Broadbanding the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan

Tomorrow I present my early findings from research conducted in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. The presentation will be delivered at the Australian and New Zealand School of Government's Institute for Governance seminar series at the University of Canberra.

Considering Jordan's GDP per capita is about 13 times less than Australia's, broadband services are very good. I was able to access a variety of Wimax and ADSL services from Amman, Aqaba and Irbid and could easily purchase additional gigabytes of download access as required. Compared to Palmerston in the ACT, Jordan's broadband performance was outstanding.

I am interested in the development of institutions. Jordan's relatively new institutions and their recent development provided me with a unique and less ethno-centric view of the policy world. I am particularly grateful to the Princess Sumaya University for Technology for their support during my time in Jordan and also Aqaba Adventure Divers who provided me with much needed accommodation during the Eid Al-Adha period.

Below is a copy of the presentation. More will be forthcoming in the new year as I look at the institutions in the communications industries of Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Broadbanding the nation: Jordan

View more presentations from Michael de Percy.

Photograph: Copyright © 2009 Michael de Percy, taken in Jordan, 20 November 2009

The "My Lecturer" Website: Students trump government

A while back Julia Gillard suggested the ...My University“ website would force boring university lecturers to lift their game. But it seems that the government has missed the boat to stir up these old bores. And a group of students has taken the initiative to stir up the insomnia-curers on their own terms.

This initiative, the My Lecturer website: http://mylecturer.net.au/, brings to Australia an idea that started in the US with websites such as Rate My Professor. Admirably, the Australian site is cautious about defamation and actively encourages students to be constructive in their feedback. But is it a good thing or a bad thing for Australian higher education?

For proponents of open academia, a growing movement which believes all educational materials and information should be publicly available; it might be a good thing. But for traditionalists, it might just be the scariest thing in the world!

Open academia includes initiatives such as Wikiversity, a site dedicated to enabling academics to put their course materials in the public realm, are growing in popularity. Such initiatives threaten to disrupt higher education industries such as textbook publishers and even research journals as a growing number of academics move their materials into the public realm. This is significant as entire industries worldwide are at stake, but so is the future of higher education.

Open education asks the question of existing education institutions: Who is education for? From a purely liberal perspective, open education provides everyone with equality of opportunity – if the materials are freely available, we all have the opportunity to receive an education. We might have to pay for the qualification, but at least the education is free.

But many traditionalists see this 'power to the people' approach as little short of a 'dumbing down' of the best of our educational institutions. Indeed, a colleague recently recalled to me a documentary from years ago where an old British professor suggested that ...bad teaching is a tradition. How else would we get our students to learn for themselves?“ Certainly some food for thought there!

But what of the My Lecturer site? And just how 'open' should open education be?

The furore over the 'My School' website saw unintended consequences such as teachers helping students to cheat 'no doubt so that either the teachers' careers were not jeopardised or that the students' education wasn't seen in a bad light. Or more likely both. But government should have seen this coming from a mile off. Everybody knows that Ivy League tables are anti-egalitarian – or dare I say it – they are just plain unAustralian.

What makes the My Lecturer site different is that it is not something imposed by government, but it is an initiative from the students themselves. As one who encourages students to take the initiative and stake a claim in their own future, it is very difficult to see the My Lecturer site as anything but positive.

Traditionalists might be opposed, but these same people are more likely to be those who have some hidden interest to protect. The big test will be whether the open academia crew accept this type of openness, or if they are only in favour of openness which they themselves create

The times are a-changing for the higher education sector, but the same is true for most sectors of the economy. Indeed, access to technology is fulfilling what Manuel Castells (among others) predicted well before today's capabilities were a practical reality. But where does it all end?

From the very early findings of my research into the use of openness via technology in organisations to date, openness results in higher quality, increased productivity, better recognition of high-performing individuals, and overall improved organisational performance. It is simply more difficult for poor performance to go unchecked in an open organisational culture.

But does this justify the PM targeting 'boring lecturers' with the My University website? It is a bit rich when the leader of a political party that can barely form government makes an assumption about the performance of individual lecturers in a sector she hasn't experienced for many years.

But John Howard held a similar view a few years ago and provided funding to universities on the basis of workplace relations reforms, including the introduction of individual performance management techniques as a condition of funding.

Strangely enough, some of us lowly lecturers have already been putting our teaching feedback from these publicly-funded ...performance initiatives“ into the public realm on our blogs or even Wikiversity. The original intention by government may have been to intimidate, but with the majority of lecturers focused on providing the best possible skills and intellectual development for our students, and many of us seeing the benefits of openness, it should be no surprise that government misunderstands the higher education sector.

But now that the My Lecturer website has emerged from out of nowhere to trump bad lecturers, reward good lecturers, and provide future students with feedback which is not tainted by a self-interested government, it is my hope that the government's My University website is passé. For that, the team of students who put the My Lecturer website together are to be applauded and I trust that the new model will break down the old hierarchy of higher education.

Openness is, after all, in all of our best interests.

Public ownership of the NBN is just crazy talk

© Depositphotos.com/@olly18

There is some speculation the Greens will de-rail the privatisation of the NBN in a few years time, based on a pledge made by senator Scott Ludlam "to fight for the project to remain in public hands". At a time when the NBN is the only real reason Labor is in power, this is just crazy talk.

The premise that the NBN will result in a monopoly holder is not a done deal. If anything, there are plenty of lessons to be learnt from the privatisation of Telstra. And the idea that Telstra's privatisation left Australia with a monopoly provider as a direct result of privatisation is simply wrong - the Howard government made a mess of this on the basis of blind ideology. Ludlam's pledge is another case of blind ideology making decisions, albeit in the other ideological direction.

But is privatisation necessarily bad?

It can be, but usually it is the government who messes it up. Businesses want to make a profit? Surprise, surprise, but this isn't necessarily evil. A quick glance at most attempts at full privatisation or public-private partnerships (PPPs) demonstrates that it is rarely businesses who are the bad guys. After all, state governments refused to release details on the Harbour Tunnel and other PPPs, not the businesses who were calling for this to be done all along.

But what about Telstra? With Telstra's share price taking a caning in the market, more meddling by government with the NBN should be over and done with as quickly as possible. Ongoing public ownership is not a solution, it is the problem that got us here in the first place. And handing over Telstra's ageing assets to NBN Co. is the best way to fix what should have been done before the decision to privatise Telstra was made on the basis of ideology and not practical reality.

