NBN boss Mike Quigley is weighing up a crucial decision - should he launch rockets into space from Kazakhstan or French Guiana?

It is just one of the big milestones in the next 12 months for the National Broadband Network - the ambitious brainchild of Communications Minister Stephen Conroy.

After delays due to critical negotiations with Telstra and Optus, design and regulation, 2013 is the year the NBN has its reputation on the line. It's also an election year and its future will be one of the key issues.

Supporters believe the NBN shows great vision to prepare Australia for the digital future, while critics see another costly indulgence by Labor that is doomed to become a white elephant.

Mr Quigley is choosing rockets to launch satellites into space and working towards the target of having the NBN pass 286,000 homes by June.

The NBN will replace the existing copper wire phone network and aims to deliver high-speed broadband to every home by the time it is finished in 2021.

About 93 per cent of homes will get fibre-optic cable right to their door but the other 7 per cent in remote areas will need either fixed wireless or satellite, and that's where the rockets come in.

Two satellites, costing $620 million and each weighing 6.25 tonnes, are being built in California and will be launched in 2015.

Mr Quigley has to select the rockets to get the satellites into space. It's a choice between an American company that launches from Kazakhstan or a European space conglomerate that uses French Guiana, which is closer to the Equator and has greater orbital velocity.

"It really is rocket science," Mr Quigley said.

Mr Quigley was lured out of retirement after a 36-year career with Alcatel to become NBN boss in July 2009 when it had no staff and no office.

"I had people ringing me up saying 'when are you connecting fibre to my suburb?'," he said.

"People understand if you're going to build a bridge or build a tunnel, they know it's going to be years in the planning and you've got to lay the foundations. But for some reason with telco infrastructure, they think it happens like that."

Malcolm Turnbull, who could be the minister in charge if Tony Abbott wins the election, said NBN progress had been at a snail's pace.

There are about 30,000 active customers.

Mr Quigley said like any big project, the early stages were about solving problems or, as he referred to it "pushing the pig through the python".

"I'm quite happy with the progress we've made. You're doing all of it for the first time and it's bloody complicated."

At the moment, a lot of the activity is isolated, and in pockets such as Brunswick or South Morang, but by June 2015 it is due to pass by 3.5 million homes. "I want the public to know it's now real, it's happening," he said.

NBN has 2200 employees and Melbourne is home to its top technical people, national test facilities and network operations centre.

NBN recently said its take-up rate was 25 per cent in the areas where it had been available for 12 months. Some observers said this was poor; others thought it a solid start.

Mr Quigley admits some "people in government" questioned it but he said it was a great result and drew favourable comparisons with other internet technology.

Originally, Labor was going to contribute only $4.7 billion towards the private sector building the NBN, but there were no bids good enough to cover the whole country, so it became a far more ambitious $37 billion dream.

And it changed from just connecting fibre to the node (the street or neighbourhood) to connecting fibre to the home.

Mr Turnbull said that was "over-investment", and if the project was being started from scratch it could be done for $15 billion and would not carry the fibre to people's homes but stop at the node.

Mr Quigley said that would require about 80,000 large "cabinets" filled with electronics on street corners around the nation and by stopping short of the home you could not guarantee the fastest possible speeds.

Mr Quigley, who holds degrees in engineering, maths and physics, is an unashamed enthusiast for the NBN.

He sees it as the third great fixed-line infrastructure project after the overland telegraph in 1870 and the copper telephone network that is coming to the end of its life.

Mr Quigley, who has beaten leukaemia, said he was not daunted by political attacks.

"I have sat in front of a doctor who said: 'You could be dead within a week or two'. That kind of grounds you a bit," he said.

But he was annoyed that Mr Turnbull said NBN had a "financial transparency regime modelled on the Kremlin".

He said the company had released 30-year business plans with a summary of financial forecasts to 2040.

"I don't think the Kremlin produces one of these. What more could anyone else expect us to put in the public domain?" he said.

"We've hung ourselves out to dry here. We've got speed projections, usage projections, deployment projections. We even said why we believe the things we believe."

So, could he work under Mr Turnbull?

Mr Quigley said it would depend on what the Coalition's exact policy was, saying he could not quite figure it out. He said he had not agreed with all of Labor's decisions, but government had the right to set policy.

"What I couldn't do is do what I think is a dopey thing to do, but I keep my fingers crossed that governments of any persuasion will take us down the path which I think is the right path for the nation."