Rstuart,

What makes you think a public monopoly is in any way better than a private regulated monopoly? A private monopoly cannot ban others from competing with it, and has the motive to reduce costs.

Secondly, private companies could upgrade each customer to fibre based on the needs / spend desire of the customer on a user pays rather than everyone pays basis. This could have a small subsidy, but is likely to reach those that want it faster than the NBN, even though the total roll out will be slower.

On the subject of "why do we need it" this seems relevant

http://www.itwire.com/opinion-and-analysis/cornered/49136-to-believe-we-need-100mbps-you-have-to-have-some-vision?start=1

It says:"And it was asked again to a panel of IT industry luminaries on Tuesday at a Trans-Tasman Business Circle lunch in Sydney this week: "What are some of the ideas coming into your minds as to what you will be able to use that kind of capacity for once it is available on a broad basis."

As with so many of the 'answers' to this question,' not one member of the panel was able to come up with a convincing application that really needed that kind of bandwidth. All the applications mentioned could easily be supported with widespread availability of the kind of bandwidths available on today's networks."

As I said...

And here's another comment on the topic of the necessity of having fibre-level bandwidth.

http://delimiter.com.au/2011/08/20/in-defence-of-turnbulls%E2%80%99-nbn-speed-claims/

"Those blinded by Labor’s glitzy NBN vision need to rub their eyes for a second and realise that Malcolm Turnbull knows what he is talking about when he says there are few consumer applications which require the kinds of 100Mbps speeds which the fibre network will provide."

and
"Now, I’m not going to argue with the fact that all of the technology required for all of this videoconferencing — as much as ten HD streams from one house! – is available today. After all, vendors like Cisco and Polycom already offer high-quality videoconferencing gear for business, and in the consumer sphere there are a range of suppliers selling decent kit as well.

But what I do want to raise is the fact that it might not require quite the level of bandwidth which Stilgherrian claims it does – and also the idea that despite it being available, so far most Australians have shown absolutely no interest in actually using it.

In his article on The Drum, Stilgherrian never actually goes into what bandwidth level each of the HD videoconferencing applications he describes requires. However, in a previous article published by Technology Spectator, he does. And it quickly racks up. Let’s go through his list of what could be a typical household:

The geologist mother: Remote mine viewing (2 X 5Mbps), plus 3D manipulation of rock strata (10Mbps), plus a videoconferencing session with her boss (5Mbps)
The HR manager father: Videoconferencing with his PA (10Mbps, plus a possible further 10Mbps for passing handwritten notes)
The student son working on homework with friends (10Mbps)
Daughter streaming video online (5Mbps)
Another family member’s doctor’s appointment (10Mbps)
Security camera monitoring (10Mbps)

Hmm. With a sum total of 80Mbps of capacity being used in the vision outlined here, it’s not hard to see why some people believe that the sooner we get the NBN, the better. The only problem, of course, is that all of this is complete horseshit of the highest magnitude."

I agree.

There's an excellent book called "Decision-making on mega-projects: cost-benefit analysis, planning and innovation" which gives an excellent summation of the way in which projects like the NBN go off the rails from the start and suffer from poor analysis of the justifications for commencing.

Below is a link to what the authors say are the 6 reasons for this occurring. It do believe they're especially relevant to the way the NBN case has been mishandled.

http://books.google.com/books?id=tenILJ-MowQC&lpg=PP1&dq=isbn%3A9781845427375&pg=PA2#v=onepage&q&f=false

@Antiseptic: I agree.

Firstly it isn't a choice between 100MBit/s and something else. It is a choice between 100Mbit/s and doing nothing. I agree that upgrading the copper network would make most sense. Unfortunately that path has been tested twice by both sides of politics, and has failed twice. Given both sides of politics acknowledge the network has to be upgraded what path do you suggest should be taken, if not the NBN.

Secondly the argument "we are spending too much to build something that people can't pay for and won't use" only makes sense if in fact they can't pay for it and won't use it. But since people are using data, and what they are building will make a profit at what they are currently paying it's a non-sequitur. Yes, the system might have extra capacity household's won't use. Why is that a problem?

Stilgherrian's predictions of what data will be used in the future, and yours for that matter, remind me of this Henry Ford quote:

"If I had of asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said faster horses."

By the way, in Tasi there are already NBN users with 100Mbit/s, who complained when they didn't get it. Several of them in fact. It is through their experience with them the NBN now says the minimum back haul is 200Mbit/s, because it turns out when you put 2 100Mbit/s on a single 100Mbit/s they whinge, normal industry contention ratio's be dammed. http://delimiter.com.au/2011/07/21/pulling-apart-the-nbns-untenable-pricing-model-by-simon-hackett/

rstuart:"It is a choice between 100Mbit/s and doing nothing."

Not at all. It's a choice between an expensive and over-specified technology that will not be even close to fully utilised or a cheaper technology that can be easily scaled.

Remember the subject of "Li-Fi" - light-based wireless networking? Here's a link to an interview with a developer of the technology. Have a listen, it's only a few minutes long.

He says they have achieved speeds of 100Mb/s and can do much more. It is not affected by external light sources, since it uses a form of amplitude modulation (AM) and noise is not a large problem, since most noise sources are constant brightness or change on timescales that are not relevant to the signal and can hence be easliy filtered. If you've evr flown a plane you'd have used a noise-cancelling headset which uses the same principle to allow you to hear relatively low-vooume voices over the very loud noise of the engines.

The more I look into this the more convined I am that the NBN is no more than a very expensive boondoggle. Anyone want to bet that when Conroy gets booted at the next election he'll go straight for a job at one of the NBN Co suppliers' boards?

the book I referenced above looks to have the right of it.