Once communications networks are in private hands and there is real competition, there is no evidence anywhere in the world to suggest that market-based approaches don't work. The single national solution provided by the NBN is just one approach to fix the mess created by governments since 1975 when the monolithic Postmaster General's Department (PMG) was finally divided and conquered. But T3 released the untamed gorilla that perpetuated the policy failures of every government since PMG's demise. It is very important to note that none of this was really the private sector's doing.

And there is little doubt that government meddling in the market distorts everything from prices, to competition, to regulation, to share prices - even the information available for consumers to make decisions which don't end up in tears.

From personal experience, I am paying $110 per month for a highspeed, 10gb Wimax plan because nothing else is fast enough in Palmerston via Gungahlin. That's expensive. But with the NBN due to be deployed in my suburb some time in the future, I am not very happy about government using my tax money to give me high-speed broadband while I am already committed to a two-year contract out of the necessity created by government meddling in the first place.

If the NBN improves the service I currently receive I will be happy, but if it means I have to pay out a two-year contract to move to the NBN I have also paid for, I will be quite grumpy indeed!

So let us applaud the NBN for how it will fix the broadband woes created by governments past. But don't  think ongoing public ownership of the NBN is a good thing.

The Greens really need to reconsider their approach to public ownership, especially where communications networks are concerned. If they want to keep the duct structure in public hands to ensure access for all competitors, then that is another thing. And this could be built out as part of road or other network budgets but that would require greater cooperation within our federal system. But for the federal government to own it all is nothing short of a return to the bad old days.

Australia really needs to get over its addiction to government ownership and start applauding the successes of our private sector. If we don't, we risk hampering our future success. Can you remember a single occasion where our private sector was applauded for major feats of engineering? Not once!

Yet history has proven time and again that ideological approaches devoid of lived experience are doomed to fail. So any policy decision based solely on ideology, whether left or right, should be avoided at all costs. And we are already too far behind the rest of the world in taking advantage of the information revolution for government to meddle further with our communications industries.

Put simply, committing to public ownership for the sake of public ownership is a backward step that nobody should be seriously considering at this stage of the NBN's deployment. It is just crazy talk.

Decentralised NBN Key to Unlocking the Potential of Our Regions

Photo taken on Black Mountain, Canberra by Michael de Percy - CC: BY-NC-SA

“Rolling in” the NBN from the bush to the city is good news for regional areas. Indeed, the trickle-down-effect has never really worked for “the bush” so the reversal of the NBN’s delivery approach is a promising sign of policy change.

With Australia’s coastal cities reaching crises in housing affordability, traffic congestion, over-population and a rapidly diminishing quality of life, the NBN “roll-in” provides a timely opportunity to reinvigorate our neglected regional areas. But is the “roll-in” just centralisation going backwards or an opportunity for decentralisation and therefore our regions to – dare I say it – move forward?

In comparison to other geographically large, wealthy, federal nations, Australia is one of the most highly centralised in terms of both governance and population concentration. For decades now, Australian policy makers have been focusing on the ways things are, rather than how they could be, and the regions have been paying the price with diminishing services leading to a vicious cycle of economic stagnation and ever-decreasing populations.

To make matters worse, whenever service delivery fails, the trend in policy responses has been to centralise responsibility with the federal government, whether it is healthcare, education, workplace relations or indeed telecommunications. Clearly, centralisation has not worked for our regions.

And centralisation has its cost. Centralisation tends to lead to systemic policy failures due to the overwhelmingly bureaucratic decision-making processes needed to ensure the monolith operates in a rational manner. This typically means that programs designed to deliver services wheel-spin in administrative expenditure for years before ever getting any rubber on the road. The Coalition’s Metropolitan Broadband Connect program was a good example where millions in administrative costs led to minimal outcomes in terms of improving services to citizens two years later. Put simply, centralisation does not make good economic sense.

Administrative expenses aside, there is also a human capital cost to centralisation which political parties are able to avoid right up until it is too obvious to ignore – often when major opportunities have already been lost. The trouble with human capital, particularly skills development, is that it is only noticeable when it is absent. For example, as more and more policy functions are centralised, Australian citizens have less and less access to policy processes. As citizens have less access to the policy process, they have less interest in participating.

A simple example of poor policy participation was the Regional Telecommunications Independent Review Committee consultation I attended in Sydney a few years ago. It’s a no-brainer to guess how many regional citizens were able to attend a consultation on regional issues held in Sydney. Focus groups don’t overcome the problem either, and the recent election outcome is clear evidence that focus groups simply don’t work for successful policy formulation.

Further, with centralisation, policy actors become increasingly organised and specialised, leaving less room for the ordinary citizen to be involved. This is already a problem for local political representation, where the federal government’s constitutional responsibility for telecommunications means that only federal representatives have any real impact on policy.

NBN Co, when it was first established, started looking for a “headquarters”. But whenever there is a choice to be made between “Sydney or the Bush”, the original intent of the old Aussie saying holds true – nobody really wants to be in the bush unless they’re reminiscing over a Paterson or Lawson classic.

In the end, citizens lose faith in their political representatives and become disenfranchised. Any hope of harnessing the nation’s human capital is then lost and bureaucrats are left to struggle away, delivering one project at a time to “customers” who probably would have chosen a different “supplier” if they had a choice. In essence, central systems are too slow and can only deliver one solution to a myriad of problems. Governments are generally bad at this as the Coalition rightly suggested, but their model – “NBN 3.0” - was stuck in centralisation-mode, too.

It seems that the only way the bush was ever going to get a broadband Guernsey was via the independents. There is simply no way a “roll-in” of the NBN would have happened if the Gillard Government could govern in its own right. But must it be centrally delivered?

The NBN “roll-in” provides an opportunity for economic stimulus and to develop human capital in the regions. A decentralised “roll-in”, harnessing the skills, knowledge and political clout of all sectors of the community (including local government) to address the modern communications needs of our regions will enable multiple “roll-ins” and ultimately faster deployment of the NBN. Granted, decentralisation can lead to sporadic failure in some instances, but it will certainly alleviate the current eight year wait for Australians to officially join the information revolution.

A quick look at Canada and the United States shows that regional development and decentralisation tend to go hand-in-hand. Neither country has a single national solution for broadband, yet both outperform Australia in both regional prosperity and connectivity.

Right now is the time for a new approach to regional development and service delivery, and only the federal government has the jurisdiction to make it happen. If we know anything so far, it is that the centralised model just doesn’t work.

Decentralisation is the key to unlocking the potential of our regions while making life in both “Sydney and the Bush” just that little more bearable.

