''What stupid nonsense! What we were doing 30 years ago modems could handle,'' Mr Huston said. ''I would side with the view that this [policy] is indeed a lemon.'' The need for speed: Malcolm Turnbull and Tony Abbott announce the Coalition policy on Tuesday. Credit:Angus Mordant Sharing Mr Huston's concerns, senior lecturer at RMIT University's school of electrical and computer engineering, Mark Gregory, said the Coalition's policy would harm the economy and would not future-proof the country's internet infrastructure. ''They're going to be putting Australia behind the rest of the world,'' Dr Gregory said of the Coalition's plan.

Under the opposition's policy, broadband speeds will be slower than Labor's network but ''more than enough for the average household'', Mr Turnbull said. ''As you go higher and higher, the things you can do with that speed are less and less in a residential environment.'' Instead of spending $37.4 billion building the world's fastest broadband for nine out of 10 Australians, the Coalition will mostly use a cheaper technology called fibre to the node. This would involve building fibre to street corners and then piggybacking on the old copper telephone lines to reach the house or apartment. The Coalition would finish its network sooner - in 2019 instead of 2021 - and it would cost about $17 billion less than Labor's version. By the end of the Coalition's first term in government, all Australians would be able to download at speeds of about 25 megabits a second, about twice today's average, according to Netindex.com. But while the Coalition's network would cost less, some technology experts wonder how long it will last. Telstra's copper network is ageing and the Coalition will need to spend billions to maintain it.

Independent MP for New England in northern NSW, Tony Windsor, told ABC radio on Wednesday that the Coalition's NBN would ''create a disparity between country and city'' with lower prices in more competitive urban areas and more expensive broadband likely in regional areas. ''I just can't believe that someone like Malcolm Turnbull would base this century's infrastructure in terms of communication on last century's worn out copper wire,'' Mr Windsor said. ''You need a railway line that can take extra capacity.'' A key reason why Mr Windsor and another independent MP Robert Oakeshott, supported Labor during the hung parliament following the 2010 election was because the party promised the fastest broadband to 93 per cent of Australians. The Coalition's plan is significantly slower than Labor's (up to 100 megabits a second for nine out of 10 Australians) but it would be more than adequate for any of today's uses.

Those who want the fastest speeds possible under the Coalition's plan can still buy them if they want to spend a ''few thousand dollars'' extra, according to Mr Turnbull. As often happens with this sort of complex policy, the announcements were littered with misleading claims from both parties. Communications Minister Stephen Conroy suggested network customers would have to pay more than double for their monthly internet under the Coalition's plan. Monthly wholesale prices under the Labor plan start at $27 a month and are controlled by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. Prices will stay the same until 2017 and increases must be below inflation. But to recoup investment the NBN Co needs to squeeze about $60 a month from each customer by 2021 - about triple what it requires today. Liberal frontbencher George Brandis said on Sky News that the Coalition's network would be "just as fast as Labor's in terms of broadband speeds". That is not true.

Mr Windsor's likely rival for the seat of New England in the September election, Nationals' Senator Barnaby Joyce, told Fairfax Media on Tuesday it would be ''great to wish for all sorts of things if we had the money to afford it. But we don't.'' ''I'm not going to start suggesting spending more money on a service people aren't buying is a great idea,'' Senator Joyce said. ''We have to save money where we can . . . Guess what, that's life.'' Loading with Lucy Battersby Follow the National Times on Twitter