The Liberal-National Coalition will present its updated broadband and NBN policies later this morning, but details of the plan have already emerged through leaks to select media.
The Coalition told the Daily Telegraph ahead of the policy's official release today that it estimates it can build a cheaper version of the national broadband network for $29 billion and finish the entire project by 2019.
The Coalition claimed - and the Rupert Murdoch-owned paper duly exclaimed - that the $15 billion Coalition plan will be cheaper than Labor's costing for a full fibre-to-the-premises NBN, to be delivered between two and six years sooner.
The News Limited story did not dive into any technical detail - but other leaks suggest the Coalition will stick with a plan to roll out fibre to roadside cabinets, and use existing copper wires or wireless connections from the street to the home.
Despite the age and worsening condition of Australia's copper network, and challenges with the sharing of wireless connections, the Coalition promises its version of the NBN will deliver last mile speeds as fast as fibre.
The Telegraph article boasted that the Coalition's policy will deliver download speeds of between 25 to 100 megabit per second by 2016, and between 50 to 100 megabit per second by 2019. Upload speeds were not mentioned.
For this, the Coalition promises that most Australians will pay $66 a month by 2021 for broadband connections.
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