Well, as I previously said, I think cost to benefit is the wrong argument here.
And this isn't such a big project, compared to the road system. A single major highway can cost $10b. The cost of building the entire road network would be astronomical, so it's not really a valid comparison, except from the point of view of necessity.
I guess my line of work makes the cost seem much less frightening than for some others. My company sells systems to big mining, where projects of this size are not unusual. Spending that amount just doesn't seem like such a big deal. It is just that we are doing it in one go, instead of spread over many smaller investments.
I guess the bottom line is that I think fast broadband is imperative for financial competitiveness, and I don't see any valid argument for not doing it in this way, in one go. We know where the fiber has to go, so lets put it there. I know from experience that it would cost a lot more to do piecemeal.
A few points here:
1. A cost benefit analysis doesn't just have to undertaken in terms of $$$. There are a lot more factors, and they have not been explained satisfactorily by the crook, Conroy (who has already used his position to give jobs to disgraced former pollies that just happen to be mates). He can easily commission an analysis to look at all the factors instead of just treating the public like idiots, and ram it down our throat (just like they tried on the ETS and Mining Tax).
2. Why does it have to be built to everyone's front door? Particularly when there is a very real likelihood of only a small amount of people going to take it up. Why can't it just go FTTH as Hornet says, plus to every school, hospital and university? Connections from the hub to the premises can then be done over a longer time period when a) we have more money to spend and b) it is more viable.
3. Your arguments for the NBN seem to be a little self serving. If the government came to you and asked for $4k to build this, then likely you would say yes. However, how many of your friends and family would be happy to fork that out? I'm sure many would say 'improve health services' or 'stick it in education' first.
4. I agree that this will future proof this country, and ultimately we will need this. However I question the timing of this large spend. In light of the GFC and a large deficit (and creaking or stationary economies around the world), the government should act responsibly, rather than stubbornly and scale it back to a FTTH, with extensions in certain areas, and save additional spend to guard against a further financial downturn. (If there is another financial downturn the likelihood of more than 5% of the population taking up this service is remote to say the least).
The IMF came out on the weekend and warned that we need to have a higher surplus in the good times, and that the governments current forecasts of return to surplus in 12/13 are extremely dependant on current commodity price levels (ie the forecasts aren't conservative - which the treasury is meant to be). They warned that the government has to tighten spending further to ensure this surplus can be met.
So we need to ask ourselves, and our government, 'is this really the time to be spending this absurd amount of money on something that will not give a short-medium term financial return'?