"under the Labor government, we were moving towards an all cyber-based network"
Cyber-based network, or Fibre based network? And this guy is supposed to be a professor and an expert?
Come on.
BTW, private industry was doing just fine, providing adequate comms service to almost all Australians, with a little bit of help from the taxpayer for rural and remote areas.
If the demand, and the need, and the money is there, they will build it.
I dont know how old you are, but in my 44 years on this Earth I have seen households with no phones, to households with phones which were so expensive to use for STD calls, to massive reductions in price and huge increases in what you get for your money these days.
And the explosion in mobile devices, all getting better and cheaper.
In communications / internet I have seen 14.4 kbs dial up, 28.8, 56.6, then ADSL, ADSL2 and ADSL2+.
I have yet to come across a product or service I wanted to use in my home that wasnt adequately supported by ADSL2+. Maybe others have had problems, but not me. From downloading large files in a reasonable time, to watching something from iview or sbs on demand etc, it seems to do the job for a reasonable price, using existing equipment that is already in place.
And the hospitals, tech schools, schools, universities etc. already have fibre connections to suit their own requirements. So does most big businesses.
So I'm still not convinced we all need a fibre connection into our homes, particularly with the ongoing advances in wireless compression and speed that seem to have a lot of legs yet to run.
The whole thing is a dud. Always was, always will be. Creating a monolithic monopoly on our telecoms, no doubt full of bloated, unionised ALP drones, is the last thing we should be doing.
Competition creates the best outcomes for consumers, the break up and selling off of Telstra proves this is true.
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