NBN 3.0? Lessons from an Arabian Broadband Experience

Broadbanding the Nation: The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan (Photo by Michael de Percy CC: BY-NC-SA)

From Photo Gallery

Is NBN 3.0 a feasible alternative?

Regardless of the politicking behind broadband policy, there has been little discussion about what is needed and why we need it in terms of broadband outcomes. Labor's NBN promises vast coverage of fibre-optic cable (effectively replacing the copper network currently owned by Telstra) and very high speed broadband (100 mbps) with a handful of hard-to-reach places served by satellite and wireless. The Coalition is promising to do what they did for more than a decade which got us into our broadband woes in the first place. But now there appears to be a third option: NBN 3.0.

Rather than repeat what has already been written, details on the Alliance for Affordable Broadband's NBN 3.0 provided by independent technology journalist Renai Lemay are available here.

There has been some speculation about using wireless technologies in lieu of a fibre-optic NBN. Here I draw on some experiences in a country with mostly Wimax services to argue that these technologies can provide an adequate user experience for household users.

An Arabian Wimax Experience

The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan is a small, non-oil producing, mostly land-locked country in the Middle East, bordering Israel in the west, Iraq and Saudi Arabia in the east, and Syria in the north. With a population of some 6 million people, Jordan is home to many ancient wonders and sites of significant historical and religious importance.

Comparing Australia to Jordan is inherently unfair: Australia's GDP per capita is some 13 times more than that of Jordan. But when it comes to access to broadband, my personal experience is that Jordanians - if they can afford it - have access to better services.

In Palmerston via Gungahlin, in full view of the flag atop Parliament House, it really doesn't matter how much money you have. Out of frustration with ADSL, I now have a Wimax connection (and a two-year contract) which at least gives me adequate speeds during peak times but it costs $110 per month. The trouble is I am limited to 10GB of downloads per month - regardless of how much I am willing to pay for additional data.

While in Jordan, I experienced an ADSL connection in Amman, the captial, which worked fine (once we upgraded the ageing modem). Just about every Western cafe and fast food joint had free wifi for customers - again no problems. In the south, I experienced blistering Wimax speeds while staying at a dive centre, and a similar service closer to the centre of Aqaba, Jordan's only port city on the Red Sea.

The dive centre's download limit was regularly blasted by a few guests who insisted on watching videos online. This created a bit of havoc when I tried to help out the crew with some web page changes and a workshop on using Facebook to market the business. But it was a simple phone call to the supplier and 1 Jordanian dinar (about AUD $2) per gigabyte of additional download - and that was it. Try doing that with your typical Aussie plan!

Implications for NBN 3.0

So what does this quick comparison mean for NBN 3.0?

First, it means that Australia's broadband services are poorer than those provided in less well-off developing nations.

Second, it means that Wimax technologies can deliver adequate broadband experiences to the typical household user.

Third, it means that there may be some merit to NBN 3.0.

But is wireless good enough?

Let me put it this way - if I was being operated on by a surgeon receiving instructions from a specialist via a Wimax connection, I'd be pretty worried. Satellite would be even scarier. And if I was in the middle of an online university test using my connection here in Palmerston via Gungahlin, I'd be quite worried about the connection dropping out (as it does regularly) and my complaints about my Net connection would get the "my dog ate my paper" treatment. Or worse, my light-weight download limit would be blasted by 2 weeks worth of online learning and then I would be stuck until the next month. Students in the UK simply don't have this problem because capped plans are the exception not the rule.

So while there is some merit in the less-fibre NBN 3.0 option, I think it will be a missed opportunity for Australia if we don't get the NBN promised by Labor. Having said that, I would rather have a Jordanian broadband experience than a Palmerston via Gungahlin fraudband experience any day, so NBN 3.0 sounds better than what we have now.

Why I wish Turnbull was still Opposition Leader

Malcolm Turbull supported a *real* approach to climate change, he is not a hardcore boat-people-kicker, and he knows a thing or two about the value of high-speed broadband. I wish Turnbull was opposition leader so I would have a real choice this election. But instead, I have a choice between Dumb and Dumber.

It doesn’t matter who gets in at this election – Australia’s broadband future is well and truly stuffed. Whether you vote for Dumb or Dumber really won’t make a difference.

Australia could get a high-speed and far-reaching National Broadband Network censored by the Central Party in Canberra. Alternatively, the nation will have unrestricted access to the Net but on the tired old network provided by the same private sector that has never really had a reason to invest the necessary billions in the infrastructure. For years, the Coalition kept throwing consumer subsidies at businesses under a variety of names, only to see most of the money disappear in administrative costs with no improvement in connectivity.

If we don’t choose the Central Party option, then we will be returning to the dark decade of Howard’s Luddite regime. Only this time you won’t be able to blame it on the old dears and their lack of understanding of how this Internet thingy all works. But rest assured they will have a new name for the same schemes they used during their last reign.

People who question the value of high-speed broadband in Australia really need to wake up and smell the coffee. If you think Australians are anywhere near their counterparts in the rest of the developed world in terms of Web 2.0 skills (and this includes e-commerce), then you are kidding yourself. The lack of broadband access has simply crippled our skills development.

Why is it so?

There are two reasons why Australia has been so complacent about new communications technologies: 1) The myth of the digital native; and 2) Australian governments have done it this way since the time of the telegraph.

First, let’s look at the myth of the digital native. All hitherto Australian communications policy is based on the myth that digital natives will just pick up all this Internet stuff once they have access to it.

But as we approach a decade or more where our young people have not had real access to broadband services, the skills-gap between Australian workers and those offshore is huge.

I should know. I have been using Web 2.0 technologies in university classrooms with young Australians for a few years now. These same young Australians pick up the skills pretty quickly once they learn, but getting them started can be quite the uphill battle.

Over the years, some of my students have said that my approach to teaching is “left-field”, only to find out later that their friends in the US and Japan have been using blogs and wikis in the classroom for about ten years now. And yes, overseas students do this even in high school. But try implementing Web 2.0 technologies in Australian high school classrooms and see how long you last. The bureaucracy will hunt you down.

It is quite clear that young Australians engage with modern communications technologies. But this engagement is all about entertainment and it has nothing to do with productive work. I wish I could understand why workplaces are so reluctant to engage with Web 2.0 applications. You only have to use a wiki instead of a face-to-face meeting to develop a team document and you can see in two seconds how much more productive we could be if everyone knew how to use this stuff.

And this brings me to another point. Why is it only the ALP who bothered with the NBN? If any of the Liberals (or even the Nationals) knew how much more productive the minions would be if they could use Web 2.0 technologies, there would not be a single right-wing politician opposing the NBN. After all, they want to get as much out of each employee for the least cost possible. If only they knew.

