If you haven't already got NBN, just wait until the internet breaks down, as it often does, and you not only lose your ability to use computers, but you will not be able to watch TV or use your telephone, either. Everyone will need a mobile phone for emergencies whether they want it or not. No more landlines, folks. Even if you don't have TV or a computer, you will be stuck with a you-beaut, state of the art, VOIP (Voice Over Internet Phone) telephone. A wonderful thing, modernity and 'advancement'.

Hi Foxy, you have asked the $64 question, or should I say The $30 billion question.

How they are going to get out of this mess.
And how much it will eventually cost to correct it?

Maybe Money Bags Malcolm will personally foot the bill, but some how I don't think so. I suppose we'll just have to pour more money into NBN, and keep Rupert happy at the same time.

I expected Shadow to pop in and tells us how badly Labor did with the NBN, and what a fantastic job his mob have done since taking over. Could even throw in a few links to his favorite news outlet Murdochs's 'The Daily Telecrap' for a bit of unbiased comment. Perhaps he's gone all shy.

Galah'd (as Obama called her), what a long-rolling disaster. She paid herself more than US President Obama too!

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/technology/gillard-snubs-senate-order-on-nbn-20101118-17y0t.html

Galah'd and her treacherous Sidekicks, the Greens and 'whatever she says' Shorten was part of the crew,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFELLK8htKM

Wasted years, chaos and the birds are still coming home to roost.

ttbn,
Considering the exorbitant amount the telcos charge for landline services, using VOIP actually works out cheaper even when you include the cost of getting a mobile phone for emergencies.

And there are no plans to switch off the free to air service yet, so you can still watch TV if your internet breaks down.

Labor's NBN was designed to fail, and its flaws were apparent right from the point when Krudd and comrade Conjob worked the Ponzi scheme out on the back of a cigarette box. The problems the NBN is having today is that in order to fulfil its mandate to make a profit, it has to charge the retailers appropriately, and the result is that the retailers in order to keep customers are not buying enough bandwidth for peak demand.

The single biggest mistake the coalition made was not to flog the whole project off to private enterprise as the NBN business model was already in the toilet by 2013 with massive cost blowouts, and construction at only at about 5% of target at the time.

The whole point of making the NBN a separate company was to keep the fact that Labor intended to blow another $70bn of taxpayers' money off the books. This was only possible if the new company was going to be financially viable and using estimates that no respectable organisation would touch predicted a 7% return on revenue by vastly underestimating the installation costs and using wildly optimistic revenues.

The main cost blowouts were due to the vastly underestimated cost of the final FO cable from the kerb to the house, and the fact that fibre optic networks are dependent on battery backups in emergencies, which added at least a cool $30bn to the cost.

The overestimation of the revenues came from
1 the assumption that the majority of users would sign up for the more expensive 100Mb/s package, which was never going to happen:
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=10838
2 The rapid growth of wireless internet capacity and lower costs that take customers from landlines
3 Pirate networks that target low-cost high margin users in building complexes that undercut the NBN.

Finally, the claim that Fibre to the house is superior is complete bollocks especially since 90% of the NBN customers are purchasing the 25Mb/s plan which the FTTN can easily deliver.

On the NBN, which he says works very well at his place, Cory Bernardi hits the nail on the head when he says that Prime Ministers and senior ministers want to leave a 'legacy' item as a monument to themselves. It is too hard for them to balance the books, keep the country safe, and do the things they were elected to do, so they borrow billions to throw at “poorly considered projects” to get their names on a “brass plaque”.

I thinks that that is fair comment, and applies to both the idiot Prime Ministers, Labor and Coalition, who have been involved in the NBN.