After reading the NBN business plan it’s actually a bit hard to remain aloof and unexcited. This is a magnificent, awe-inspiring undertaking: there has never been anything like it, not in this country and probably not anywhere in the world.

Let me be clear, I'm in the pro-NBN camp. The main arguments against the NBN appear to be based on economic foresight that:

• Not enough people will want it; and
• The technology will be obsolete before it turns a profit.

I'm less worried about the technology - fibre optic isn't a new technology but we are far from exhausting its capabilities... unless of course we can commercialise faster than the speed of light matter transmission in the near future.

But the issue of demand is something different. I remember the difficulties of explaining to business and consumer users back in the early 2000s about the benefits of moving from dial-up to plain old DSL. At that time, many people just could not see the point of a faster, always on Internet connection either.

Cost of course is always an issue, but it is also very true that people can't always imagine the benefits and value of a new technology. Trying to work out what the NBN will bring in the future by simply thinking in terms of what we do today with broadband, but doing it faster, is a mistake. The NBN will be much more than this.

Hat tip Delimiter.