[Atsuii]

It is hilarious to me as an Australian that anyone would call the NBNCO out as a 'brilliant idea'.

In theory yes but the 'national broadband network' has been nothing but a giant political mess and used as a tool to misinform and manipulate voters. It has resulted in ridiculous overblown budgets and a subpar below global standard product. I live 7km from Sydney CBD and I still have ADSL2 with 9mb down and 200kb/s up which gets 75% packet loss anytime it rains. The NBN was established/announced in 2009, it’s now 2020 and I am still waiting..

Anyone who is under the impression that the Australian government plans to maintain ownership has their head in the sand. This is a paid for tax payer network infrastructure project which will be packaged and sold off to private business in 5 years time so that private business can reap the rewards for the long term. This is what happened to our previous common network infrastructure provider Telstra.

[jiggawatts]

It was never a "political mess" until Murdoch offered Tony Abbott the prime ministership in exchange for hamstringing the NBN.

100% of the blame lies with those two men. Nobody else.

[AlphaSite]

BT is conceptually similar but works far better, because OFCOM is so strong.