[LINK] NBN longer-term prospects

[David Lochrin]

On Tuesday 31 January 2017 12:08:44 Simon Sharwood wrote:

> IMHO a bigger NBN user population will be a good thing, because it will be able to drive demand for network upgrades in ways the current political process clearly will not.
> 
> Once NBN has ~10m subscribers and decent cashflow, it can fund upgrades itself and the political process becomes irrelevant.

That was far from our experience with Telstra.  Having become one of the best networks in the world and a cash cow for the government, it was privatised by Johnny Howard.  Its Australian users then became irrelevant because the new "management" decided it could engage in more profitable activities elsewhere, such as running mobile networks in densely populated Asian countries.  Eventually it became obvious the neglected Telstra network was beyond hope and had to be replaced by (as far as possible) a modern FTTP network.

However Coalition governments have so mangled the original NBN project that it's become an embarrassing mess which they may try to privatise in order to get rid of their perceived responsibility, and history will then repeat itself.  Of course NBN Co. seems to be such a creature of Government anyway that privatisation may not be necessary.  Perhaps they could accomplish much the same ends without formal privatisation, for example by entering into unequal "public-private partnerships" to get rid of the smellier and less profitable bits.

Wasn't it said of the Bourbons that "they never learned and never forgot"?

It would be interesting to compare the legal constitution of Telstra before & after privatisation with NBN Co. now.

David L.