why couldnt telstra do what nbn is doing, page-4

I think the gist of the government decision to build the NBN comes from the notion that government monopoly will be benevolent one, whereas a private monopoly would be exploitative one and likely to abuse its privileged position.

At the time Howard government was privatizing Telstra the argument was should the infrastructure - cables, ducts etc - remain in national ownership and allow different operators access for a fee. Howard privatized it lock stock and barrel to get more money.

It is now generally believed that it was wrong choice. It created private almost monopoly. Any competition had to either pay big bucks to use TLS wires and fibre or duplicate the the channels at huge cost and inconveniencing the public.

So one could argue that the NBN is fixing Howard's mistakes.

BTW, I do not intend to argue either way, let the bygones be the bygones.

The NBN is powering ahead, they already have 15 customers in Armidale. That is more than 100% improvement on 7 they started with. In a couple of short months.

One could project explosive exponential growth from these numbers.

Although to plot exponential curves I think you need at least three or more numbers, I think.
Any mathematicians among us?