Sure.
First of all, I would disagree outright with the conclusion. “If you build it, they will come” is sort of the theory. That's not been my experience in fibre optics and it's not my experience in this.
There has to be a clear understanding of how the dollars will be returned before anybody will jump in. The cost of coming in second is far less than the cost of failure, being first. Realistically, this is true for mature technologies. Once something is well understood, where everybody knows the costs and what will be required to implement it, then absolutely; when that is done, all the bankers are knocking on your door trying to hand you money to go to the next step. It's when you have the nascent technology, where it's proven at some level—whatever that level is—that you end up with this chicken-egg problem. You're told, “Just prove to me that it works, and then I'll invest.” If you tell them you need their investment to finish proving that it will work, they'll just tell you, “Come back when it's proven.”
That's the reality of being an entrepreneur in this field. It's not just with this technology. I would argue that innovation across the board has always suffered from that. I think direct government intervention at an early stage would be beneficial to government in terms of developing new technologies, and also to industry in terms of getting those technologies implemented more quickly.