But the really big question is why? Why do we do it this way here in Australia?

The answer is simple: we have always done it this way.

The first telegraph system was brought to Australia by Samuel McGowan, a Canadian who had studied under Morse. He thought he could become a rich businessman by bringing a new technology to Australia, much like he had seen the entrepreneurs do in North America. McGowan could not have been more wrong.

Colonial governments refused to let the private sector own the infrastructure. Indeed, the first private sector telegraph network was demolished by the colonial government of South Australia. The businessman who set up the network was promptly warned that only government could own the infrastructure. It never really happened again until the late 1980s when the Australian government said that maybe Optus could own a few phone lines.

But the thing that keeps happening is that Australia persists in locking itself into decades-long commitments to a particular technology – and always because government says so. And, ironically, always because the introduction of newer technologies was delayed by government for far too long in the first place.

So much so that by the 1950s, Australia was still relying on the telegraph long past its use-by date. Implementation of that horrible new instrument, the telephone, had rightly been delayed in Sydney by at least twenty years. Imagine the dilemma if we had spent a great deal of money on the telephone only to see a new technology replace it in the future? Besides, we had a perfectly good telegraph network up until 1968.

Don’t get me started on FM radio, colour television, pay TV or Government 2.0. But if you compare Australia’s use of electronic communications technologies with a similar country like Canada, you can see the trend quite clearly. Australia is slow to implement new technologies. Consumers might take them up pretty quickly, but we are always slow in comparison to the other advanced economies.

Australia simply waits too long before adopting new communications technologies, and then adopts the new technology via a government-led catch-up that is so big we have to wait decades to receive the return on investment from the initial outlay.

It isn’t about a lack of will on the part of the Australian people. Australians want these new technologies but the historical control-freak nature of Australian governments just slows the whole process down. In the meantime, Australians are not learning how to use these new technologies, so we are always behind the 8-ball.

Sure, the NBN will fix a bad situation, but then adding a Net Filter to it is just plain crazy talk.

And then how long will it be before we find ourselves in another communications technology crisis? Will we sit around waiting for the government to “rescue” us once again?

Decentralisation and enabling combinations of business, local council and community solutions to our broadband woes is the key - a key that government refuses to consider.

With a choice between Dumb and Dumber this election, you can rest assured that in a few decades time, we will have a new “future-tech” drama just like the one we have now. Either way, things are not looking good for Australia’s broadband future.

If only Malcolm was still Opposition Leader...

Photo courtesy of Melburnian.

The NBN is coming to Palmerston via Gungahlin! or, How I jumped the gun?

I had no idea the NBN would come to Palmerston soon - indeed, in the second release of  the NBN mainland sites. But there it is and I just entered into a two year contract with the only real provider in Palmerston via Gungahlin. Thanks for nothing NBN!

There is something to be said about why governments simply shouldn't interfere with markets, and the cost to me is probably the easiest reason. to understand.  But will the NBN be available to me in 2011 as suggested by the Minister for Broadband's press release? Will Palmerston ever be without the "via Gungahlin" tag?

I hope not, because then I didn't start out with a whopping $109 for 10 gigabyte per month plan via wireless for nothing. But on the other hand, I might be able to buy additional downloads WHEN (not IF) I need them via the NBN.

Anyway, what matters is that Canberra's most densely populated suburb will soon be dragged out of developing world broadband territory and into the Brave New World of the National Broadband Network. 

But it should never have got to this stage and we can appropriately blame every other federal government since the Net became publicly available in 1992 for this major interference in the market which will ultimately be paid for by the consumer, i.e. ME!

Thanks for nothing, too,  to the senior federal control freaks who should have given more power to our local representatives - the people who don't have the luxury of hiding away in THEIR house at Capital Hill!

Kate Lundy for Communications Minister!

Find me a person who wants a compulsory Internet filter. There are none. But you don't have to look far to find a person who wants greater access to the policy or political process, especially on an issue that affects individuals on a personal level. People who want a better broadband service are easy to find, too!

The competing objectives of Internet filtering versus Gov 2.0 have gone on for long enough. And as today has been the day of the  #spill and #spillard, a few little steps further will make all the difference for Australia's future prosperity.

Australian digital natives have been living in a digital wilderness for too long. There is so much to do that fighting over an Internet filter which will never work anyway is a complete waste of time and the whole tech community knows it. There are efficiencies to be gained which conservative organisations are only just coming to grips with. This is no time to change everything else but the *other* sticking point for this government.

Senator Kate Lundy is the logical choice as Australia's new Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy. There needs to be a new minister. There is nowhere Labor can go unless Conroy also moves on.

And stories about 'conflicts of interest' are stupid. If two individuals can't separate their personal and private lives when they are under so much public scrutiny then God help us if we ever let a couple be successful again.

What matters is that Lundy actually knows what can be done and how to do it. You don't need to be a techno-geek in a particular technology to know, but you need to be familiar with one of the technologies to know the massive change in culture this technology is bringing. Lundy is that person.

There is no other politician in this country who knows just how important the gains from the National Broadband Network and the associated uses of higher bandwidth for social, political and economic are than Senator Lundy. Nobody else at all.

Provide your support for Senator Lundy and Australia's digital future and post a comment here.

Other links:

Kate Lundy for IT: The Change We Really Need

Delimiter: Should Gillard replace Conroy with Lundy?

Bloggers campaign for Lundy

New Aus PM may dump comms minister
Ludlam: Change in comms ministry unlikely
Gizmodo: Is Senator Conroy Still Minister For BCDE?

I'm tipping: Conroy to replace Tanner, Lundy to replace Conroy!

Photo courtesy of Bidgee: CC-BY-SA

NBN agreement not just good for Telstra

Yesterday's $11 billion non-binding financial agreement will give NBN Co access to Telstra's communications network and duct structure. This is not just good for Telstra – it is good for the nation.

Why? Well, there are two main reasons. First, the previous federal government handed Telstra shareholders an investment dud by selling the telco on the basis of blind ideology. The lack of forethought about the resulting industry structure not only hindered the deployment and take-up of new technologies, but it locked in old technologies and prevented innovation – both in infrastructure and the use of high bandwidth technologies.

Second, after more than a decade of neglect, not only is our infrastructure outdated, but our students and workforce are a decade behind in the skills they would have gained had we had access to adequate broadband years ago. The myth about digital natives being 'naturally' tech-savvy provided a policy blind-spot that has left many Australians in the digital wilderness. But yesterday's agreement is the first real sign of progress toward the digital future we should be enjoying right now.

