of us have now, we are about to feel more connected.

I wonder how the Brisbane-based games developer who is forced to send digital files to his collaborator in Melbourne by post because it takes too long over the NBN would react to that.