@Bazz: Fibre everywhere is the Rolls Royce solution and it will have a long life through many updates.

Just remember how we got here. The original idea (shall we call it NBN 0.1) was to just upgrade the copper using Fibre to the Node. In fact it looked very much like what Malcolm Turnbull proposed as the Liberal NBN the other day. http://delimiter.com.au/2011/08/03/new-coalition-nbn-policy-splitting-telstra-using-hfc/

The reason NBN 0.1 didn't go ahead wasn't because fibre was better. It was because the incumbent Telco's owned the copper. That means they had to be paid to upgrade it. The governments of the time (the NBN idea was born with the Liberals, then passed onto Labor) were prepared to do that, but there was a catch: if the government was going to pay the incumbents to upgrade it all retail providers had to have equal access. Telstra and Optus both said no.

The other alternative was to purchase the copper outright, but this was deemed too expensive because they would then have to pay for it based on some multiple of its current revenue per year which is huge. But because Telstra still owned the exchanges the copper connected to, that revenue had to be split between the government and Telstra.

The current NBN 1.0 was a rather sneaky solution. Because NBN 1.0 would be built by the government there was no need to spend a multiple of the current revenue on purchasing it - effectively they got it at cost. And because they owned everything they get to keep all the revenue. That halved the initial investment because it starts to pay for itself as it is being built, and it (at least on paper) means the government gets a positive return on it once it is built (7% as opposed to the 5% they pay to borrow the money).

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The sneaky bit is because it is so much better than copper, they could go to Telstra and Optus and say: "After we build this your current land like networks will be worthless. But we are willing to pay you for your customers." The amount the paid was small compared to what the copper network was worth, but nonetheless it was an offer/threat the incumbent Telco's could hardly refuse. So now they have a guaranteed customer base for their new network, which eliminats one of the major risks in building it. The only other real risk I see is building it on budget. Some do argue there is a third risk - people abandoning land lines and switching to wireless for everything.

So that is how we ended up where we are. The end result is the taxpayer end up getting a Rolls Royce fibre network for roughly the same money it have cost them to buy the Holden copper network from Telstra.

If the corporate world requires NBN, let them form a company, sell shares and build their NBN. Then, if the succeed and the NBN is such a good thing as some suggest, then their shares will quadruple in value as many private ind will want to buy of piece of it.

Meanwhile, those of us who are happy with our current speed, can continue enjoying life as we know it and look forward to the next thing this government can find to waste our billions on.