How can any one cost a NBN. It has got to be an educated guess. Infastructure is a nations wealth, without it you have nothing.

That's a little unfair, Shadow Minister.

>>The reason that the NBN company has to be entirely funded by the government (read taxpayer) is that no sane business or bank would touch it with a barge pole.<<

The problem was that the scope of the project was never made clear to the companies who were in a position to tender. Add to this the government's vacillating attitude to that archetypal 800lb gorilla, Telstra, the barge-pole was more to do with Ts and Cs than the actual project.

A key element of confusion in this project is that everyone is, to some extent, "right".

Given a leveller playing field (which would involve the government coming to terms with said 800lb gorilla), industry would have done a stunning job of delivering speed to those businesses who need it, at a fraction of the planned cost. Those who wanted it could get it, and pay for it in a normal commercial manner. Job done.

Except that...

Those businesses would be in major population centres, where the per-subscriber cost of delivering fibre and wireless is substantially less.

But there is somewhere in the small print the need to give all Strayans the same benefits.

In which case the folk who say "the cost to deliver to the remote corners of Straya must be borne by all Strayans" have a point: it simply would not be an attractive business proposition to invest in the technology that reaches the four high-speed subscribers in Outer Woop-Woop, if they are the only folk who will ever pay for it.

But hey, be that as it may - does anyone have any clue as to how the wholesale cost will be arrived at? It seems such a big question to leave unanswered.

A NBN may well be the top notch communication technology now but we all know that technology out-dates itself just about every year now. So, if the Government throws 49 Bn Dollars at that technology over the next few years what safety net is there for when better technology overthrows this infrastructure ? I can fully appreciate Business needing more speed but do we really need to hand out that much money for teeny poppers to download dumbcrap music ?
The other thing that worries me is that a whole country can be exposed to a lot of danger by relying too much on such technology with no manual back-up so to speak.
Some 16 year old hacker could bring down a nation with one stroke at the keyboard. Digital is absolutely fantastic but so are the possibilities of abject failure by total reliance on such a system. Let's make the NBN about 30 Bn Dollars & split the rest among well deserving pensioners.

"How can anyone cost the NBN"

You must be kidding! Telstra and its subcontractors know how much manpower and cabling is required for different types of cable installation.

Telstra has details on the network, cable routes, lengths etc. It just takes time to put the figures together. Any competent engineering firm could do it. The estimate has already been done, however, the government refuses to release the estimate and the assumptions on which it is based.

Similarly, hospitals are all subject to a cost benefit analysis, with the cost of service per bed etc.

The cost benefit analysis is easier and cheaper to do than most of the project work so far. Labor just does not want to hear the answer.

Shadow Minister I hereby dedicate a fourth wise monkey in your name.
It refuses to see, hear, or consider others ideas.
I can not get radio linked, nore more than 15 kbs via wire.
The government spent 4 grand on me with satellite, and I get far less than city speeds.
No evidence, none, exists that this proposal will be over budget.
I fail to under stand why any one, me too responds to your threads.

Dear Belly,

If you live in the country, then certainly you deserve a better connection - but why should everyone else suffer? why must you drag along the majority which are city-dwellers and already have more than their healthy share of bandwidth?