The Coalition says its national broadband network will be about $17 billion cheaper than Labor's and will be built two years sooner, but will use slower technologies than in Labor's version.
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By the time the Coalition's network is finished in 2019, Australians will pay about $24 a month less for broadband than under Labor's plan, opposition communications spokesman Malcolm Turnbull said on Tuesday.
Under the Coalition's plan every Australian will have access to ''fast'' broadband by 2016, Mr Turnbull pledged at the policy announcement in Sydney.
Mr Turnbull defined ''fast'' broadband as 25 megabits per second download speeds, about six times faster than today's average speeds, and similar to the fastest speeds available in today's market.
At the Sydney press conference flanked by the Opposition Leader Tony Abbott, Mr Turnbull said he was inheriting a project that should never have been built by a government.
VIDEO: Opposition Leader Tony Abbott announces the coalition's proposal for the National Broadband Network.
But instead of "moaning" about billions of dollars "Labor has wasted that we can't recover", Mr Turnbull claimed the Coalition would save many billions more.
The Coalition's NBN will cost $20.4 billion in capital expenditure versus Labor's $37.4 billion, and will be finished by 2019. Labor's NBN, which has suffered a series of delays, is due to be finished in 2021.
While accepting "there are very significant benefits" to everyone having access to very fast broadband, Mr Turnbull pointed out that many Australians would have no use for the super fast speeds under Labor's policy.
Cost is a more important measure than speed, Mr Turnbull suggested. "If you believe in everyone having internet access you have got to make it more affordable."
The Communications Minister Stephen Conroy called the Coalition's policy ''an extraordinary waste of money''.
''Malcolm Turnbull is going to spend $20 billion to build a second rate broadband network, and yet despite that millions of Australians will get no improvement on what they've got today,'' he told Fairfax Media on Tuesday.
While 93 per cent of Australians will get the fastest possible technology under Labor's plan, Mr Conroy said Mr Turnbull was ''disconnecting the NBN for millions and millions of Australians'' by using cheaper technology.
Labor's NBN policy offers the fastest, most expensive broadband (fibre-to-the-premises or FTTP) to 93 per cent of Australians. This involves running fibre all the way to homes, schools and businesses across the country, and offers minimum download speeds of about 100 megabits per second. For the 7 per cent of Australians who live in rural and regional areas, where it would be too costly to run fibre, Labor will use satellites and wireless technology.
The Coalition's network will mostly use a cheaper technology called fibre-to-the-node. Instead of running the fibre all the way to homes, the Coalition will run the fibre to street corners and then piggyback on copper telephone wires the rest of the way to the home. About 70 per cent of Australians, or roughly 9 million homes, will get FTTN by 2019.
Under the Coalition's plan those living in new housing estates will get fibre to the premises. This means about 2.8 million premises or one fifth of Australians will get the same technology as under Labor's NBN.
About 7 per cent of Australians living in rural and regional areas will still get satellite and wireless internet – the same as Labor's plan.
Several technology journalists pressed Mr Turnbull and Mr Abbott on how long they thought they could continue to use the ageing copper network.
Mr Abbott said there was no reason why the copper in place "can't continue to be used" for some time."Labor's [NBN]... junks perfectly useful infrastructure," Mr Abbott said.
Minister for Regional Australia Anthony Albanese labelled the Coalition's plan a "policy disaster for regional Australia."
The scrapping of a consistent wholesale price would result in higher prices outside metropolitan areas, he said.
"If you live in regional Australia, you'll not only get slower broadband, you'll get hit in the hip pocket in order to pay for it," Mr Albanese said.
He said the National Broadband Network as it stood was the best way to overcome the "tyanny of distance".
"The NBN ensures that whether you live in Mackay or Marrickville, you'll have the same access to high-speed broadband," he said.
Independent MP Robert Oakeshott called Mr Turnbull's policy ''madness'', which undermined the ''whole point'' of the NBN - to offer the same superfast broadband to the vast majority of Australians.
''It's a huge missed opportunity for this nation,'' said Mr Oakeshott, who represents the electorate of Lyne on the north coast of NSW.
A key reason why Mr Oakeshott and another independent, MP Tony Windsor, supported Labor during the hung parliament following the 2010 election was because the party promised the fastest broadband to 93 per cent of Australians.
Mr Oakeshott said the Coalition's plan undermined the ''vision'' of the project.
''One of the core reasons why Tony Windsor and I believed we had to go with the government of the day was . . . because they planned to do it once and do it right,'' Mr Oakeshott said.
