(Telecompaper) The rollout of Australia's National Broadband Network (NBN) is slowing down and missing targets. The company rolling out the network, NBN Co, forecast in July it would pass 318,700 existing premises by end-September. However, on 7 October the NBN passed 227,454 premises, many of them multi-unit dwellings that cannot order NBN services. Tasmania is the worst affected state with the number of premises that can connect to the fibre network actually going backwards, The Australian Financial Review writes citing internal NBN Co statistics. On 12 August, Tasmania counted 32,003 premises passed but this slipped to 32,001 in October after NBN Co corrected its data. The spokesperson for Visionstream, which is responsible for the NBN rollout in the state, blamed the delays on asbestos issues. Meanwhile, Syntheo, which has contracts to rollout the network in Western Australia and South Australia, said that productivity inside NBN Co is low. "No one is pushing the contractors at the moment because there are all these reviews going on. There are so many issues it will probably take 12 months to turn around."