NBN fibre to the premises - what are the real costs, benefits and value?

[Drop_Bear]

@mark_m

The NBN is only one of many possible targets.

Indeed, but the NBN is the subject of this topic.
[edit]
The others would be off-topic.

@mark_m

might need to be forced on employers. IE to take up and train a percentage of their workforce,

Is that how it was done before? I’ll be interested to see your substantiation.

But you’re right, training is part of the opportunity. There’s work in training workers. There’s work in training the trainers.

As mentioned elsewhere:

@Drop_Bear

Perhaps the most egregious market failure is the waste of human capital evident in the underemployment rate. Coronavirus has not helped. A nation’s most valuable assets are its people. Before this crisis, Australia was not doing well (political spin notwithstanding). As market mechanisms fail, what are our options? What can we do to make our society and economy more robust when we face the next shock?

Telecommunications infrastructure is, as you point out, one opportunity. There are real benefits there. Some may recoil in terror of the complexity, but we’ve done complicated things before. Are they now beyond us?

My guess is that we’re in for a long period of recession, if not depression. It may well be that Capitalism is past it best-before date. Either way, we’ll need long-term projects to tide us over while the new order (whatever that proves to be) establishes and stabilises. FttP is one such project (bearing in mind the multi-generational service life).