Many of Australia’s small businesses have not fully realised their potential because they lack the skills, time or resources to invest in digital technology - or because they lack knowledge of the opportunities that technologies provide.

The NBN Co's latest attempt to put lipstick on a pig — the animal in this case being the network it is building and the make-up in question being speed — goes one step further than the "alternative facts" which its former chief executive, Bill Morrow, used to dish out.

A study carried out by AlphaBeta for NBN Co, the company rolling out Australia's national broadband network, has found that this country is the seventh most affordable market for broadband.