There’s a theory I’ve seen that it was to help Murdoch and Telstra.
Murdoch and Telstra owned Foxtel. Telstra also owned the HFC cable that Foxtel used to transmit it’s pay tv.
Now, Netflix, and online sports viewing was becoming possible and popular via the internet. And with faster internet, everyone would be able to do it. And they wouldn’t be locked in to Telstra for fast HFC cable internet, or for Foxtel for it’s entertainment or sports content.
So, Murdoch and Telstra had 2 problems:
- The implementation of fibre to the home would leave them with obsolete copper and HFC physical assets worth nothing.
- Foxtel was not ready with it’s internet centric apps and distribution AND competitors already were. Uh-oh! My subscribers!
So, how would a government solve to appease these people?
- You make the NBN a ‘multi-technology’ strategy.
- You buy up the copper and HFC assets that will be worthless from Telstra for billions.
- You make everything as complex as possible so that implementation will be slower, buying Foxtel more time to transfer their business processes and apps to the internet, while at the same time holding back their competitors
“Sooner, cheaper and more affordably” became later, more expensive and at much higher cost.
Nath@aussie.zone 1 week ago
You won’t often catch me defending Telstra, but here goes: they didn’t let the copper network fall into disrepair. They did genuinely maintain it at a standard that was pretty close to if not as good as what Telstra did. Those copper cables though were designed for telephony and never designed for the Internet. Some of that copper is over 100 years old. If all the lines needed to handle were plain old telephone, Telstra was doing ok.
We’ll never know whether Telecom would have gone to the Internet at all, as they were a telephone company. I can see Telecom in that alternate universe being all-in on mobile Internet though. It’s an interesting thought discussion.