I haven't looked into the specifics, but in the corporate plan they expect to pay off the government contribution in 20 to 30 years. And it's been audited by more than two audit firms now, so I expect it must be somewhat realistic.
Yes, it is still a monopoly, but what would you rather have - a fast network that reaches the whole population with open access to providers, or the Coalition granting Telstra and Optus some more money to upgrade parts of the network that they don't want to let other carriers access because they are competing with them in the retail space?
I think we do need to put in more overseas cables, but that's no reason to delay upgrading our local network. Anyone who can't see that bandwidth requirements are rapidly increasing to the point where we'll inevitably need a fibre network is delusional (or doesn't know much about technology). It just seems such a waste to spend billions to put in another system that is not sufficient in the long term, and nowhere near as upgradable as fibre, that will have to be ripped up...
> And it's been audited by more than two audit firms now, so I expect it must be somewhat realistic.
Nitpick: we can't see the actual financials because they are "Commercial-in-Confidence".
When you bring in an outside firm to audit something, if it's not a report regulated by law (eg the annual report of a public company) you can instruct them to use any assumptions or constraints that you wish.
An audit will only point out if your formulae are incorrectly formed (invalid), not whether they are at all realistic.
For example, NBN's internal funding plan might say something like:
"We assume 100% takeup in 2 years".
And the auditor's job isn't to say "2 years to 100%? That seems unlikely".
It's actually to say, "given 100% in 2 years, our calculation is X, and your calculation is also X, therefore the audit passes".
Yes, it is still a monopoly, but what would you rather have - a fast network that reaches the whole population with open access to providers, or the Coalition granting Telstra and Optus some more money to upgrade parts of the network that they don't want to let other carriers access because they are competing with them in the retail space?
I think we do need to put in more overseas cables, but that's no reason to delay upgrading our local network. Anyone who can't see that bandwidth requirements are rapidly increasing to the point where we'll inevitably need a fibre network is delusional (or doesn't know much about technology). It just seems such a waste to spend billions to put in another system that is not sufficient in the long term, and nowhere near as upgradable as fibre, that will have to be ripped up...