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The Kazakhstan railway system could be a template for Australian Government plans for national broadband network (NBN).

The current rail network is based on the inheritance from the former Soviet Union and as such has a broad gauge of 1,520 mm (4 ft 11⅞ in). While this provides a smooth transit at international borders to countries of the former Soviet Union, the railway in China has the standard gauge of 1,435 mm (4 ft 8½ in); thus there is a break-of-gauge at the eastern border at Druzhba.

The NBN may be an(other) example of woolly, blue-sky dreaming, but it's likely Rudd's concepts are bounded by firewalls. One aspect of a grand scheme that must be bounded within solid envelopes of rationality is to do with the nuts and bolts, that is, engineering standards. At the other end is the critical matter of governance. Rudd must be satisfied that the highest standards of probity will be applied to a multi-billion dollar undertaking. He must be sure in his own heart that he has done all he can to lessen the hazards of corruption and conflicts of interest. If lessons can be imported, the Obama administration has entered a new phase of accountable government. The White House has made available the personal disclosures of financial interests, in great detail, for everyone in the administrative offices. The spectre hanging over the head of commercialism is the example of Bernie Madoff, the guru of investment who was the biggest crook of them all.

Once Rudd has firewalled the two pillars, standards and transparency, government should be able to give free reign to commerce so that the benefits of competition can operate under 'light touch' regulation.

Tim Harford (The Undercover Economist) wrote about railways in the chapter Rational Insanity, page 154.

So, even the best rail companies weren't great investments, and the worst were financial disasters. But nobody disputes the fact that the railways completely transformed developed economies. Conservative estimates are that they added 5-15 per cent to the total value of the US economy by 1890 - a staggering amount, when you think about it. But competition to build and operate rail lines kept profits modest. As long as competition is strong, the railways had little scarcity power.

This snippet is embedded in an insightful discourse about technology. The book is highly recommended.

The health care sector will be a beneficiary of the NBN. Telstra, and others, have been promoting telehealth, which needs fast downloads. An article in today's The Age, Half state's hospitals in red, laments "dissatisfaction with the statewide health IT upgrade, HealthSmart". The taxpaying community, and Mr Rudd, will be looking to the health sector for quick returns on faster broadband.

The HealthSmart project would benefit from closer attention to standards and transparency.