Australia's NBN Co announced it exceeded its targets for rollout of the state-led National Broadband Network project in 2012, with construction reaching nearly 785,000 premises by year-end.
Construction of the fiber-based network has “commenced or completed” at each of the premises. This puts NBN Co ahead of its target of 758,000 premises by end-2012.
The company, which was set up to oversee the rollout and manage the network, said it is aiming to roll out construction to a further 286,000 premises by end-June 2013.
NBN Co CEO Mike Quigley said meeting the targets for 2012 lays the groundwork for achieving the company's “peak rollout target of passing over 6000 premises a day by 2015,”
Acting Labor communications minister Senator Kim Carr used the milestone to try to score some political points on his competition, opposition communications spokesperson Malcolm Turnbull.
In a statement, Carr noted that Turnbull had “expressed disbelief” at NBN Co's ambitious target, telling Sky News that it was “an extraordinary promise.”
“It's not often I get to acknowledge Mr Turnbull's prescience, but I'm delighted the opportunity has arisen for him to fulfil his commitment – I look forward to him praising NBN Co's achievement,” Carr said.
But in his own statement, Turnbull accused the government of obscuring the progress of the NBN rollout by sticking to uncommon definitions of rollout targets.