On Tue, 10 Sep 2013, "Pidgorny, Slav (GEUS)" <slav.pidgorny@anz.com> wrote:
G'day -
From: John Mann [mailto:john.mann@monash.edu]
The NBN is being paid for by NBN users, not Australian Taxpayers.
If only that was true. I think NBN marketing alone costed more than its revenue thus far.
A quick search results in some figures: "The government has already pumped around $2.6 billion into the fibre-to-the-premise (FTTP) NBN down from original forecast of $4.7 billion for the year because of delays. It is being principally funded by the sale of government bonds but deployment remains in its infancy with only around 1 per cent of premises passed." (http://www.theage.com.au/it-pro/government-it/tough-nbn-spending-decisi ons-await-20130708-2jl56.html)
How much did the government spend on wireless 4G? DSL networks? Zero. That's how it should be.
The government sold bandwidth to telcos for 3G and 4G service. Anything that requires physical connection to the premises (ADSL, Cable, fiber, etc) will have significantly less efficiency if there are excessive options. Having the government maintain a monopoly over basic services such as electricity, water, sewage, and phone lines provides efficiency without unreasonably burdening the home owners. If private companies are allowed full competition in this space then they need the right to put trenches or cables across property borders, this reduces the property rights of home-owners and is something that anyone with any libertarian tendencies should disagree with. If an organisation is to be given the right to mess with my property then I'd like the option of voting them out if they do the wrong thing. http://www.liberal.org.au/fast-affordable-sooner-coalitions-plan-better-nbn The Liberal plan for an NBN aims to only cost a mere $29,500,000,000 of taxpayer money. So it seems that the only thing we can be certain of is that a significant amount of taxpayer money is going to be spent on faster Internet no matter who gets their way. Also we shouldn't assume that the Liberal party will be able to get their project done within budget either... While I have some significant objections to the way the NBN is being done, I think that as such a significant amount of money has been spent we should just stay the course. Dithering on significant projects only adds to the cost. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/