NBN's chief executive Bill Morrow says he has visited the homes of tech giants Google and Facebook, and confirmed that people do not want fibre optic internet at home.

Morrow says a recent visit to the US confirmed that NBN is on the right path with its roll out of the random technological patchwork now called the national broadband network.

NBN's engineering and strategy team met Google's Fibre division, Facebook, Verizon, Comcast, AT&T, Cisco, ViaSat, Ericsson and a number of other equipment vendors.

The CEO said the company was testing the argument that there are faster alternatives to fibre to the premises (FTTP).

Critics of the current roll out say that FTTN cannot provide high download and upload speeds for the long term, and so the government-owned enterprise should deploy more expensive FTTP options.

But government claims it is looking at way to deploy FTTN more cheaply and quickly, before inevitably having to upgrade the network in the future.

Speaking to Fairfax Media, Mr Morrow said his briefings with US companies made him more comfortable than ever that the FTTN-based approach was still the best bet.

“You hear a lot of things said, such as claims that the US is completely abandoning FTTN and all the cable companies are abandoning HFC and everybody is going to get fibre... we got tired of hearing all these claims second and third hand so we went to find out for ourselves,” Mr Morrow said.

The NBN chief says he asked Google Fibre executives about the cost of services at gigabit speeds, much faster than is possible under the FTTN plans, and was told customers did not use it yet.

Mr Morrow said Google was rolling out fibre where it would make the most money, which also forces other providers to do the same.

The plan appears to be to provide just enough service that the private sector will want to fill the gaps.

“In these areas they have forced the likes of AT&T and Verizon and Comcast to lay fibre too,” Mr Morrow said.

“Google wants carriers to invest more in the broadband, for the natural and obvious reason that the more broadband there is, the more ad revenue they are going to make... when you ask [carriers] how quickly they can provide it at a price people are willing to pay for, you get a lot of scrunchy faces saying; ‘We don't really know’.”