It was a political decision to have government build it as they didnt want to entrench Telstra as both the infrastructure owner and retail provider. ie break up the monopoly. No other Telco in australia had the money to build it. this is a $60 billion plus business. Companies such as iiNet had a market cap of about $1 billion only 10 years ago. Optus is owned by the Singapore govt so we would never put our communications network under foreign ownership. The plan is and has always been to have NBN build it and then for federal govt to float it off in an IPO. The cost to taxpayers will be returned. The shareholders would run and build the network but have NO DIRECT RETAIL CUSTOMERS. end user retail customers would be free to move providers. This is a sound business plan. It is not obsolete............If you are talking 5G then be happy with towers every 300 metres, signals that will not go through walls, drop out under heavy rain and all joined together by FIBRE. 5 G is great for mobile phones but will never replace core infrastructure. A business such as Coles does not link their stores by 5G phones. You really need to understand Telco business.
