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> I don't want to respond to any FUD about how governments, which have been able to pull this off for far cheaper in every other country "just can't do it" and

> I don't want to respond to any FUD about how governments, which have been able to pull this off for far cheaper in every other country "just can't do it" and how we need private industry Ultimately, everything is an interface between government and private industry. Unless we have government directly employ the people laying fiber in the ground, it's private contractors all around actually implementing this. Even in muni-broadband (of which I am almost universally a fan) private contractors do a bulk of the work. The only distinction is where the definition and interface between government and contract falls. You can obviously give someone $400 billion dollars with a nebulous goal like "deploy broadband" or give someone smaller incremental chunks of money with smaller incremental goals, but, if you're not properly defining the goals and not properly scaling the money to the true benefit and the true work required you're getting poor money for value. Ultimately, I think it speaks to something fundamentally broken about the interface between government and private contractors in the USA.

DecoPerson 6y ago
> Unless we have government directly employ the people laying fiber in the ground, it's private contractors all around actually implementing this. NBN Co. in Australia built our FTTN “National Broadband Network” by employing their own people. I’m pretty sure it’s majority government owned and run, if not wholly. Everyone complains about NBN Co. and how slow they were but honestly they did a really good job. I think the complaints were amplified by journalists, looking for angry clicks. (An amazing thing NBN Co. also did IMO was install pull-cables in every conduit, so future upgrades are significantly cheaper.)
- roganartu 6y ago
  I don’t complain about how slow NBN Co was. I complain about the fact that it was meant to be FTTP instead of FTTN (premises vs node), and that the only reason it didn’t end up that way is that the Liberal party said basically exactly what AT&T are here: that ADSL2 speeds are enough, and those last miles from the node to premise can be delivered over Telstra’s existing (horribly degraded and unmaintainable) copper network. So, instead of 95% of the population having gigabit fibre, we have this hodgepodge of FTTP, FTTN with the last hop over 5G, and FTTN with the last hop over copper, all of which cost the same and which you get depends on when it was installed. Don’t get me wrong, the NBN is certainly better now than the ADSL of old, but it ended up costing significantly more for the mess we have now than it would’ve if we’d successfully seen FTTP through from the start.
  - Nursie 6y ago
    Is it bad? I'm moving out your way (specifically Perth) from the UK in a few months and have got really used to our gigabit connection. Last time I lived in Aus the NBN was just being kicked off, and I remember it getting downgraded by the liberals. Has it just never caught up?
    - sumedh 6y ago
      In some areas its bad but in most atleast metro areas its good. You can check what kind of Tech your address has in the NBN website.
- sumedh 6y ago
  > Everyone complains about NBN Co. and how slow they were but honestly they did a really good job My area was supposed to get NBN in 2014 but I got it in 2020. I dont know how you would say its good with a 6 year delay.
eschaton 6y ago
What would be wrong with having the people maintaining the national communications network employed by the national government?
- rhino369 6y ago
  No expertise at all and no incentive to get it right. Government infrastructure is terrible and expensive in the USA.
tehjoker 6y ago
If industry is publicly owned, there's no private-public interface natch.
nicoburns 6y ago
> Unless we have government directly employ the people laying fiber in the ground Why would they do anything else?
- tatersolid 6y ago
  Because government employees are only ever hired, and mostly cannot be let go for any reason short of committing crimes while at work. The rollout will require 10x more labor than long-term maintenance. The government also doesn’t have the expertise or equipment for fiber rollout at scale. If you want it fast you need contractors and that will not be cheap.

DecoPerson 6y ago

> Unless we have government directly employ the people laying fiber in the ground, it's private contractors all around actually implementing this. NBN Co. in Australia built our FTTN “National Broadband Network” by employing their own people. I’m pretty sure it’s majority government owned and run, if not wholly. Everyone complains about NBN Co. and how slow they were but honestly they did a really good job. I think the complaints were amplified by journalists, looking for angry clicks. (An amazing thing NBN Co. also did IMO was install pull-cables in every conduit, so future upgrades are significantly cheaper.)

roganartu 6y ago
I don’t complain about how slow NBN Co was. I complain about the fact that it was meant to be FTTP instead of FTTN (premises vs node), and that the only reason it didn’t end up that way is that the Liberal party said basically exactly what AT&T are here: that ADSL2 speeds are enough, and those last miles from the node to premise can be delivered over Telstra’s existing (horribly degraded and unmaintainable) copper network. So, instead of 95% of the population having gigabit fibre, we have this hodgepodge of FTTP, FTTN with the last hop over 5G, and FTTN with the last hop over copper, all of which cost the same and which you get depends on when it was installed. Don’t get me wrong, the NBN is certainly better now than the ADSL of old, but it ended up costing significantly more for the mess we have now than it would’ve if we’d successfully seen FTTP through from the start.
- Nursie 6y ago
  Is it bad? I'm moving out your way (specifically Perth) from the UK in a few months and have got really used to our gigabit connection. Last time I lived in Aus the NBN was just being kicked off, and I remember it getting downgraded by the liberals. Has it just never caught up?
  - sumedh 6y ago
    In some areas its bad but in most atleast metro areas its good. You can check what kind of Tech your address has in the NBN website.
sumedh 6y ago
> Everyone complains about NBN Co. and how slow they were but honestly they did a really good job My area was supposed to get NBN in 2014 but I got it in 2020. I dont know how you would say its good with a 6 year delay.

eschaton 6y ago

What would be wrong with having the people maintaining the national communications network employed by the national government?

rhino369 6y ago
No expertise at all and no incentive to get it right. Government infrastructure is terrible and expensive in the USA.

tehjoker 6y ago

If industry is publicly owned, there's no private-public interface natch.

nicoburns 6y ago

> Unless we have government directly employ the people laying fiber in the ground Why would they do anything else?

tatersolid 6y ago
Because government employees are only ever hired, and mostly cannot be let go for any reason short of committing crimes while at work. The rollout will require 10x more labor than long-term maintenance. The government also doesn’t have the expertise or equipment for fiber rollout at scale. If you want it fast you need contractors and that will not be cheap.