This morning on ABC Radio, Communications Minister Stephen Conroy appeared to confirm that city dwellers would face delays. "We'll be talking to the team at the National Broadband Network Company over the next few days about how we can redesign the roll-out timetable," he said. "It will mean that we'll be focused more regionally than we otherwise would have been." Gillard also pledged to offer uniform wholesale access prices across the country. Conroy said this would be enabled through a "cross subsidy", meaning city dwellers could pay more than they otherwise would in order to guarantee lower prices for rural and regional Australia. Bevan Slattery, founder of telco infrastructure company Pipe Networks, said in a phone interview that in order to prioritise rural and regional Australia, chunks of which will not be serviced by fibre, the government would have to get to work on building its wireless network immediately.

The wireless network would be "almost as big" as Optus's regional mobile network. "They're going to have to roll out their entire wireless network in the next three years before they can actually build out their fibre for the metro [regions]," Slattery said. "Having to build the rural and remote regions first is going to take an enormous amount of resources." But Slattery, and the chief executive of the Internet Industry Association, Peter Coroneos, say that the government is right in prioritising regional areas, even if it means those in metropolitan areas have to wait. "The position that we've advocated from the start is that this needs to be an outside-in move," Coroneos said.

"Market failure has been greatest in areas that don't have good competitive infrastructure available, so it makes perfect sense that if you're embarking on a nation-building program ... that you would necessarily go to the under-served areas before over-building in areas that already have some degree of capacity." While supporters of the NBN argue it is essential infrastructure for the nation's future that will enable advances in critical areas such as health and education, critics question the $43 billion price tag and whether the network will provide good value for money. Critics, including the opposition, have been quick to point out that there has yet to be a cost-benefit analysis of the network. Opposition Leader Tony Abbott, who during the election campaign pushed a $6.3 billion broadband plan that relied on a mix of wireless, existing copper networks and fibre backhaul, said he would hold the government "ferociously" to account as it builds the NBN. "My strong suspicion is the NBN will be school halls on steroids," Abbott said yesterday. But fortunately for Gillard, the country independents disagreed. Windsor described the Coalition plan as "retrograde" and said the NBN was a key reason behind him supporting Labor.

"This is an enormous opportunity for regional Australians to engage with the infrastructure of this century," he said. "You do it once, you do it right and you do it with fibre." The NBN is expected to take eight years to be rolled out. Loading Services have already commenced in Tasmania and the government is now working on trialling the network in five "first release sites", including west Armidale, Minnamurra and Kiama Downs in NSW, parts of Townsville, Brunswick in Melbourne and Willunga in South Australia.

Asked to comment on delays and price increases facing metropolitan customers, an NBN Co spokeswoman said: "We need to discuss the implementation of the Prime Minister's policy announcement with our shareholder ministers."