Australia is in the midst of doing pretty much exactly this. Called the NBN. One of the main political parties who are in their second term started it, and hopefully they get a third term so they can finish it. The other Political Party has said that if they get in they will stop the rollout. It's been budgeted at approx $40 billion+ to do.
Hopefully it will complete as at the moment we dont have any data guarantee's for the last mile. In fact if you can get a dial tone on the 100 year old copper, thats good enough for the old telco(which was privatised about 10 - 15 years ago).
My opinion (and its different in australia due to our different views on private vs public investment, market size, country size, population etc) is that most large infrastructure just cant/wont be built by private investment, because it just isnt profitable. Diving into it I would say that most power plants, telecommunication, water infrastructure, roads etc are mostly funded by the government even if that is through tax breaks etc. So if the citizens want infrastructure the govt needs to pony up the cash.
It also hasnt been lost on a lot of people here, that we sold off our government owned telco 10-15 years ago, only to create a new one not to long after. Ahh The cycles of govt.
Hopefully it will complete as at the moment we dont have any data guarantee's for the last mile. In fact if you can get a dial tone on the 100 year old copper, thats good enough for the old telco(which was privatised about 10 - 15 years ago).
My opinion (and its different in australia due to our different views on private vs public investment, market size, country size, population etc) is that most large infrastructure just cant/wont be built by private investment, because it just isnt profitable. Diving into it I would say that most power plants, telecommunication, water infrastructure, roads etc are mostly funded by the government even if that is through tax breaks etc. So if the citizens want infrastructure the govt needs to pony up the cash.
It also hasnt been lost on a lot of people here, that we sold off our government owned telco 10-15 years ago, only to create a new one not to long after. Ahh The cycles of govt.