Stephen Davies had this to say on the Australian FTTH news Web site: "If this infrastructure is so important, why then are we even contemplating FTTN using VDSL2 technology which at best could deliver 50Mbps downstream and more likely 30Mbps with a limited 5Mbps upstream capability. As one respondent said on Telstra's own blog site: 'by the time the infrastructure investment is paid off and profits made, Australia will be so far behind the rest the world we will be a laughing stock'."

Dr Paul Brooks, founder of Layer 10 telecommunications advisory and an expert in telecommunications network design, planning and operation, said that while many argue that 12Mbps is not ambitious enough, it is the minimum required speed for the 98 percent coverage benchmark.

"Realistically, it's a minimum worst-case performance. In reality the majority of people will get 20 to 30 to 40 to 50 Mbps and just a few will get the theoretical calculated worst-case performance of 12Mbps," he said.

Brooks warns that focusing on the highest possible speeds tends to consider only the narrow portion of the population who can access those maximum speeds, and that the focus should be on getting good speeds to the largest number of people. But is 12Mbps enough?

"It's a good compromise. It really allows you to get good speeds, certainly faster than many people have been able to access outside the current broadband area. It takes the focus off speed and onto wide coverage, it's a good compromise," he said.

The general public, Brooks said, is happy to get the best performance they can get at a price they can afford.

"The trick will be what the avenues are for people to maintain their existing services if they don't see a cost or performance benefit in the new services on the new network. And that largely is not a technical issue, it's an economic issue as to how the various parties price the services and the performance they put in."