No matter which party gets in, its still an investment that looks like its going to happen, so the ROI is actually irrelevant. I guess it's all moot given that Liberals are highly likely to win anyway and blow all that money on a substandard system that doesn't solve the problem.
The point of the exercise was actually to replace the decaying copper infrastructure, which costs $1 Billion/year to maintain. The side effect of replacing the copper wires with cheaper and far superior fibre is that we have the opportunity to obtain significantly higher internet speeds with far higher quality connections and zero crosstalk. The thing that makes fibre expensive is that you have to put it in in the first place. On Mon, Apr 15, 2013 at 2:56 PM, mike smith <meski...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Mon, Apr 15, 2013 at 12:38 PM, Les Hughes <l...@datarev.com.au> wrote: > >> mike smith wrote: >> >>> On Mon, Apr 15, 2013 at 7:52 AM, David Connors <da...@connors.com<mailto: >>> da...@connors.com>> wrote: >>> >>> On Mon, Apr 15, 2013 at 3:21 AM, Les Hughes <l...@datarev.com.au >>> <mailto:l...@datarev.com.au>> wrote: >>> >>> My opinion: Labor's NBN is a good idea. In reality it will >>> probably take 2, 3, or more times as long, and be the same in >>> cost. Is fibre great? Sure. Is fibre great at $10,000+ per >>> house. No. Is $10,000 fibre per house even better when it's >>> all controlled by a government monopoly? Yes! Whoops, I mean >>> @#*&#*&*$ NOOO! >>> >>> >>> If one accepts the idea that fast broadband will economically >>> revolutionise the country by allowing people to do all sorts of >>> high bandwidth stuff, then the CVC charges need to go - full stop. >>> The direct result of that is that the project needs to be not >>> treated as an investment with a financial return, but just treated >>> as a social welfare project and moved onto the appropriate place >>> in the budget with health, education, etc. >>> >>> Somewhat ironically, I would have a lot less of a problem with the >>> project if the government did that: Call a spade a spade. >>> Bonus question: If you were spending your personal money on a >>> project that was proceeding at <1% of its stated goals, how long >>> would you continue investing? >>> >>> How long did people invest in Amazon? For years it ran in the red, and >>> I bet that wasn't a goal. >>> >> And if they failed, it didn't cost me $1000's. If they run over budget, >> and their products were unviable, the market would punish them. No such >> mechanism exists with government "investment". >> >> There is a big difference regarding public risk that will benefit >> corporations vs. corporate risk. >> > > > THe question was regarding 'personal money' - so I picked an example of > something one could invest in. The NBN is a bad example of that, you > cannot invest in it (yet?) > > -- > Meski > > http://courteous.ly/aAOZcv > > "Going to Starbucks for coffee is like going to prison for sex. Sure, > you'll get it, but it's going to be rough" - Adam Hills >
