Some interesting broadband statistics comparing Canada & Australia

I have put together some interesting statistics from the OECD, Aikima, Statistics Canada and the Australian Bureau of Statistics to compare broadband in Canada and Australia. Given the similarities (apart from the Big Mac Index purchasing power parity indicator), there is plenty of reason to argue that 'competition' or lack thereof has not been a significant factor in the differences in broadband adoption and take-up.

Click on the picture below to see the table.

Kate Lundy's Public Sphere

Already the impact of citizen engagement using new media is providing opportunities for politicians to develop creative ways to enable greater participation in policy development.

Senator Kate Lundy is an active user of new media and will be hosting a forum on 'High bandwidth for Australia' at the ANU on Wednesday 7 May 2009. Details are as follows:

Workshop details
Topic: The opportunities and issues around getting high bandwidth Internet in Australia
Place: Australia National University, Seminar Room 101, in the Department of Computer Science Ground Floor
Date: 7th May
Time: 8.30am for a 9am start till 12pm
Agenda: To be published by 5th May, but short 10 minute talks with simultaneous online discussion and questions
Social Media: Twitter: #publicsphere or blog: publicsphere or ”Public Sphere”
Online Participation: via Twitter using #publicsphere as the tag. Participants both in the room and remotely will post questions to @katelundy and comments and feedback on the content as it is being presented to #publicsphere. Speakers will see the questions as they come up and be able to deal with them either throughout their talk, or at the end. By driving everything through Twitter we hope to effectively be able to both encourage and capture different perspectives from all participants, local and remote.

This workshop provides an opportunity for citizens to participate either face-to-face or online. The workshop will also provide an excellent case-study of how citizen engagement can occur in the New Media era.

You can RSVP for the event here.

OpenAustralia: Community and the Net

A recent venture by Open Australia to list 'real' politicians using twitter is a fine example of the capability of the emerging Net community in Australia.

The use of new media in bringing citizens closer to their representatives is not everyone's cup of tea. But organisations such as OpenAustralia, which aims 'to make it easy for people to keep tabs on their elected representatives in Parliament', are certainly moving in the right direction.

The use of new media enables people to be involved in the emerging public e-sphere. For most citizens, work and family commitments make it difficult to participate in democratic processes. With technology making it easier for citizens to participate, the dreams of cyper-citizenship and e-democracy are fast becoming a reality.

New media presents many challenges to governments and traditional approaches to citizen engagement. But community organisations now have access to an efficient and cost-effective means of providing information to citizens and influencing public debate.

Once the NBN becomes available, community participation in the public e-sphere will likely increase. Organisations which take advantage of new media in the early stages are likely to establish their credentials for years to come.

Legitimacy remains an important element in democracies, but with the ability to remain anonymous on the Net, many people are wary of e-democracy in practice. The Net community has a role to play in providing such legitimacy, and OpenAustralia is to be congratulated for taking some of the first steps with their latest initiative.