While Minister Conroy's press release rehashes the NBN Implementation Study's assertion that the NBN “would still be financially viable even without the participation of Telstra”, only a fool would try to broadband the nation without the cooperation of one of the most innovative companies in the world. The agreement is the closest thing to the win-win solution the government was no doubt dreaming about in the lead-up to this year's federal election.

Telstra shareholders will be watching the stock market to see if their investment recovers from the years of regulatory uncertainty perpetuated by governments from both sides of politics. As Telstra will be able to divest its wholesale operations without destroying its market value, it is difficult to think the market will react anything but positively.

The creation of USO Co will help, too. Removing the Universal Service Obligation (USO) – a remnant of technological socialism which has done nothing but act as a handbrake on new technologies - will enable Telstra to focus on services which are not predetermined by politicians. Hopefully this will also free-up USO monies currently provided by Telstra's competitors and put the social responsibility for essential communications services back where it belongs – with government.

Nonetheless, the inevitable time-lag between now and when the details of the agreement are finalised will not help fix Australia's shortage of skills in using high bandwidth applications. The benefits of some of these technologies are yet to impact upon the Australian workforce and most managers haven't a clue about the productivity improvements and cost-savings which can be gained through various collaborative communication alternatives.

Overseas, companies are less reliant on email as they move to using blogs, wikis and other social media applications to communicate with co-workers and customers. Hard skills in a particular technology are not important, but the soft skills, such as being able to operate in an environment where communication is (for the most part) out in the open, cannot be gained in the absence of technology.

Many executives who operate in these open communication environments suggest that the quality of work improves significantly as a direct consequence of openness. But in a country where bosses still suggest we blog with prudence or we shouldn't use social media at work, Australia is far behind the eight-ball.

And it is not just in the workplace. When I introduced blogs and wikis into my university teaching this year, many students found the technology quite confronting. But a few have spoken with their friends offshore and have discovered that overseas students have been using social media in education for many years.

The myth of the digital native in Australia is just that – a myth. But addressing the lack of skills is exacerbated by the lack of teachers capable of teaching with the technology, which in turn feeds into the lack digital skills in the workforce.

While the government argues that the “NBN is critical to securing Australia's international competitiveness”, some people still argue that the NBN has nothing to do with education. But a quick comparison of broadband plans in the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia demonstrates just how far behind we really are.

Even Australians who have adequate access to high-speed broadband services are restricted by the amount they can download each month – hence how much they can participate in online education or other educative applications on a regular basis. But if you live in a suburb like Gungahlin in the ACT, even the most expensive wireless plan won't fix the problems of the old network, let alone provide you with adequate download limits to upgrade your qualifications online.

NBN Co's deal with Telstra should usher in a vast improvement in the quality of access, price, speeds and bandwidth as the old copper network is phased out and customers are migrated to the NBN's fibre. But whether the regulatory certainty the agreement is designed to provide for Telstra will be sufficient to satisfy other players in the communications industry remains to be seen.

Yesterday's agreement gives the Rudd government a chance to put the NBN back on the election agenda. At a time when the Opposition is still talking about scrapping the NBN, there will be much rejoicing in Labor circles. But it is also good news for the Australian economy and the education revolution. Who knows, Australians might even join the information revolution in a few years time?

Photo credit: "Bidgee"/CC BY 3.0

Digital Natives? Myth Busted!

There is a myth perpetuated by people who are not engaging with emerging social media technologies. This myth is that people born since the advent of the Internet have grown up with new media technologies and therefore these people are digital natives who do not need a digital education.

But this myth does not stand up to the slightest scrutiny. I would probably not get this into an academic journal, but here are some statistics collected during my second attempt at using social media such as blogs, wikis and other information sharing tools for completing major assessment items.

Blogging:
Question: Have you ever blogged before?
Yes = 2 responses
No = 50 responses
What's a blog? = 1

Wikis:
Question: Have you ever wiki'd before?
Yes = 8 responses
No = 35 responses
What's a wiki? = 11

Not research to stake a career upon, but hardly an overwhelming victory for the digital native myth!

But it also suggests why technologies which boost productivity and efficiency in so many ways are not making it into the mainstream fast enough. While it is true enough that the so-called "digital natives" can learn the new technologies very quickly, there needs to be someone teaching how contemporary technologies can be harnessed in business, government and community applications. In my experience, these teachers fit into the "digital immigrant" category.

Anyway: Digital Natives? MYTH BUSTED! Now we can get on with providing a digital education and stop pretending that it isn't necessary.

iPad? Techno Wipeout and how to avoid it

© Depositphotos.com/@searagen

Tomorrow's release of the iPad in Australia is sure to cause a stir in the media. But claims that this is a world changer will be nothing but noise in the echo-chamber. The changes happening as a result of the information revolution pre-date Apple's mass marketing techniques.

One of the biggest problems for any user of technology is keeping up with the changes. Conservatives typically quote digital cameras and their ever-increasing megapixels as markers of the pace of technological change and why it is pointless to try to keep up. 

But the release of the iPad tomorrow will see many arguing that this is the great marker of the revolution, many others saying that Apple isn't everything, and the rest not really caring.

Part of the problem is what I call "Techno Wipeout". It might be cutting edge to surf the edge of chaos, but it can also be expensive. 

I argue that it is better to wait for the right wave and ride it to where you want to go. Unless you are mega rich, of course, and then do whatever you like!

I have tried a few times to be ahead of the curve, but the only outcome was that I was ahead of the curve. Form over substance.

Increasingly, I am finding that the soft skills needed to work with new social media technologies are more important than the technologies themselves. Sure, if you leave it for too long, it can be a long swim back out to the surf, but it is better than constantly being dumped as a new technology wave hits you.

So while Apple's iPad will no doubt bring about some amazing new applications and ways to access and manipulate information (just as the iPhone did), is it really the marker of a brave new world? I doubt it.

But what the iPad will do is signal to the mob that it is now cool to do what many tech geeks have been doing for a long time - connecting and networking and sharing almost anything through their communications devices. Who knows, my students might even start reading e-books!

Apple's brand power will also make those who have refused to see the benefits of these devices take notice. Not because they now see the benefits and the new ways to collaborate and improve productivity, but because it was in the newspaper and on the telly.

So Apple's marketing machine might be the straw that broke the camel's back and bring social media and other web technologies into the mainstream.

