US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton wants to connect every American household to high-speed internet, in a strikingly similar policy to Kevin Rudd's election pitch in 2007.
Also mirroring Labor's election plan nine years ago, Mrs Clinton's ambitious broadband policy is not properly costed and there are big questions surfacing about the expense and timetable of the internet connectivity rollout.
On the campaign trail over the past few weeks, the Democratic nominee has championed connecting "every household in America to broadband by the year 2020".
Mrs Clinton's digital policy states high-speed internet connectivity "is a necessity for economic success and social mobility in a 21st century economy".
Then-opposition leader Mr Rudd said in 2007 that "nation building for the 21st Century lies in building a new national broadband network".
There is no public evidence Mrs Clinton is copying Mr Rudd's strategy. She has been pushing better access to the internet for poor Americans and businesses since her time as a New York senator between 2001 and 2009.
Ten per cent of - about 34 million - Americans, including 39 per cent of rural residents, lack access to high-quality internet at speeds of at least 25 Mbps, a speed required for households to properly stream video and use multiple devices over the connection.
Mrs Clinton's plan for every household to be connected to "affordable" fast broadband by 2020 has not been costed. She would commission a report after the election to determine the expense.
Sarah Morris, director for an open internet policy at left-wing think tank New America's Open Technology Institute, said "fully closing the digital divide will be a challenging undertaking".
"There is no silver bullet that will bring robust, affordable broadband service to every community. "Most critical in this agenda is the promotion and protection of disruptive, community-driven broadband networks," she said.
Mr Rudd committed to investing up to $4.7 billion in partnership with the private sector to build a fast broadband service to cover 98 per cent of the population within five years.
In the end, Labor controversially shut out Telstra and proceeded with a government-owned wholesale broadband network.
The cost to the Australian taxpayer has since blown out to an estimated $48.6 billion
Some 2.9 million premises are able to connect to the network, while actual connections stands at 1.1 million.
NBN Co is aiming to complete the project and activate 8 million homes and businesses by 2020.
Mrs Clinton's plan would not be a blanket federal government rollout of broadband.
She would combine a mix of grants to areas to create "digital communities", reduce regulatory barriers to private sector provision of broadband and develop public-private partnerships to build fibre, wireless and satellite technologies. She would also look to deploy cutting-edge 5G wireless technology.
Communications minister turned Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, abandoned Labor's fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) strategy for 90 per cent of homes, in favour of the multi-technology mix approach involving fibre, hybrid fibre coaxial (HFC) cable and fibre-to-the-node (FTTN).
Fibre to the node technology means high-speed fibre optics run to boxes, or a "node" on the street, which are then connected to a home or business via the existing copper networks. Labor's latest FTTP proposal means homes are connected directly to the network, offering faster speeds at a higher cost.
