Addressing a Senate Estimates committee on Thursday, NBN Co chief customer officer John Simon said that it was not "following or focusing on TPG" but that the company has examined competitors and identified areas that are open for competition.

"We're rolling out where you can identify a high concentration of MDUs [multi-dwelling units]," Mr Simon said.

"We would expect at some point that we would enter into an MDU that would have a competing technology set and we would continue to deploy."

TPG's fibre-to-the-basement (FTTB) has, since it was announced in September last year, been touted as a threat to NBN Co because it may cherry-pick locations that would offer a better return, while NBN is required to provide broadband to all of Australia, placing emphasis on poorly served areas. TPG is aiming to install the technology in 500,000 homes.

12 multi-dwelling units have already been installed with fibre-to-the-premise (FTTP) by NBN Co, with an average of 100 dwellings and the take-up rate has exceeded expectations, coming in above 6 per cent, Mr Simon said.

Further rolling out will continue with FTTB rather than FTTP, however should a body-corporate wish use the fibre-on-demand service NBN Co is considering, it would look at a co-payment, Mr Simon said.

Early days

Mr Simon said it was early days but NBN Co was aiming to start rolling out the network at 20 multi-dwelling unites per month in the near-term, and to grow that number down the track.

Last week, NBN Co outlined how it would leverage existing hybrid fibre coaxial (HFC) cable networks, such as those used for pay television, for some areas of the NBN rollout. In one scenario outlined in NBN's corporate plan, HFC could account for 27 per cent of the entire rollout.

However, the HFC infrastructure is currently owned by Telstra and SingTel's Optus and a deal with NBN has not yet been reached.

NBN Co chief financial officer Stephen Rue said the negotiations were ongoing and would not comment on whether NBN was looking to purchase or lease the HFC assets.

"We're not in a position to comment. We'd be hopeful of completing those negotiations this year. Post that, there are various regulatory clearances that need to be made," Mr Rue said.

NBN Co does not have access to either providers' HFC assets so testing has not yet been done, NBN chief operating officer Greg Adcock said.

"The plan is being finalised subject to the success of discussions with asset owners," Mr Adcock said.