Broadband policy lost in side-issues

With the NBN winner due to be announced shortly, broadband policy leadership is stuck in a quagmire of side issues. In a classic case of putting the cart before the horse, improving the availability, speed, quality and price of Australian broadband services has taken a back seat as the policy debate focuses on side issues.

While obviously important in the longer term, issues of cyber-security, Internet filtering, copyright and so on are far from being solved. Indeed, every developed nation is still coming to grips with these issues as the digital economy evolves.

In the meantime, Australia's broadband network is stalled. Businesses are waiting to see what will happen at a time when the GFC requires businesses to innovate and increase growth. The role of government in broadband deployment and demand-side development at all levels is unclear. The Australian communications industry is bounded by out-dated industry structures which restrict the deployment of infrastructure.

Federal systems present unique challenges for coordinating the deployment of communications infrastructure. Australia's federal system has evolved from a government-owned monopoly to a market-based system which is still dominated by Telstra. But there is a role for the states and local governments which is rarely heard in the public debate. This is most noticeable in cases such as TransACT: where access to the 'duct structure' (particularly overhead power lines) was available, Canberra residents have had access to high-speed cable broadband since the early 2000s. Suburbs such as Gungahlin, with underground 'duct structure', have struggled with mostly ADSL services. The differences in the available consumer choices for broadband services between Ainslie and Gungahlin, for example, are significant.

A 2008 report by the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF) entitled Explaining Broadband Leadership makes particular note of policy leadership and the role of the different levels of government in the US:

State and local governments should take action to make it easier for providers to deploy broadband services, including making it easier to access rights-of-way.

In Australia, the historical legacies of centrally-controlled communications networks make it difficult for local solutions to address peculiar communications issues at the local level. Local planning laws need to enable open access to the duct structure, for example, but with federal responsibility for communications networks so entrenched, there is little room for innovation at the local level.

The ITIF (2008) report also suggests that pragmatism is more important than arguments over whether government or business should deploy broadband infrastructure. With a centrally-controlled system, there is little room for a diverse approach to delivering broadband services.

Given that the policy debate has moved away from providing Australians with faster, cheaper access to quality broadband services, and is now caught up in side-issues, the practical problems of broadband deployment are simply being ignored. It is difficult to see how any improvement in the current situation can occur without policy leadership from the federal government. Decentralisation may be the key.

Finally, the structure of the Australian communication market needs to be changed to meet the challenges of technological convergence. If this does not happen soon, Australia will end up with further legacies which will impact upon the digital economy for years to come.

New Media: Where are the local councils?

Craig Thomler's blog raises some interesting questions about local government uses of New Media. Comparatively, Australia is well behind the US, UK and Canada in this regard. In a seminar recently presented by Henrik Bang at the ANU, 'The post-national condition - the end of modern democracy?', some interesting ideas were presented about US President Barack Obama's ability to motivate local interests throughout the US.

I have some reservations about this model working in Australia due to the increasingly centralised control of power in Australia's federal system. It is interesting, in comparative perspective, how Australia's federal system was deliberately set up to protect the States from the Commonwealth Government, only to end up more of a centralised system. In contrast, Canada's federal system was set up to increase the federal government's power, only to evolve into a system which is much more decentralised.

I am currently addressing some of these issues at the moment, but here is my attempt at addressing the question proposed on Craig's blog: Is Australian egovernment innovation on life support?

I propose three main hypotheses in answer to the question: (1) Australian governments of all persuasions are inherently conservative and tend to follow rather than lead (globally) in terms of innovation in high technology, especially where outcomes are unclear (2) Local councils bear the brunt of increasing centralisation of power in the federal government, reducing their ability to implement new ideas in the face of coping with contemporary local problems - New Media is simply off the political radar at the federal level and this flows down the federal system; and (3) the deployment of broadband infrastructure is so centrally controlled by the federal government and therefore removed from users that there is no active local engagement in its potential usage - there is a close link between local access and local usage - which means that even though people are 'active', they have little ability to influence the centrally-controlled system directly.

I appreciate these hypothese are somewhat unrefined at the moment but I intend to have a number of research publications out early next year.

Life without a mobile phone

When the contract on my iMate JAS-JAM ran out recently, I decided not to renew the contract and to remain completely mobile-less. For someone who has been using mobile phones since the bricks (actually they were bigger than bricks - see pic) in the very late 1980s, it was very strange at first. This was about one month ago.

It must be noted that I am writing up my PhD, so I am permanently attached to the laptop and/or several desktops and therefore I am not really 'disconnected'. But as time wore on, the most noticeable aspect was the freedom. No annoying phone calls at the movies, no need to carry anything when walking around, no need to worry about forgetting it. It has been a very freeing experience.

I doubt I can do this once my thesis has been submitted, but I must admit that both my budget and my stress levels have improved. The additional functionality of the JAS-JAM (awesome in its time, now just another brick!) is only a memory. But the fortnightly budget has improved significantly!

The major finding of this experiment: be a mobile technology follower. If I had waited, I would have an iPhone. I jumped the gun and paid the price. Same goes for laptops. Staying behind the technology curve is advantageous in the contemporary environment. If I had saved the amount I have spent over the years on mobile technology, I would be considerably wealthier!