YOUR connection to Australia’s National Broadband Network may be downgraded before it even arrives at your home after the company behind the major infrastructure project backflipped on technology again.

NBN Co today revealed as many as 1.5 million homes and businesses would no longer receive upgrades to cable internet connections after the work proved costlier than it anticipated.

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This is despite signing a $1.6 billion agreement with Telstra to upgrade its cable network.

Superior fibre-to-the-home connections will also fall by as much as 400,000 under the NBN Co’s new Corporate Plan, and all will only go ahead once the NBN Co finds corporate backers to pay for its growth when it runs out of public funding.

NBN Co revealed the changes at a press conference in Sydney, while touting it had connected 2.9 million Australian premises to its network in seven years, with 1.1 million premises using its service.

Chief executive Bill Morrow said the network had met its goals for the 2016 financial year.

“As we have confirmed throughout the year, the rollout of the NBN network is very much on track,” he said.

“Today, nearly two thirds of the nation’s premises are currently in design, in construction or able to order an NBN service, and that is tangible progress.”

But the NBN Co’s 2016-2017 Corporate plan revealed it had changed its goals for the coming year, with significantly reduced targets for HFC cable connection upgrades due to unexpected costs.

As many as 1.5 million premises will miss out on the planned cable upgrades under the new plan, with the NBN Co revising its target of 4 million premises to as few as 2.5 million homes and businesses.

The HFC connection upgrades, trialled and turned on in Redcliffe in June, promise wholesale internet download speeds of up to 100 megabits per second, and uploads up to 40mbps, with a future upgrade to lift download speeds up to one gigabit per second.

But the company had expected the upgrades to cost $1800 per property rather than $2300 it actually cost.

“We try to optimise for speed and cost,” Mr Morrow said of the cable upgrade reductions.

“The idea here is to be able to get everybody access to fast broadband by the year 2020 and to be prudent with taxpayers’ money.”

The cable-connected homes will instead receive slower fibre-to-the-node connections with a minimum speed of 25 megabits per second.

Mr Morrow said he did not see “evidence” Australians needed faster connections speeds “at this point”.

Faster, fibre-to-the-premises connections will also drop by as much as 400,000 under the new plan, while fibre-to-the-node connections rise by up to two million.

Mr Morrow said the NBN Co was also actively looking for private funding to continue the rollout as it would soon reach its public funding cap of $29.5 billion.

“We are optimistic about being able to secure the necessary funds,” he said.

“It’s still in progress. We have already contacted the credit rating agencies. That process is underway at the moment.”

The NBN Co is due to connect eight million premises to the internet by 2020.