Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard says that the construction of the passive infrastructure associated with the National Broadband Network (NBN) at the stage one mainland release site of Townsville would be completed in 12 weeks.

Gillard, confirmed the timeframe while speaking at a media conference in Queensland city.

"Just talking to the workers here today, the area we're standing in now will be completed in 12 weeks with switch-on to follow that," she said.

A spokesperson for NBN confirmed the timeframe for the project. The spokesperson adds that the passive infrastructure, which includes the distribution network and the building drops, would be constructed within the time period. The active network that is required to switch on the network, on the other hand, has an expected completion date of early next year.

Before the network is switched on, NBN will approach residents to offer installation of the optical network terminal (ONT) free of charge on their homes by early 2011. Once the network is switched on, users will be able to access committed broadband speeds of 100 megabits per second (Mbps) and potentially one gigabits per second (Gbps) peak rates on the network. Townsville is one of the five major release sites selected for the project. The area covers 3100 premises in the suburbs of Mundingburra and Aitkenvale outside of the town centre. A further 3,000 premises in the location will also be included as the second stage of rollouts planned by NBN starts early next year.

According to NBN's promotional material, the areas were chosen as rollout locations in order to allow the wholesaler to "test and document design and construction techniques in a regional centre". In spite of tendered contractors not starting the construction of sites in July as originally planned, the rollout of the network remains on track.