Great, can Google Fiber take a serious look at our market in Australia: the current chumps running the country seem to be taking backward steps with the previous government's (admittedly ambitious) plans for a National Broadband Network every day.
The NBN is the worst policy idea to hit the Australian tech industry, ever. I doubt there will be one worse. It has already wreaked a trail of destruction and slowed down adoption of high speeds, it will continue to do so for at least the next 5 years, until some future government finally sells the scraps and turns it over to private companies, as it should have done from the get-go.
We had a grandiose government scheme announced 7 years ago. 7 Years down the track, private investment is forbidden, none of the Telcos have made any additional investment, existing infrastructure is being torn up. And the number of people passed by the new system is less than what a decent football stadium will hold, but they are $15 billion spent already. The forecast cast has progressed beyond $65 billion, but any number you hear is just finger-in-the-wind anyway.
It's fashionable - very fashionable- to love on the NBN, but it is a terrible, terrible idea. Fibre? great. Government owned communications monopoly with grandiose promises and an army of people and advertising, but little actual rollout.
Worst. Idea. Ever.
You think I'm being partisan? No. I would have opposed the idea no matter which party put it up. You've only got to look at various transport projects which are endlessly promised, re-promised, and then re-re-promised when a PR opportunity is ready. The Redcliffe rail link has been promised for 100 years now.
If you want fast speeds, then you need competition. Just like this article says. Not a quasi government department full of paper shuffling. Please kill the NBN and invite Google over. Give them tax money if necessary, but dismantle a nationalised communications network, stat.
The problem with government ownership (and particularly with the NBN) is that the focus of the organization transfers from cost-effective rollout to political points and favors. Those regions which supported the previous government were given priority for the rollout, despite them being areas of poor commercial return. The lack of return from early customers compromises the cashflow of the organization. Because the technology was selected with a one-size-fits-all approach - madness in a country the size of the USA with the population of the Greater NY area - commercial consideration was again ignored, right down to paying $11 billion to an existing Telco to pull up working HFC in existing areas.
Definitely a plan is needed - the original case was for the government to lay down the backbone in Fiber and let the Telcos complete the costly last mile in whatever worked best. But this didn't fit the grand 5-year plan so beloved of committed central planners so it was expanded to a FTTN vision - famously undercosted, underestimated and underperforming.
The result is a disgusting mess that nobody wants to own up to, and meanwhile, I'm sitting here with the exact same crappy connection that was here 10 years ago, and no progress because committee this and study that. Politically I'm in the wrong area, and the existing Telcos aren't going to upgrade my line because it's only going to get torn up and replaced (supposedly) sometime soon. They aren't even allowed to advertise 4G mobile as a competitor to the NBN because the government needs every single person on board to have a hope of making a $50 or 60 billion white elephant look remotely commercial.
Things are getting better here slowly, can't believe how retarded the liberal party is over the NBN.
Please help us, Google!