and the solution rests on - chainsaws!

Did anyone else have the good fortune to come across Ross Kelso's eminently readable piece in Wednesday's Finrew - titled "Without Telstra the NBN's rollout is up in the air"?

Seems that without Telstra's assets under their control, a MINIMUM 55% of the optical fibre will need to be strung from electricity poles if the NBN has any hope of completing witin its $43bn estimate (source - KPMG report).

I am old enough to remember the rollout of pay TV optical fibre through the streets of Melbourne in the mid 1990's - and the chaos it caused by way of congestion as whole lanes had to be closed - often for weeks, as this was done. In addition a huge cutback of street trees was done to make way for this intrusive technology that no-one had asked for.

If the NBN goes ahead without Telstra's underground assets being deployed, the pay TV experience will seem like a picnic.

There will be massive destruction of city steetscapes, massive felling of forest trees to replace existing electricity poles that won't be up to the additional task of carrying an optical cable and we will get another layer of visual pollution into the bargain.

Whenever a pole is brought down, rather than lose the power only - we will now also use our fixed line plus our broadband. This will push ever more people into the wireless realm - weakening the already pitifully weak case for this spiteful adventure.

At a time when Victorians are digesting the royal commission into the devastating bushfires findings that reliance on overhead infrastructure (electricity and communications) are bad news - Conroy is about to push us further down this futile path.

This issue is the big sleeper in the NBN debate - when it becomes general knowledge and its implications for our cities is clear - people will have their say and Conroy will back off.

Let Telstra implement is FTTN proposal and regulate it fairly so that open access is provided but a fair and reasonable return to the provider of the risk capital - Telstra - is assured.

PS ironic to find the Greens on the side of environmental destruction on this issue.