[another-one-off]

It is debatable whether the Australian government got that right.

The Australian government has set up a single corporation to roll out a broadband network to every house in Australia. This is something that the government has no special knowledge of, and no demonstrated ability to do. Governments have no business doing this thing. There is a very real risk that ideological differences between the Liberal and Labor parties will see NBN Co. mired in a similar situation to Telstra - a privatised monopoly with massive and unrivaled infrastructure funded by taxpayers with terrible customer service.

What should be done is for the government to maintain an inter-town and inter-city fibre backbone, and cover the cost at taxpayer expense, then let local council and small business wire up individual towns and suburbs. Then let consumers hire an ISP who also handles maintenance of the fibre cables. Maybe give the installer of the cable a 10- or 20-year monopoly on maintaining the cable to allow them to recoup their cost.

Granted, technically the government would want to retain official 'ownership' of the cables, and would still need some sort of administrative group to oversee who was responsible for which cable, but this would be a big improvement over how the rollout actually came together.

Creating new government-backed corporations to own the infrastructure is not a winning formula. The entity building and maintaining the cables needs to be exposed to market forces, and it isn't difficult to see how it could be done.

The government can handle the expensive parts like satellite connections for rural Australia and the inter-town links, if the market isn't likely to provide those things.

[hartror]

The intention is that Telstra and the NBN are apples and oranges when it comes to the consumer. Telstra is (soon to be was?) both the network and the retailer whereas the NBN is just a network wholesaler.

The argument of government vs private infrastructure projects is a whole other kettle of fish.

[jeza]

The 10-20 year monopoly idea would prove to be problematic if the cable provider is also your ISP. I can only imagine this leading to deterioration in quality of service and over pricing. Regulation might help to an extent. Having a large number of companies using a myriad of technologies could well negate market forces. Where as having a standardised set of technology nation wide could save a lot of money (think maintenance contractors who only have to learn a small set of technologies).

I don't see why a government authority can't coordinate an infrastructure rollout like fibre, provided they have the right expertise. They seem to manage the same task fine with roads, etc. That's not to say it's the only model that can work.

[hrrsn]

We're following a similar setup here in New Zealand, except in lieu of NBN Co the government has outsourced network build and maintenance to different companies in different parts of the country. We've actually had FTTN to 80% of the population set up for about 5 years now (what the other alternative was in Australia) and as any geek will tell you, it's not sufficient. In addition, VDSL is now available nationwide if you're close enough to a cabinet which is a nice stopgap while FTTH is being built. All of this is ISP neutral, so a new comer offering DSL and fiber has significantly less required investment.