Privatise the damn thing and let competition for the provision of this service flourish

I don’t like the smug face of the Greens that's for sure, but have to accept there is a point to their madness. The internet is here to stay and has become an integral part of our lives, a necessity in other words. Few could disagree that the commercial internet has become crucial in virtually everything from business to social interaction.  It is hard to live or do business without the Internet, and the degree to which we take it for granted suggests broadband is an essential part of infrastructure. I am not sure what the answer is because history shows when you regulate a public utility there is no financial incentive to embrace change. 

It's about time both the ALP and the LNP admit they've both stuffed up and the business plan was shot from the start. Until they do that, I can't see how things will progress. 

Can the stupid government ever get anything right?

The answer is no because they have no knowlege of the state of the art of this concept and will not listen to their own advisers.

Ever since this rotten Government have been in they have done nothing but stuff up and screw the country -- its time for them to GO

To the Greens,

If having the NBN as an essential service, then shouldn't there be enough electricity to run it?

Worry about the electricity supply, there will be no need for the NBN without it.

We will have to chop down more trees and sell more wood chips to China to pay for Ms Young's ideas.

Politician’s don’t mind splashing taxpayer’s cash when it comes to ill-fated policy decisions they’ve made … or much else for that matter IMO.

At least $26 million of taxpayers' money went to advertising, consultants, taskforces and legal fees trying to win over the public on the NSW Government's (currently the Libs since 2011) ill-fated greyhound racing ban and forced council merger policies.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-11-02/government-spends-millions-abandoned-policies/9112288

As for the NBN:

I would far sooner see money being being spent on the NBN as an essential infrastructure program than the ever more questionable Adani coal project in Queensland (e.g. proposed Federal government $1 billion Adani loan for the Carmichael coal mine railway line).

https://www.engadget.com/2011/06/28/why-is-european-broadband-faster-and-cheaper-blame-the-governme/

The UK's administration hasn't invested a penny in broadband infrastructure, and most of the network in the Netherlands has been built with private capital. (The city government in Amsterdam took a minority stake in the fiber network there, but that's an investment that will pay dividends if the network is profitable -- and the private investors who own the majority share of the system plan to make sure that it will be.)

The game-changer in these two European countries has been government regulators who have forced more competition in the market for broadband.

The market in the UK used to be much like ours here in the U.S.: British homes had two options for broadband service: the incumbent telephone company British Telecom (BT), or a cable provider. Prices were high, service was slow, and, as I mentioned above, Britain was falling behind its European neighbors in international rankings of broadband service.

The solution, the British government decided, was more competition: If consumers had more options when it came to broadband service, regulators reasoned, prices would fall and speeds would increase. A duopoly of telephone and cable service wasn't enough. "You need to find the third lever," says Peter Black, who was the UK government's top broadband regulator from 2004 to 2008.

Starting around 2000, the government required BT to allow other broadband providers to use its lines to deliver service. That's known as "local loop unbundling" -- other providers could lease the loops of copper that runs from the telephone company office to homes and back and set up their own servers and routers in BT facilities.

You can see evidence of the UK's competitive market on the streets of London: Broadband providers splash ads across bush shelters and train stations, touting prices that seem outrageously low by U.S. standards. Post offices sell broadband service; so does Tesco, one of the UK's largest supermarket chains.


Competition is spurring technological improvements. BT and its dozens of competitors realize that they're already pushing old-fashioned copper wires to the limit, and that speeds will increase only if homes are connected to fiber-optic cables. So right now, a consortium of competitive broadband providers is negotiating with BT for the right to use the phone company's poles and underground ducts to build their own fiber-optic network

EU Broadband Policy

The EU has recognised the strategic importance of broadband, notably in the Digital Agenda for Europe and more recently in the Digital Single Market strategy. However many EU measures relating to broadband apply specifically to the telecommunications sector and are formulated within the context of telecommunications policies and regulation. Broadband was mentioned as early as 1987 at the beginning of a period in which the principal focus of the EU in terms of telecommunications was on liberalisation and harmonisation of markets that had historically been the purview of monopoly operators. A major legislative package in 1998 was revised in 2002 and further revised by a 2009 package that included measures to increase broadband access and to account for convergence between fixed and mobile. Over this period, under pressure from the EU, National Regulatory Authorities (NRAs) in Member States required incumbent operators that owned network infrastructure to 'unbundle the local loop', i.e. provide access to their fixed networks to other operators. Unbundling increased competition and made broadband more affordable for consumers: this period 'saw the price of calls fall, the range of products increase, efficiency improve, and mobile and broadband growth stabilise'.47 The effects of increased competition continue today (e.g. retail prices in the EU declined 20% between 2009 and 2014). However it was also believed that the new 'virtual' operators who would initially provide services using competitors' network facilities would later develop their own infrastructure, following a 'stepping stone' or 'ladder of investment' theory.48 Ultimately facilities-based competition would allow deregulation. 

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/IDAN/2015/565891/EPRS_IDA(2015)565891_EN.pdf

Further, the study demonstrates that more competition, not deregulation, is a key driver of investment into high-speed broadband. Likewise, where there is less competition, meaning a market is concentrated among fewer players, high-speed coverage is lower.

The German market shows in particular that competition drives investments. More than the half of investments into broadband infrastructure and more than 75% into fibre optics infrastructure are due to alternative providers.

https://www.ie.foundation/en/blog/neue-studie-next-generation-networks

Privatise the NBN!-- isn't that what the Libs have done with every bloody thing and look where it has got us -- it is THEIR responsibility -- and we don't need some private company trying to make even more money out of us and out of something that we once owned like Qantas/ Telstra etc --  and the Libs say they got us out of debt! -- if you sell all your assets it would be easy to get out of debt!

Also once you get the NBN which I will have in a couple of weeks -- IF there is a storm around then you unplug the internet modem AND so also the landline , because it is plugged into the modem -- so no one is able to leave a message on your message bank -- and if you are in an area that has poor connection on your mobile -- you are up the well known creek, its a bloody disgrace.   What happens when you have storms like we have and are out for days how the  ---- do you charge a  ---- mobile?