The Federal Government is determined to drag out the process of privatising the NBN, according to Shadow Communications Minister.

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy this afternoon opened fire on Tony Abbott, labelling him a “luddite” for not having appearing to have anything to do with his party’s technology policies, on a day in which the Canberra press gallery also criticised the Opposition Leader on the issue.

The Coalition reveals $6 billion rival broadband policy to Labor’s National Broadband Network project. The central planks are a competitive backhaul network, regional and metropolitan wireless networks and an ADSL enrichment program that will target telephone exchanges without ADSL2+ broadband.

The Federal Government will extend its planned fibre roll-out under the National Broadband Network from an initial 90 per cent of Australian premises to 93 per cent – covering an additional 1.6 million extra premises.

It began as a $4.5 billion dollar election promise in 2007. The then shadow broadband minister, Stephen Conroy, broadcast plans for an open-access fibre broadband network to liberate parts of Australia which were deemed ‘non-commercial’ by telco providers. While it lacked the scope of the Liberal’s now defunct OPEL WiMAX project, which touched on regional blackspots, it was lauded by the telecommunications industry.