Tech experts say the NBN is going so slowly, telecoms companies should invest in their own infrastructure.

The Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN) has released figures saying roughly 1.8 million homes have no access to adequate broadband.

Of those, a third are deprived of access due to existing exchanges being at full capacity.

ACCAN says our big telcos are unwilling to invest in upgrading their exchanges while the NBN is being rolled-out, leaving about 450,000 households with no internet connection by the end of the 2018 financial year.

ACCAN says that with thousands of neighbourhoods struggling to get a port in an exchange, telcos need to provide interim services.

A number of consumers across the country have complained that upon contacting their ISP, they were simply told to wait for the NBN.

Meanwhile, chief executive of Internet Australia Laurie Patton says Australia is still running with the wrong model.

“We need to be building a futureproofed NBN that is seen as a critical long term investment,” Mr Patton wrote in an article for The Australian.

“It was never going to be viable to build a broadband network covering such a large country, or to deliver the sort of internet speeds that will arguably be needed in the coming decades if we focused entirely on the direct financial cost.

“Such an approach completely ignores the broader benefits to the economy and our social fabric through greater productivity in rural, regional and remote communities, better national education and health outcomes, and the increased viability of non-metropolitan areas.

“The benefit of deploying fibre is that it has virtually unlimited capacity for increased delivery speeds as the technology at each end is upgraded from time to time.

“Just as people in our major cities deserve fibre not a technically outdated copper FTTN service, people in rural and regional areas need fibre, or at the very least fixed wireless, unless they are so remote that satellite really is the only viable option.”