Broadband: what is the problem to be solved, and is NBN solving it?

A striking feature of the Rudd-Gillard Government's NBN policy - to spend over $50 billion of taxpayers' money on a 100 Mbps fibre to the premises network serving over 10 million premises - is the lack of clarity about the problem this policy is designed to solve. In this article I argue that the NBN was announced for political reasons rather than policy reasons. After briefly explaining that point, the paper then discusses the policy issues - by identifying and assessing several 'candidate problems' that NBN might be thought to be designed to address, and argues that the policy as is presently being pursued is not a good solution to any of these. The paper concludes with some suggestions for a more sensible approach.