But for me, I'll be sticking to my netbook for another generation or two. Just like I did with my telly - I'll be buying my 3D TV real soon and I will not have to get rid of my rather large plasma. That's how I avoid Techno Wipeout.

Telstra down but not out

Although you might still not encourage your mother to buy their shares, Telstra is down but not out.

A Labor win at the election could see Telstra hopeful for an agreement on the NBN. But according to CEO David Thodey:

It is a purely commercial issue and if we can get to an outcome we'd be delighted, if we can't we can't and life will go on.

On the other hand, an Opposition victory (which Tony Abbott appears to have personally hijacked) might prevent any plans to split Telstra's wholesale and retail operations.

But how does this really affect Telstra, and not just its legacy network?

David Thodey suggests that Telstra's wireless customer base is doubling every nine months:

 Telstra CEO David Thodey: Let me say it again, every nine months. Any of you out there would die to have a business like that.

And with Telstra continuing to improve the capabilities of its wireless infrastructure, once the fallout from the Three Amigos and the NBN negotiations has cleared, it seems plausible that Telstra will come out of it all just fine.

Either way, the NBN debate is giving Telstra enough breathing space to reposition its business. Ticky Fullerton's report on ABC's Lateline recently is worth a watch as it identifies some of the major issues for the election. No mention of how backward Australia is at the moment or how it will screw-up our future capabilities, though!

But in the meantime, speculation over the retail  price of the NBN services in Tasmania has prices ranging from $40-$90 per month - even some suggesting it is "too expensive". Given that I currently pay $109 per month to get quasi-reliable Wimax in Palmerston via Gungahlin (I gave up on the ADSL "service" just recently), if any Taswegians out there would like to swap, let me know via the post as my email may not be working...

Photo credits: Telstra sign: "Bidgee"/CC BY 3.0; David Thodey: Telstra.

Infrastructure Duplication? Duct structure is the problem, not the cable

Optus CEO Paul O'Sullivan has confirmed that the telco will support the "controversial "cherry-picker" levy to crimp the ability of Telstra and others to build high-speed networks in high-value, low-cost areas in competition with the NBN".

Singaporean Government-controlled Optus is obviously taking the opportunity to have a swipe at Telstra. But the out-dated natural monopoly argument still being used to prevent infrastructure duplication is a smoke-screen.

The idea is that duplicating infrastructure is inefficient and leads to unnecessary civic disruption and unsightly cables, boxes and so on. The early telegraph and telephone days are cited as proof of this problem.

But it is clear that where a provider has access to the duct structure or the poles (that is, the conduit), the provider is able to deploy wire or cable to connect consumers. Transact in Canberra is a prime example. 

Where Transact (through ACTEW) owns the power poles, consumers have access to the Transact's cable. If you live in Gungahlin, where the ACT Government rushed the development of the suburb's infrastructure through a variety of public-private joint ventures, you get, well, nothing.

So when Optus supports a measure designed to prevent the duplication of infrastructure, it is important to look closely at the argument against duplication.

Put simply, it is inefficient to duplicate the duct structure or the poles (the conduit), not the actual cable. Additional cables increase bandwidth. Additional conduits cause the problems experienced in the early days of the telegraph and the telephone.

Shara Evans at Market Clarity suggested at a broadband conference in Sydney last year that government could improve access to the duct structure by adding this component to all new road-building projects .at a fraction of the cost to do this as a separate project. As the road is built, so is the duct structure.

The main reason this doesn't happen already? The division of powers between the federal, state and local governments.

So the next time you hear Optus or any other telco arguing against "infrastructure duplication", the duct structure is the problem, not the cable.

Put simply, the interests supporting the new measures to avoid infrastructure duplication are worthy of further investigation. And to make matters worse, none of this even got a mention in the whole NBN debate.

NBN cheaper, but so is the politicking

Today's release of the National Broadband Network (NBN) report suggests that the NBN will cost taxpayers $5 billion less than the initial proposal and will be affordable for consumers with or without Telstra’s participation. This is good news for Australia. But the way Communications Minister Stephen Conroy is handling one of the most important events in 21st century nation-building is an absolute disgrace.

The long awaited report by KPMG and McKinsey was released at 1:30pm today after a budget-style lock-up of selected journalists. And this is where the problem with Conroy begins.

The NBN has the potential to put the "public" back into public policy-making. But with the current minister at the helm, all we seem to be getting is a one-size-fits-all solution dictated by policy-making elites.

Australia has one of the most modern democratic political systems in the world, yet citizen participation in policy processes is effectively blocked by elitist attitudes. Indeed, public consultation usually results in little more than a placebo to calm the masses rather than a deliberate attempt to understand what issues are actually in the "public interest".

The bill for neglecting Australia's communications infrastructure has finally arrived and while it is significantly cheaper, the sneaky manner in which publicly-funded reports are delivered by government is nothing short of tyranny.

To make matters worse, the government is delivering mixed messages. In response to the Government 2.0 Taskforce report recently, the government is suggesting that the use of new communications technologies (which will be enabled by the NBN) will “shift public sector culture and practice to make government information more accessible and usable [and] make government more consultative, participatory and transparent”.

It would seem that somebody forgot to tell Stephen Conroy.

The minister is doing everything possible to sabotage public involvement in the NBN's implementation. Today's cloak and dagger style meeting of Canberra's press elite is just an extension of what we have come to expect from a minister who wants to implement an Internet filter to censor what Australians can access on the Net before the NBN is even available.

But none of this is necessary. Any number of people involved in delivering services such as health and education know just how important access to the NBN will be in improving the efficiency and effectiveness of service delivery. But even the problems in these two areas are not being addressed by innovative practice or new ideas - giving more and more responsibility to the federal government is all the elites have been able to come up with so far. Maybe it is time someone else had a go.

Those educating young Australians know just how desperately Australia needs the NBN. In comparison to their counterparts in the UK, Canada and the US, Australian students are not only behind in accessing affordable and adequate communications services, but their involvement in creating, disseminating and accessing public goods such as open education and other information resources is about a decade behind. So much for the education revolution and preparing for the knowledge economy.

Further, education now ranks in the top 5 Australian export industries. In a country where the standard of living rests on major exports of unsustainable resources such as coal, the education industry provides the biggest opportunity for sustainable future prosperity. But without the NBN, our chances of continuing to grow our exports in this industry are effectively hamstrung.

While today’s government-funded report is nothing more than an expert opinion to back up the government's NBN proposal, the price tag and the expected increase in access to the infrastructure will provide welcome relief for the government. And few would doubt the report has been held back for so long for any reason other than political opportunism.

