The instantly popular How Fast is the NBN website, which purports to compare the speeds available from Labor's National Broadband Network with the Coalition's alternative broadband plan, is at least moderately misleading on at least two counts. And by focusing solely on speed it completely misses something else important: the differing political rationales that have led to those speed differences.

The key problem with the website is that Labor's NBN is portrayed as delivering 1000 megabits per second, or Mbps (i.e. 1 Gbps), download speeds and 400 Mbps upload (a pair of speeds usually shown, as it is on the site, as 1000/400 Mbps). This is contrasted with the Coalition's 25 Mbps down and 5 Mbps upload. That comparison is unfair and misleading.