Well, it does work out cheaper in the long run, doing FTTN now involves buying the copper from Telstra, then later on pulling it out and replacing it with fibre. This article does a nice job of going into more details on the costs of it: http://theconversation.com/can-australia-afford-the-coalitio...
> as the slow rollout of Labour's scheme has demonstrated
I can't really comment as I haven't been paying a lot of attention to the rollout progress, but this may be worth a read: http://delimiter.com.au/2013/09/05/factcheck-will-nbn-take-a...
NBN Co allegedly signed a an awful lot of new contracts prior to entering caretaker mode. During the election campaign Turnbull promised that these contracts will be honoured. I'm more concerned that this will result in a two-tier NBN, with over a million homes with FTTH, and the rest left behind on a 2nd tier system.
Perhaps Ziggy will set the Government straight...
One of the benefits of having an NBN Co. is you don't have the retailer/wholesaler conflict of interest as we did with Telstra and as the UK did with BT
The solution in the UK was to mandate open access in regulation with BT OpenReach. The solution in Australia is NBN Co.
Step 2 (later, on an incremental basis): Fibre to the home
Why do we need to do both steps at the same time? The last mile is incredibly expensive and difficult (as the slow rollout of Labour's scheme has demonstrated). Doing fibre to the node now doesn't stop us from having it to the home at a later point in time, as demands increase.