With Opposition Leader Tony Abbott speculating recently that the Coalition could deliver the NBN faster and cheaper, Conroy will be able to take a breath while the details of the 500 page report are being absorbed.

But don't be fooled into thinking that things will be better under a Coalition government. After all, Conroy says the Coalition were responsible for keeping Australia's communications infrastructure in the dark ages.

And this is one area where Conroy is actually right. Abbott and the Coalition will no doubt cut spending on the NBN or scrap the project altogether, and this would be tantamount to deliberately making Australia part of the developing world.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is well aware of the consequences of failure with the NBN, stating that he doesn’t “intend to be Prime Minister of Australia which consigns our 21st Century to a 20th Century technology”.

But none of this bodes well for the whole point of having the NBN – to enable citizens to have greater access to information and communication services.

Today’s NBN report “lock-up” harks back to convict times. In the information age, the way policy is being made is simply not good enough.

Australia needs the NBN, but it also needs a major attitude change from senior ministers such as Conroy. Public money belongs to the public and hiding information for political sensationalism is just plain wrong.

Don’t expect the public consultation that is planned to be conducted as part of the NBN rollout to be anything more than a farce. Consumers might be “the big winners”, but citizens are getting more of the same. So much for 21st century nation-building.

For further info, see  Delimiter's coverage here.

Photo of Stephen Conroy by Dr Ron from wikimedia.org. CC-By-SA

Electioneering via Social Networks: Preaching to the Converted?

With an election looming, some of the old favourites like "let's kick a dole-bludger" among other idiotic policies are being tossed around in the popular media. Targeting Tony Abbott in particular, it appears that the ACTU will be using Facebook and Twitter to 'hammer out a warning' about a re-painted Workchoices industrial relations environment.

Everybody knows that such a policy is not a winner - just ask John Winston Howard and Stanley Melbourne Bruce. But it makes me wonder how much difference the use of social media will make this election?

The inherent beauty of social networks is that you don't have to engage with or read stuff you don't like. If you have a friend or followee who annoys you, you simply unfriend or unfollow them and move on.  But how many people will be happy about having their social networks infiltrated by those annoying politicians during the election campaign?

The reality is that most of us will either only read or engage with those we are already going to vote for, or alternatively we will keep a safe distance away from the more evangelistic politicians. 

I am not a betting man, but if I were my money would be on social networks being nothing more than a sideshow for the traditional media, or at the every most a case of simply preaching to the choir.

UC 2.0: The Hothouse Rocks!

Today I met with the UC Hothouse crew to report on my progress for the Winter Term. I arrived 1/2 hour early to finally use the room set aside for us. After teaching from 8:30am to 3:30pm without a break, I spent the time listening to Scheherazade on my old iPod Shuffle while responding to student emails on my new Netbook. I was surprised to learn how quickly time has passed this semester with just over a week left to go for the semester, and now only two weeks for us to use the Hothouse room.

The trial with the University of Canberra College using my Web 2.0 techniques is proving to be a real winner with students with English as a second language (ESL). On sabbatical last year in Jordan, I really got to know what it was like to be a foreign ‘student’ and Google Translator and other tools became firm friends. On returning to the UC College fold, I decided to change my attitude toward ESL students and now students are providing me with links to the tools they are using - typically tools peculiar to particular languages.

Not everyone will agree with the approaches to teaching I am using (see the video in the coming weeks!). But the simple fact is that using traditional teaching methods, my ESL students sat stupefied as my head talked at them in the classroom. At the end of a class, nobody could correctly answer a single question asked of them. Now, it is rare that I get vacant faces when I ask questions - indeed the converse is true.

What is obvious is that the days of the talking head at the front of the tutorial class are limited - and for me the computer lab is the place where learning is ramped up to warp factor.

Next week, Leonard Low of the Hothouse crew will be producing a video record of my approach to teaching ESL students. I still need to collect detailed feedback from students but the informal feedback I have been receiving from numerous students and peers has been mind-blowing. My gut feeling is that the system I was using in Jordan works as a teaching method with a class of about 90 students. Nonetheless, the method is resource intensive, requiring computer labs for every face-to-face contact period except the 2 hour lecture.

My biggest fear is how I will be able to replicate the results I have achieved in the computer lab in a fully online unit. To be honest it is stressing me no end as the numbers for the new Winter Term are approaching 80 students and rising. What makes the difference is knowing that the Hothouse crew are behind us the whole way. After today’s meeting, I am noticeably less stressed. Whether that is the result of the meeting or that 1/2 hour of chilling out this afternoon I am not sure, but either way it is attributable to the Hothouse!

"Savvies" vs "Unsavvies": What web skills should contemporary professionals possess?

What web skills should contemporary professionals possess? To hear many educators, you would think that "web-savviness" was something that could be outsourced to a personal assistant or some other "non-professional". This view is just plain wrong and the consequences for Australian professionals will be disasterous.

There is a great deal of interest in online and blended learning in the higher education sector. However, many of the complacent views about web technologies are held by those in positions of power - often the same people who do not know how to use the technologies.

There is nothing new about some people lagging behind others in terms of "tech-savviness", but there is a divide in higher education between the "savvies" and the "unsavvies". The "unsavvies" want to make sure the pedagogy is sound and that there is some theoretical approach to the use of web technologies in the classroom. The "savvies" know that these normative questions have already been answered. The trick is how to implement new technologies in a setting which is not geared up to do so.

What is not clear is what web skills contemporary professionals should possess. Clearly, the higher education sector is the place where most of this skills development will occur. But why are web skills desirable?

With Australian broadband lagging the rest of the developed world, the time-lag between infrastructure development and skills development is ever-widening. This means that Australian professionals are already at a disadvantage in comparison with professionals from abroad. Further, a quick glance at the higher education sector and the state of Australian "Government 2.0" initiatives demonstrates that web interactivity is far from being a priority in Australia. But it should be.

Why? The first reason is productivity. The rise of neoliberalism in the West saw not only the end of free tea and coffee at work, but executives operating photocopiers and using fax machines. Just about every minute detail of day-to-day administration is now conducted by the professional - the once-ubiquitous personal assistant is reserved for only the very-well-to-do.

Web technologies enable more minute-to-minute tasks to be undertaken by professionals, rather than by a throng of support staff. Professionals might not be happy about this for a while, but who remembers when it was a "right" to have free tea and coffee at work? [International Roast Caterers Blend was hardly something to cry about losing anyway!] The point is, the efficiencies which were produced by reducing administrative staff were consumed by the system the same way web technologies would be - I am surprised the closet neoliberals haven't discovered this one yet.

