For the foreseeable future a significant part of regional and rural areas will have to rely on wireless broadband. At the same time this is an area that has the largest number of underserved customers, so there is good reason to give such rollouts priority. While the same rigor needs to apply to network architecture and design in wireless deployment as will be applied to the areas that will be served by FttP, the physical work involved in wireless broadband allows for a reasonably quick rollout. So from a political viewpoint it makes sense to start in these underserved areas and create a quick win.
Because of the political nature of these national broadband rollouts, there will be ongoing pressure on the government to show results and regional wireless broadband is certainly an area that is well-suited to this. At the same time the infrastructure company will need time to do its job properly; this includes elements such as OSS/BSS.
Wireless broadband is seen as a good way to advance the rollout of broadband in both Australia and the USA. Rural areas are among the largest underserved and unserved markets in those countries, and without government assistance it is most unlikely that anything will happen in the near future.
And such a government-assisted rollout would allow the country to start considering open networks and wholesale services, as that would not interfere with the services currently offered by the commercial operators. New business concepts introduced that way could have a positive effect on the other operators, and could lead to voluntary changes towards a telecoms environment that will become more competitive and better-suited for the provisioning of trans-sector services.