NBN Co’s explanation on why Australia is stuck with having to pay more for the rollout of FttP services across the national broadband network, compared to other countries, doesn’t wash with one of the NBN’s staunchest critics, Internet Australia chief Laurie Patton.

Patton, the executive director of IA, says the attempt to defend the higher costs of a fibre-to-the-premises rollout by NBN Co’s chief network engineering officer Peter Ryan is "simply the latest spin from NBN Co”.

Patton has been particularly criticial of the the mix of technology that NBN Co has adopted for the broadband rollout and has repeatedly advocated for the use of fibre-to-the-distribution-point as far as possible.

In his latest comment on the costs of the FttP rollout, Patton reacted to a blog post by Ryan in which he said the higher costs of deploying FttP in Australia are explained by the country's geography and its cities and the big difference in the type of dwellings getting the service compared to cities like Hong Kong, Tokyo, Singapore and Seoul.

“There is simply no getting away from the fact that delivering universal FttP in Australia is always going to be more expensive than almost anywhere else in the world. Conditions here do not lend themselves to a cheap and fast FttP deployment to every single premises and that is not going to change,” Ryan said.

Laurie Patton says there’s no reason why NBN Co couldn’t have done the same as Chorus in New Zealand.

“If you had to pick a country in the world where it would be most expensive to deploy a FttP network, Australia is always going to be very close to the top of that list.”

But according to Patton, the fact is that NBN Co “stopped trying to bring down the per premise costs of FttP when they adopted the multi-technology mix approach”.

Patton contrasts the FttP rollout in Australia with New Zealand, and says that Chorus NZ has, in fact, stuck with FttP and “reduced their costs by 29% over 18 months”.

According to Patton, there’s no reason why NBN Co couldn’t have done the same as Chorus.

“In any case, they still haven’t spelt out how they are going to fund the replacement of FttN in due course. When you add those costs, which will be considerable, we’ll have paid a very high price for a less efficient rollout,” Patton claims.

In February this year Patton hit out at NBN Co chief Bill Morrow for comments on national media that the NBN was being built for the future.

“This is simply not the case,” Patton said of Morrow’s comments on ABC News 24, reiterating Internet Australia’s position that the current NBN rollout continues to use fibre-to-the node, which relies on Telstra's ageing copper wires, and that IA's “globally recognised technical experts say FttN will need to be replaced in 10 to 15 years, if not sooner”.

"What's more, the reports we receive from FttN customers reveal that not only are we building a technically redundant NBN that will not meet our future needs, it's not even delivering what many people want today," Patton said.

And, again in February, Patton said the latest report on the NBN showing losses of $1.8 billion, heralded the “last nail in the coffin” for the beleaguered FttN rollout using Telstra’s ageing copper network.

“We are building a redundant network that will cost us a fortune to replace and at a time when NBN customers are routinely expressing their dissatisfaction with the speeds they’re seeing. You only need to read the comments on social media to know the community’s unrest is growing,” Patton said.