Most of the problems with the NBN (OK, apart from the politics) stem from trying to pretend that it’s a commercial enterprise. To me, the solution is obvious: treat it as the vital national infrastructure, public good and natural monopoly that it is. Keep it under public ownership.
And a perspective from overseas:
Not quite sure what to make of this.
Wouldn’t that the company less profitable and thus less attractive for privatisation?
Not necessarily. A large proportion of the NBN’s costs such as network roll-out and maintenance are fixed or largely fixed, meaning that the marginal cost associated with each new network user is quite low. Increasing the number of users decreases the cost to the company per user, and so profit margins - and profits - rise.
Of course, given that a large part of the NBN is on copper that will be an expensive network to maintain (as will the company’s fixed infrastructure such as its nodes) - but still presumably not as expensive per user as the amount NBN Co is charging.
Had anyone thought things through from a financial perspective it would have been obvious that fibre almost everywhere would be the least expensive/most profitable long term solution, given the life of optic fibre compared to copper. Unfortunately, long term decisions do not have the same appeal as three word slogans in a three year election cycle.
Apparently, the NBN shouldn’t have been created in the first place. Everything would have been peachy 
:
Oh right. Says the man whose organisation did everything they could to make the NBN more difficult than it should have been. What is the bet that if telstra had built a fast system the old copper wires would have had no part in? They knew how poorly the copper was maintained and what a crap solution it would be even if the old wires were perfect but since they would make a motza out of it anyway they let the Govmint go for it.
A bit of truth, largely self serving after the fact, but still truth. @Drop_Bear included good abstracts.
One just need look to the USA to understand how screwed up letting multiple private companies do their own thing can be, and in so many ways, some of which defy the imagination.
A bit more on why the NBN will be a hard sell (in more ways than one):
And neglect of the network was much of the reason that the NBN was (is) needed. The notion that incumbents would have served our needs defies history.
Only 100Mbps max, not 1 Gbps (though NBN Co is now starting to offer those packages but only to those on tech capable of supporting it so forget it for FTTN, Satellite, FW) or 10 Gbps or anything higher that a lot of Countries are now starting to enjoy while we languish in a speed backwater. The Speedtest Global index for August 2019 shows the top 20 Countries are enjoying an average speed a little or more over 100 Mbps with Singapore achieving 193 Mbps on average, USA 120 Mbps, Romania 131 Mbps, Hungary 119 Mbps, Canada 116 Mbps & Australia sits at 58th with 41 Mbps. Our Mobile Broadband is very high at 66 Mbps but this is not a service that will address Remote locales very well at all.
TBH if you have at least 40% of the population on tech that at best will achieve 100 Mbps (and the majority of those at much less) the average will be low until you offer the very top tech eg FTTP the ability to go multi Gbps and they take those packages up. This will in the end skew results so that they may look good but the reality will be that the median will be horribly lower…something like average wages compared to median wages where the multi million dollar incomes skew the average upwards.
The utter lack of foresight by the Coalition Govt is still astounding to me, you can almost physically feel the idea was to kill the nbn™ by rendering it unusable for future needs. The only thing that they would wish to retain is the fibre backbone as it will allow the private Mobile Networks to flourish at our expense and that will be the attractive part to any buyer of the system. The way the nbn™ is being hobbled that will even make picking up that juicy tidbit cheap as chips. Who is the most likely candidate to get that cherry…any guesses anyone?
You mean like when US states pass laws to stop cities rolling out their own fibre even when there is no actual broadband provider?
To save Foxtel, perhaps?
Aren’t capitalism and those who protect it regardless of cost grand?
Out of topic I know, but, my goodness, @PhilT : Indiana Jones? I’m going to swoon every time I see one of your
posts 
Let’s not get too serious here. We might need to start renaming some of the topics, appropriately themed.
“… and the NBN - the Temple of Doom”. 
We aspire to be thirteenth! 
We’ll make it too, if all accounts except ours are ignored. 
I’m into another period of overlapping change windows. My service can be disrupted at any time until well into next month. They are, of course, upgrading the infrastructure. If they hadn’t tried to do it on the cheap, how much waste might have been avoided?
I can see the private sector queuing for the chance to buy this excellent commercial proposition. 
Seriously, who would bid for the dog’s breakfast that has been made of the NBN?
Tech Man Pat’s take:
Not sure where this is leading us.
We moved towns to what we thought was a better home slightly further from the ocean to live at No 13 “ABC” Close. We were in the new town for a year.
The following year looking to improve further we moved towns again, only to be living at No 13 “DEF” Close. Not that much better off, and further from the ocean.
Another year of improvements and promises passed. Again we moved. This time the curse of the 13’s was ended. We were at No 26, and even further from the Ocean.
We’ll never aspire to be no 13 again. You can only wind up twice as badly off in the end. Better to aspire to be no 1, because failure might still see you come in second. Although some might suggest with aspirations to be no 13 the NBN is still aiming at delivering a no 2. 
Apparently, the world in general is just being mean.
It must be wrong because - well, it just doesn’t feel right:
And a bit from Paul Budde:
The world can be cruel sometimes:
https://www.itwire.com/open-sauce/alphabeta-report-shows-nbn-co-is-fast-approaching-peak-bs.html
All the spin in the universe won’t make the NBN marketable.
That IT Wire article quotes the AlphaBull (name deliberate) report as stating:
Australia’s average broadband speed is comparable to those of peer countries. This report finds that Australia ranks 17th among comparable economies based on data representative of all broadband users and accounting for significant cross-country differences in the share of households with access to fixed line broadband. Projecting forward to the full rollout of the NBN, Australia’s rank would rise to 13th among comparable countries.
Wait - so you’re ignoring everyone who is not on fixed line broadband as well as telling us that the speeds we sign up for must be the speeds we actually see by definition?
Going back to the beginning of the article, the author makes an important point (which is reinforced at the end by mention of a few defence projects):
Before I go any further, let me point out that I have largely stopped writing about the NBN because it is a failed project, just one more example of politicisation of something that should benefit the public. It is a stark example of the fact that the government is reluctant to spend money on projects that benefit the public and would rather keep taxpayer funds for things that benefit the ruler class.
Only if you are trapped in the cage with the lion?
What price to be a happy spectator?
I think Tech Man Pat is getting a little frustrated:
Some good security warnings at the beginning.
[edit]
Meanwhile, back in the real world:
