It appears the National Broadband Network (NBN) is a go in Australia, having weathered a particularly nasty political fight. Governments and service providers around the world will now have a very clear showcase system--and a very large one, it might be added--to determine the benefits of a government-subsidized fiber-to-the-home effort.
"It's a large investment, but surely the improved future prospects it will bring for our children makes it worth that investment," said Simon Hackett, managing director of Australian owned ISP Internode, a "long-time supporter" of the NBN project.
Telecom blogger Michael Wyres compared the NBN to the electricity grid and predicted "the future technologies that the NBN will allow cannot possibly be imaged right now, just as television, microwave ovens and computers could never have been imaged 100 years ago."
Uncertainties surrounding Australia's NBN had led to some doubts in other countries, most notably New Zealand, about the viability of such a network. Now those countries have to some extent received their own form of approval to proceed with their own platforms.
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