[Volpe]

I think you are building a narrative to suit your own argument. Industry (telstra, optus, iinet, etc) NEVER planned a nationwide network of fiber (even before NBN was announced) let alone a Fiber-to-the-Home solution.

Australia has 20 million people spread across one of the largest countries in the world, there is not enough market (i.e critical mass) for private firms to build this kind of infrastructure, it is called market failure, it is EXACTLY when government should intervene.

>I'm still not convinced. How is ability of users being able to send each other high-resolution images, HD video etc. going to be worth $50bn+ to economy?

Why was electricity so important just to spread nighttime lighting!? Why'd we even bother!? You don't know that all we will use data for is HD video/image.

Also I think you underestimate how much caching occurs, speeding up local network with speed up "the internet" as ISPs cache a lot.