NBN as a Critical Infrastructure

Professor Catherine Middleton, Ryerson University,  talked at "Converging on an NBN Future". She pointed out a difference between  Australia's NBN and North American provision of broadband is that the NBN can be a Critical Infrastructure. Broadband access is being provided in most countries as a "best effort" service with patchy provision. Even so Dr. Middleton points out that provision is either a monopoly or quasi monopoly in the USA. As NBN is one national engineered service it can be relied on for provision of essential public services. This is a reasonable argument, but it is not clear if the NBN has been engineered as a safety critical system which, for example, will continue to operate during power failures and will automatically give essential services priority.