Libs promise bush 'comparable' broadband

The federal opposition has vowed that all Australians living in the bush will have access to fast broadband at a price comparable to their city cousins under the coalition's alternative plan to the NBN.

Opposition broadband spokesman Malcolm Turnbull has outlined further details of the coalition's vision during a speech to the National Press Club in Canberra.

"Our commitment to the bush is that all Australians will have access to fast broadband at a price that is comparable to that available in big cities," Mr Turnbull said on Wednesday.

Due to geography and lower population density subsidies would be required to meet that commitment, Mr Turnbull said.

"The subsidy should be delivered transparently, ideally as a capital subsidy," he said, adding the coalition would be relying on fixed wireless and satellite to deliver services to around 1.5 million Australians living in remote areas.

When it comes to suburban and regional Australia - areas outside the main cities but not remote - the coalition would invite private sector companies to deliver wholesale broadband services.

In areas where such services weren't commercially viable, the coalition would provide government support in the form of co-investment, capital subsidies or both.

"Telstra obviously would be in a prime position to tender for much or all of this role, but in order to do so it would need to separate its customer access network," Mr Turnbull said.

Mr Turnbull said in built-up urban areas the coalition would build on the existing hybrid fibre-coaxial (HFC) network which combines optical fibre and coaxial cable.

It passes 28 per cent of Australian premises.

"The network is already providing up to 100 mbps in Melbourne," Mr Turnbull said.

"It could do so elsewhere if Telstra is provided with the certainty required to make the modest investment needed."

Mr Turnbull noted while Telstra was probably best placed to provide wholesale high-speed broadband, any other capable company should be able to tender for the business.

If Telstra did form a new Network Co of its own to provide services in suburban and regional Australia it would be a regulated common carrier which "would not offer retail services and would not discriminate between access seekers".

Any NBN Co assets would be transferred to the private company that was providing high-speed broadband instead of the government keeping ownership.

Mr Turnbull said the coalition's plan for upgrading the urban network would cost about $10 billion with most of that being borne by Network Co.

That compares with the government's planned $36 billion rollout of fibre.

Mr Turnbull said Labor was trying to dumb down the debate so it was fibre versus copper and future versus the past, whereas it was really much more complex.

He said the smarter way was to be technologically agnostic and focus on what had to be achieved not how that was done.

"Logistics are a matter only of interest to the people in the business," he said.

"People want bandwidth that enables them to do what they want to do and works. So there will be a mixture of solutions."

Mr Turnbull said around the world technological enthusiasm was increasingly being mugged by commercial reality.

"Talk to telcos around the world. Nobody is having success in up-selling customers to very high speeds and achieving any sort of significant premium."

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy later said Mr Turnbull's NBN alternative was like building the Harbour Bridge with only one lane.

"I'm embarrassed for Malcolm Turnbull," he told reporters in Sydney.

"When the whole family is using it for different applications at the same time that's where fibre to the node really struggles.

"His (Turnbull's) network is the equivalent of building the Sydney Harbour Bridge with one lane, that is what he is proposing with his fibre to the node HFC network.

"When people won't be able to use more than one application at a time, I think they're going to care about bandwidth capacity."

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