Or how desiccated cocoanut is best for polishing up copper to produce a lovely sheen ...

The pond has been disappointed of late at the way that the reptiles have retired from the field of NBN combat.

Having succeeded in destroying the best model, they seemed to have lost interest, but lo, this very day, the reptiles very own reliable brand of desiccated cocoanut rode up to defend the mixed technology model which will see the country served by copper:

Now the pond has no interest in defending Quigley or Stephen "let's have a great big filter for everything" Conroy, both of whom badly mishandled their duties.

But where it gets quaint is when the hapless dose of desiccated coconut has to shift from attack mode to defending the indefensible:

It takes enormous cheek for anyone to contend that Labor generated a system that will burden taxpayers and consumers for generations, while at the same time comprehensively ignoring the way unpicking Turnbull's wretched, compromised system will continue to burden anyone interested in living in a genuine broadband age ... or at least those who want to move past the Queen Victoria's copper age, or the age of HFC ...

But like any dry as dust numbers man, all hole in the bucket Henry cares about are immediate costs, dressed up with idle metaphors of Ahab and Fedallah, and with not a jot or tittle of thought or imagination as to what the world might look like twenty years down the track, as the rest of the developed world - and a fair slab of the developing world - scurries way past copper ...

As usual, all the pond can do is point to alternative views, such as Current NBN business model is flawed ...

....The complexity of the multi-technology mix (MTM) brings to mind the multi-gauge technology Australia used in its railways systems. It hampered the overall efficiency and effectiveness of the railway system and at great cost had to be changed into one unifying railway technology. 
The problems with the MTM version of the NBN began to emerge practically straight away. When TPG realised that the national FttH model would not be developed it immediately moved to delivering fibre to multi-dwelling units (the low-hanging fruits on the infrastructure tree). At the same time we see significant private investments in backbone fibre infrastructure, independent FttH infrastructure investments in new housing developments, and also an increase in 4G (and soon 5G) investments by the mobile operators led by Telstra. The MTM leads to the Balkanisation of infrastructure in Australia and will favour companies such as Telstra and TPG. While the original NBN would have led – as was clear from the beginning – to a much more effective cooperation on that basic infrastructure level, the Balkanisation will again stimulate the anti-competitive mindset of the industry that we have become so familiar with in past decades. 
Most of the alternative solutions that are being developed by companies such as Telstra and TPG will be superior to the NBN, and so offering these premium alternatives will undermine the long-term financial viability of NBN Co – in the original national FttH plan it was foreseen that the company could only maintain its financial position if it could leapfrog the old technologies and become the genuine national utility fibre provider. 
With the loss of this possibility the future of NBN Co will remain bleak from a financial position and it will most likely continually have to be propped up by the government for its survival. This is all the more disastrous as the company will most likely also fail to have sufficient funds in the future to ensure that it will eventually be able to catch up with the rest of the world and deliver FttH. Furthermore the increased use of copper technology will further increase the maintenance death spiral for the NBN company. 
While I am not saying we need national FttH now, we will certainly need it in 3-5-10 years’ time, and based on the current economic model NBN Co will struggle to deliver on those needs without ongoing government support. 
As a consequence of its failing business model another big problem crops up, that of undermining competition. In order to prop up NBN Co (and avoid the need for ongoing financial support) the government – through regulation – will hamper competition and thus even more stop Australia from getting a true first-class broadband infrastructure. We saw how the government intervened in the TPG case, limiting what they and similar companies can do in relation to fibre rollouts. In relation to the FttN it will mainly be Telstra who will be able to build this network, making it even stronger than it already is, with few opportunities for its competitors. We also saw the long struggle from the independent greenfield FttH providers to get an equal spot under the sun. (Thanks to these delays NBN Co has been able to capture a 60% market share here.) And we now see NBN Co arguing for a levy (tax) on mobile networks in order to finance some of its own infrastructure costs. 
All of these are clear signs of panic in relation to the company’s business model.
In the meantime thousands of kilometres of copper cable are installed on the NBN. While the installation costs might not be more than fibre it is expensive to maintain copper and in the end it will have to be replaced by fibre anyway. Also the use of complex technologies that will allow the company to extend the life of the copper network will require more regulations to make it work. 
So much for smart solutions. 
All of this becomes an even sadder story by the day, as at the same time it becomes clear that the trumped-up costs of an FttH-based NBN were wrong – not only is the second-rate rollout going to cost roughly the same as the original FttH rollout; it was recently revealed that the long-term cost of the fixed wireless and satellite services are also much lower than was claimed by the opposition at the time, making, for example, the need for cross-subsidisation of the NBN by the mobile operators a questionable issue... 

And so on - Budde's blog is worth a visit - and speaking of copper, it reminds the pond that, within it's living memory, this was the kind of copper in use in some homes...

And also within the living memory of the pond, there were others like the desiccated Ergas spruiking the benefits of polishing the copper ...

What an old Twinkler he is ...

Oh okay that last one polishes anything, so the HFC cables outside the pond's home are really going to shine as bright at the copper in the rain-sodden trenches ...