MALCOLM Turnbull has likened the $36 billion national broadband network to the last bastion of communism, after a report found Australia's public spending on broadband was unmatched around the world.
Seizing on a report from the Economist Intelligence Unit, the opposition's communications spokesman yesterday dubbed the network the ''telecommunications version of Cuba''
The latest issue of The Economist's report on broadband policies, published yesterday, said Australia's network was the most ''extreme'' example of state intervention to support broadband.
This was dismissed by the company introducing t the network, which questioned the report's credibility and claimed it contained major factual errors.
According to The Economist, the network's price tag was equal to 249 per cent of annual revenue in the telecommunications industry and 6.3 per cent of budget revenue - far in excess of other nations.
Mr Turnbull, who has pledged to abandon the NBN for a cheaper broadband policy, said such high spending showed Australia was in a league of its own on broadband policy. ''This is the telecommunications version of Cuba,'' Mr Turnbull said in Canberra.
''Cuba is the last communist state … I stand corrected, there's North Korea too. [Communications Minister] Stephen Conroy doesn't even have a North Korea to his Cuba, he's a one-and-only.''
Overall, the report gave the network 3.3 out of 5, putting Australia behind Singapore and South Korea but ahead of Britain and the United States.
While international bodies such as the United Nations's telecommunications agencies have backed the network, The Economist marks governments down for intervening heavily in the market.
A spokeswoman for NBN Co said the report underestimated the number of households that would be connected by 6 million, and did not recognise the company would make a commercial return.
Senator Conroy also slammed the previous issue of the report, published in January, as ''ideological dogma''.
The worst ranked country considering all policy indicators was Singapore, which is spending $US733 ($A750) in public money per household, followed by South Korea and Japan.
The government has said that comparing Australia with such densely populated countries is misleading, because of the vastly different infrastructure costs.
A spokesman for Senator Conroy slammed the report as ''right-wing dogma'' that contained no new analysis of the network. He said it was meaningless to compare Australia with countries that were far smaller in area and measuring government money pledged was too simplistic.
''The Gillard government is proud to be investing in the NBN, which is the right solution for Australia,'' he said.
The network faces a critical hurdle next week, when Telstra shareholders are set to vote on an $11 billion proposal to shut down Telstra's infrastructure and co-operate with the national broadband network.
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