"And in 60 years when you roll it up to replace it with new technology (if it lasts that long of course) will the glass fiber be worth 11 billion dollars to someone?"
haven't you heard about asset depreciation?
"as an investor, it is worth your while to get know what it is. so you won't ask such a silly question."
Grafton48 is correct. After nearly 100years the copper wire network is still worth 11 billion as scrap. Thats basically the value of the copper metal. So 11 billion is the depreciated value.
Unfortunately the NBN will be worth nothing in 15 years. Optic fibre deteriorates and it is fragile - easily damaged. Its depreciated value might be more than zero depending how you do the depreciation calculation, but its scrap value would be negative because it would cost more to recover than it is worth. Why would anyone buy an old optic fibre cable? Its worthless.
