Because that’s not what experience shows. The last time I checked, fibre that’s been in service for more than four decades was showing no signs of degradation. Nobody really knows how long fibre will last, but many commentators go with a century.
As Quigley said in Senate Estimates:
“ We speak to the manufacturers of fibre. They simply do not know how long the fibre will last because they can see no mechanism by which it would degrade-unlike copper … ”
You fear that something better might come along. OK, if that happens, we stop the fibre and start doing whatever the something is. At present, there’s no sign of your feared ‘something’. We can only go with what we know. Allowing ourselves to be paralysed by fear of the unknown is not an option. There’s too much that we don’t know.
We may well hit a cost wall or run out of time. Some premises, we might not get to. On the other hand, we might get to every premises in the nation. As it stands, there’s only one way to find out - and the cost is not a thing to fear.
Given the time-frame, it’s quite possible that the network will finance its own construction (provided it’s kept in public ownership). In fact, the potential is such that network income will probably need protection from predation. As I said:
