[LINK] Demand 'still not there' for 1Gbps: NBN Co

[David Lochrin]

On Monday 13 February 2017 20:50:57 David Boxall wrote:

> I guess it depends on perspective. What scares Conservatives is big numbers. Look at building a fibre network to Woop-Woop and that's what you get. Thing is, optical fibre is so durable that I'm told 60-year guarantees are not difficult to negotiate commercially these days. Most commentators agree that a century+ service-life is not unrealistic.
> 
> Take that Big, Scary Number; amortise it over a century; it isn't scary any more.

The problem here is that the funding model is done over a lot less than a century.  Yes I know, the Adelaide to Darwin telegraph line was completed in 1872 (that's _1872_ thank you!) and was only 7 months late - see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Overland_Telegraph_Line

It's the world we live in.  And to be fair, 1872 was a time when there was far more confidence in the natural onward & upward progress of humanity and our creations.  I can't see any responsible government now embarking on a project with a payback time of anything like 100 years when the very existence of farming in some remote areas is threatened by greenhouse warming and the House of Cards which is the global economy.

David L.