Former National Broadband Network CEO Mike Quigley said the Coalition’s internet policy was disastrous for Australians. Picture: Supplied

In a rare public appearance at the University of Melbourne, founding NBN CEO Mike Quigley laid out a detailed case for installing a faster, fibre-to-the-home network in Australia, and slammed the Turnbull Government’s plans to use technologies including copper and pay-TV cable, saying Australia would suffer the “consequences of those decisions for years to come in higher costs and poorer performance”.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull defended the Government’s NBN plan. Picture: SuppliedSource:Supplied

Mr Quigley’s comments came just days after Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull defended the Government’s NBN plan on ABC television, though Mr Quigley’s assessment was welcomed by Australia’s peak internet body, which called for a review of the NBN following the federal election.

Mr Quigley, who retired from the NBN Co’s top job before the Coalition came to power in 2013, said original plans for a nationwide network based on fibre optic cable connected directly to 93 per cent of homes and businesses “was and still is the right answer for Australia’s fixed broadband needs”, and the current multi-technology network would need to be upgraded shortly after its completion.

“To spend billions of dollars to build a major piece of national infrastructure that just about meets demand today but doesn’t allow for any significant growth in that demand over the next 10 or 20 years is incredibly shortsighted,” he said.

“It is such a pity that so much time and effort has been spent on trying to discredit and destroy the original (fibre-to-the-premises)-based NBN plan.

“And equally a pity that the Coalition has put their faith in what has turned out to be a shortsighted, expensive and backward-looking (Multi-Technology Mix) plan based on copper.”

Mr Quigley said the Government’s plans to use older technologies, including the copper network, had slowed the NBN’s rollout, and the forecasts used to discredit the faster fibre-to-the-home network were a “fiction”.

NBN plans have been delayed for 12 months due to lengthy negotiations with Telstra. Picture: SuppliedSource:News Corp Australia

While admitting the original NBN plans had been delayed by 12 months due to lengthy negotiations with Telstra and the discovery of asbestos in network pits, he said the FTTH network would have been cheaper to roll out, at $45 billion, and would have put Australia in a better position internationally.

But Mr Turnbull, who launched the revamped NBN plan as federal communications minister, told ABC TV earlier this week the original NBN plan had been “a complete failure” and the network now boasted just over one million users.

Despite a drop in download speeds under the new NBN, Mr Turnbull said most internet users were signing up to 25 megabit-per-second connections or less rather “so the reality is that the service is meeting the demand of the customers”.

Internet Australia CEO Laurie Patton said there is “genuine concern” over the Coalition’s plans. Picture: Supplied.Source:Supplied

Industry group internet Australia chief executive Laurie Patton welcomed Mr Quigley’s assessment and detailed financial analysis, however, and called for a review of the NBN following the federal election on July 2.

“There is real and genuine concern in technical circles and in the public arena,” Mr Patton said.

“Whoever wins the upcoming election should hold a review of the strategic technical direction that NBN is now pursuing and make public the true costs associated with this nation-building project, independently verified.”

Labor leader Bill Shorten last week launched his party’s NBN policy, promising to deliver up to two million more fibre-to-the-home connections funded by an extra $1 billion of private sector investment.

Labor’s plan would not alter existing NBN contracts, however, or replace pay-TV cables with fibre connections.

Mike Quigley said Australia would suffer the “consequences for years to come”. Picture: SuppliedSource:News Limited