Testing the NBN vision: Can aerial construction truly deliver 'a historic nation-building investment focussed on Australia's long-term national interest'?

The Rudd government announced in 2009 its intention to roll out a fibre-to-the-home optical fibre-based national broadband network, proclaiming that the initiative would be a historic nation-building investment focussed on Australia's long-term national interest. This paper examines the appropriateness of such a vision where the network, being a government-mandated provider of last resort carrying lifeline telecommunication services, is to rely on infrastructure held up by electricity poles. An initiative so constructed outstandingly fails the basic notion of creating 21st century broadband as a building block of Australia's future digital economy.