For Turnbull it's 100Mbps; for the rest it's 49Mbps

In coming to that conclusion, my iTWire colleague, Stephen Withers, is perfectly justified.

However, when a former communications minister, who said that 12Mbps was sufficient for most applications, opts to take a 100Mbps connection, then one word comes to mind: hypocrisy.

And when the news of his taking the fastest possible connection emerged on a day when a government study claimed that 49Mbps would serve everyone fine until 2026, it is not a good look, to put it very mildly.

{loadposition sam08}One does not have to take a 100Mbps connection on HFC; there are lower speed plans available. Some providers do not offer the full range but if Turnbull had wanted to avoid being called a hypocrite, I'm sure he could have found one.

The NBN Co has a full list of providers on its home page and I'm pretty sure that its chief executive, Bill Morrow, would have been willing to assist the country's chief executive in finding a suitable plan that fitted in with the bloviating he did when he was in charge of the NBN.

So, if one were to say that Turnbull is behaving like a toff and acting as though there should be one rule for politicians and another for the masses, that would be justified too.

What the Greens have said is driven by politics – who would miss the chance to bag a political opponent? Such statements are often silly and unreasonable.

But let us not forget that this Turnbull is the same man who published a lengthy document — which is now conveniently missing from his website — arguing that a plan for 93% fibre to the home would cost close to $90 billion.

There is nothing wrong with being wrong; but quietly removing material which formed the basis for political pronouncements in years gone by is nothing short of deception.

Neither side of politics, or the fringe parties, is totally correct when it comes to the NBN. They all use it as a political football, and the people who lose out are the masses.