Second, there is a growing need for professionals to establish a Net identity. Like it or not, it is only the few at the end of their work life cycle who can hold out to retire before web technologies are just plain normal. Think of Sir Robert Menzies - avoiding television and retiring before it was the political norm. Now imagine a politician who avoided television because they weren't familiar with the technology. Now imagine the inefficiencies created by a professional who needs to pay someone to set up their blog, social networking sites and so on. Can you even imagine paying someone to set up a Facebook account? But watch the "unsavvies" trying to do it by themselves.

Third, technology has changed. Again. Imagine a professional who refused to use a word processor, favouring the humble pen. Granted, there are a few of these people around, but they are either VERY senior or VERY VERY rich. But what about using a wiki for collaborative work? Why would you use a MS Word document when you could use a wiki? Maybe because you don't know how to use a wiki? Now watch how long it takes a handful of people to put a MS Word document together from 50 or more other Word documents. Days. Sometimes weeks. A wiki would have solved this dilemma in real-time but only if people know how to use a wiki.

I haven't even mentioned the non-organisational/non-administrative good bits yet. I could go on but I won't. The simple answer to the question posed here is that professionals need all the web skills they can reasonably get. If they don't, someone else will. But in the meantime, our productivity could improve at a rate that beggars belief. And that is the trouble - some people just won't believe it.

The trick now is to get universities geared up to teach web skills. Maybe not as a matter of direct teaching, but as a generic skill (or an assumed skill like the ability to use a word processor). But before we get ahead of ourselves, we need the infrastructure to teach these skills.  Think of the "Medieval Helpdesk" but this time the helpdesk is behind the technology curve. This brings us full circle - if the dominant professionals are not also "savvies", are they best placed to make the right decisions about what skills contemporary professionals should possess? I think not.

Time for a Specialist Comms Regulator

With the ACCC increasing its staff ahead of NBN Co's ownership of the wholesale communications network, it is timely to consider a new, specialist communications regulator for Australia to tackle the issues of technological convergence which are largely being ignored in the detail of the NBN.

In 2001, the Productivity Commission found little evidence to suggest that a specialist regulator works any better than a generalist regulator. However, using a comparative approach at the industry level, researchers suggest that a specialist regulator generally produces better outcomes in the communications industry.

The current laws governing Australia's communications industries are outdated, and competition is better seen as occurring across all media communications industries rather than just '"telecoms" or "media".

The ACMA already has this mandate, but the regulator is really the ACCC's poor cousin when it comes to its impact on the communications sector.

Canada's policy and regulatory model provides an important example of how the Australian framework might function, with the ACMA or a similar body taking on the specialist role adopted by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC). 

Already, NBN Co is creating a few challenges for the ACCC:

ACCC Commissioner Ed Willett: This is something of an uncommon process for the ACCC, [having to assess] an undertaking for a company which currently has no market power and no network. What rules should govern this new company to ensure a healthy competitive industry and positive outcomes for consumers are some of the questions we are grappling with.

Far be it for me to suggest that the ACCC cannot do its job, but comparison with other jurisdictions suggests that specialist regulators are not so focused on competition theory and are better able to take on a more active regulatory role in the industry. This is particularly important during interconnection negotiations which will no doubt take up a great deal of the regulators time and effort.

Why change to a specialist regulator? According to Roehrich & Armstrong (2002):

[A]n active regulator is more likely to produce an active negotiation [in interconnection arrangements].

At $43 billion, a little bit of the pie spent on a specialist regulator is surely a good investment. Why this issue never enters the debate over the NBN is certainly a reflection of the interests that are being protected, rather than a focus on the interests which should be being served.

3D television just a far-off dream for most Australians

While sitting in my lounge room last night enjoying less-than-broadband speeds at the price of a 1.5 Gbps connection, SBS News mentioned that 3D televisions would be available in Australia from as early as next month. 

The big problem is that there is no 3D content broadcast by Australian providers. But SBS may have other plans.

According to the Australian newspaper, the SBS is considering broadcasting a FIFA World Cup soccer match in 3D. The Australian also reported some findings of an Ipsos survey:

This week, a study from research firm Ipsos found 70 per cent of Australians were aware of 3D TV and 22 per cent said they would "definitely or probably" buy one. "There is definite excitement about 3D TV, which is interesting considering 53 per cent of the respondents haven't seen a 3D movie, let alone 3D TV," Ipsos executive director of media Mark Grunert said.

Movies and computer games are expected to drive demand for 3D televisions. But where does it all end? And is it really that simple?

This is how I have reacted to the slow implementation of new technologies:

1. After paying more than $350 per typical month for home telephone, Foxtel, broadband, two mobile phones  (which included an iMate JAS-JAM - like a pretend iPhone) a few years ago, I ditched the mobiles and Foxtel. I also waited to see what would happen with the "Big Box". The result has been a more peaceful life (people called my mobile when they wanted something from me, rarely did I need it for me). Now, when I am away from my desk - well, now I am really offline. Try it sometime!
2. An inexpensive Bush digital set-top box fixed the old television problem, and a PC to TV adaptor means I can watch anything on the Net on my old TV - as long as the rest of my suburb is asleep because the broadband is always dialup at peak periods.
3. I am glad I didn't spend a cent on a big television now that 3D TVs are on the way. I will either save a fortune buying an "old"  new flatscreen TV or a second-hand unit.

Assuming Australians are rational economic actors, it would simply be irrational to purchase a 3D television unless you were either very rich, or you happen to really need to see soccer in 3D. The figures from Ipsos certainly suggest that Australians are interested in the technology (even if they haven't seen a 3D movie), but will they pay for it?

My guess is they will not. And why? Because in terms of communications technologies, Australia is now caught in the past. Convergence is largely ignored and the traditional boundaries continue to dictate the structure of the media communications industry.

It is obvious that competition is the answer to the current state of the industry. But this doesn't just mean Telstra. The ABC and SBS are the only providers delivering full-length television shows via the Net. There is no incentive for the other networks to do so.

Competition requires a number of competitors. If the boundaries which currently separate the traditional communications industries in Australia were removed, there would instantly be more competitors and therefore more competition. No longer could the old players dominate their peculiar and protected markets.

3D television provides an opportunity for the old rules to be re-written. Television networks, pay TV providers and telecommunications companies could all compete with movie-makers and even computer game companies once the new game is played.

But until policy-makers choose to recognise that each new communications technology is another nail in the old game, policy will be the reason Australians are still dreaming about watching affordable 3D televisions in the years to come, and not a lack of demand.