said by jmn1207 :

Not a chance in the world, upside down or otherwise. I mean, Australia already tries to censor private networks, I can only imagine that exhaustive morality filtering will be applied to this government built version.

It worries me that this could be used as a powerful tool by those holding positions of power in Australia. Let's just say that I am rather wary about the entire project. It's too easy to go down the path of China and North Korea when deciding what should and should not be accessed over the internet. Politician's will surely agree that sites lambasting their policies would be considered hostile, and should be blacklisted.

No thanks, just give the money back to the tax payers.

But there's a long way to go before the dream of a national broadband network for Australia, a nation of 21 million people, becomes a reality. The government recognizes this, though, noting that it now needs to: organize an "implementation study to determine the company's operating arrangements, detailed network design and ways to attract private sector investment"; roll out fiber links between "cities, major regional centres and rural towns" to address backhaul "black spots"; introduce new legislation to govern the new company and ensure that all greenfield housing developments include fiber access links; and initiate a consultative process that will result in changes to Australia's telecom regulations.

said by GOLFnSUN :

And now comes the typical gov't black hole:

If they actually complete 50% in 7 to 8 yrs it will be a major miracle, especially if they experience a chg in which party is in charge in that time.

said by Ignite :

We'll see - their efficiency may surprise you. First step is recognising what you need to do and a lot of these things can be done in parallel.

said by elios :

Hoover Dam was built UNDER BUDGET AND AHEAD OF TIME
>.> but yea every thing else pretty much

said by jmn1207 :

Not a chance in the world, upside down or otherwise. I mean, Australia already tries to censor private networks, I can only imagine that exhaustive morality filtering will be applied to this government built version.

said by Somnambul33t :

This is exactly what we DON'T need. the mixture of public and private business is called fascism. it's the fusion of private and public business with centralized control of the national economy. where socialism destroys all economic markets in favor of full government-supported industries, fascism leaves the semblance of a market in place albeit with near complete gov't control. in simplest terms, it might be considered middle ground between capitalism and socialism.

make no mistake, all these hybrid government companies are extremely dangerous for markets, and hence, free nations. when was the last time any government ran anything efficiently? Completely coincidentally, the beheadings of the French Revolution and D-Day are the only events, services, or systems i can think of.

this $31 Billion will turn into $45B, $50B, maybe even $60B. It will be subject to all other government programs, like welfare, so you'll have people with computers handed out by the government getting free broadband. If high speed internet really is so important that everyone NEEDS it, why SHOULDNT the government provide PCs to people "less fortunate"? this flawed logic never ends.