Broadband Budget 2008

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Nation-building is back on the agenda and the very capable Sir Rod Eddington (1) will lead the mammoth task of remedying the mistakes of the decade in which Australia forgot to build infrastructure. Nonetheless, broadband seems to be in a state of flux, with nobody really sure of where it fits in with the nation-building project. I am convinced this is because politicians, policy makers, businesses and community groups are struggling to come to grips with a ‘viral’ communications network which spreads ‘virally’ when left to its own devices. Much like the economists’ free market mantra, ‘free’ networks tend to resist central control and will connect people who want to be connected if only these networks are allowed to do so (2). Kevin Rudd, when talking about the nation-building project during the election campaign, referred to nation-building in the 19th century as all about building railways, whereas in the 21st century it was all about building broadband networks. The trouble with this analogy is that broadband is not a railway, it is an entire transport system (3). But at least it is more palatable to hear about broadband from Stephen Conroy than it is to hear from the likes of Bill Heffernan who claimed to have ‘never sent an e-mail in [his] life’ (4).

A perusal of the 2008 Portfolio Budget Statements for the appropriately-named Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy (5) indicates that a coherent plan is in place. First, $4.7 billion has been allocated for the National Broadband Network in an attempt to bring 12 gigabyte broadband connections to 98% of the Australian population. Second, the remaining 2% of the Australian population will have access to the additional $271 million which extends the existing Australian Broadband Guarantee. This Guarantee is designed to subsidise a ‘metro-comparable’, 512kbps download/128kbps upload data speed, minimum 1 gigabyte per month download limited connection where the cost exceeds $2,500 per year (approximately $208 per month). Hardly ‘metro-comparable’, but such a connection is better than nothing if you happen to live in the middle of nowhere.

Last week I had the opportunity to address the Regional Telecommunications Independent Review Committee (6) at a public meeting in Sydney. At this meeting, I presented early research findings from my comparison of broadband infrastructure deployment in Canada and Australia. My major thrust was that greater community involvement led to greater connectivity, but the Australian way of ‘doing’ communications policy tended to limit the involvement of citizens and therefore their ability to communicate using broadband technologies. Somewhat to my surprise, my presentation was well received not only by the committee but also by the participants who were mostly representatives of a wide range of rural community groups. These groups presented many stories about how local efforts to utilise broadband networks had worked quite well until ‘Big Brother’ had taken away their right to use the network, and also how they had been regarded as ‘fools’ by authorities and other ‘people in the “know”’ when they complained about specific telecommunications problems in their local areas. While I was pleased that the anecdotal evidence confirmed my research, I was particularly appalled at how my hypothesis was substantially proven by the lived reality of these very passionate and capable representatives from ‘the bush’.

I would never pretend to have all the answers on broadband, but one thing is very clear. The centralised control of communications networks will help the federal bureaucracy to control how the federally-funded network is used - even more so the winner of the $4.7 billion tender. The problem is that people won’t use the federally-controlled communications network unless it is free to be used in a fashion in which people get to choose how they use it. In the meantime, it appears that the $4.7 billion federal investment in the National Broadband Network will go to one of either two major competitors (7) who do not have ‘open access’ as a major goal. The paradox really gets up my nose in that the typical economist’s free market dogma is driving the approach to broadband infrastructure investment being ‘open’ to ‘competitive forces’, whereas communications networks are conveniently excluded from the same ‘free trade’ dogma.

Free trade was originally intended to circumvent those unscrupulous people who made profits (through measures such as tariffs and tolls) by controlling the transport routes which enabled the real business of trade in goods and services. Well guess what? The Internet provides the modern conduit for trade, but it is the unscrupulous people who are applying the tariffs and tolls again! So while the anti-‘open source’ crowd make claims of the ‘communism’ associated with ‘open networks’ (8), the free-traders are decidedly absent from the broadband debate. Maybe the 'free trade' ideology has proven to be self-serving after all? Or maybe my 'inadvertent' collection of toll receipts (9) (from the supposedly simple trip from Canberra to Sydney which still burns a hole in my wallet) was such that I couldn't help but think it is time for a new type of 'free trade' debate. Or maybe the old free traders have just been around for so long that they have forgotten about the tyranny of tolls and tariffs which fuelled their cause originally? Anyway - it's like preaching to the choir here - the people who need to know simply don't know about broadband :( and the free traders who [intellectually] should have been involved in the debate all went the way of Howard and Edmund Burke! (10).

Notes:

(1) Albanese, A. (2008) ‘Sir Rod Eddington Appointed to Head Infrastructure Australia’. Media Release. URL: http://www.minister.infrastructure.gov.au/aa/releases/2008/february/aa014_2008.htm (Accessed 14 May 2008).

(2) Rhodes, R.A.W. (1996) 'The New Governance: Governing without Government.' Political Studies. Vol. 44:652-67.

(3) de Percy, M. (2008) ‘Broadbanding the Nation: Lessons from Canada or Shortcomings in Australian Federalism? In Australia Under Construction: Nation-building past, present and future. Canberra: ANU e-Press. URL: http://epress.anu.edu.au/anzsog/auc/mobile_devices/ch10.html (Accessed 14 May 2008).

(4) Burke, N. (2007) ‘PM's right hand man asks: what's email?’ The Daily Telegraph. URL: http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21434598-421,00.html (Accessed 14 May 2008).

(5) Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy (2008) 'Agency resources and planned performance'. Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia. URL: http://www.dbcde.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/83695/PBS_2008-09_DBCDE.pdf (Accessed 14 May 2008).

(6) Regional Telecommunications Independent Review Committee (2008) ‘A review of the adequacy of telecommunications services in regional, rural and remote parts of Australia’. URL: http://www.rtirc.gov.au/home (Accessed 14 May 2008).

(7) Australian Associated Press (2008) ‘$4.7bn for national broadband network’. URL: http://www.news.com.au/business/money/story/0,25479,23694523-14327,00.html (Accessed 14 May 2008).

(8) See Blankenhorn, D. & Rooney, P. (2005) ‘Is open source communist?’. URL: http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source/index.php?p=210 (Accessed 14 May 2008).

(9) Any outsider who drives through Sydney these days will be appalled by the highway robbery which is performed with the use of 'legitimate' yet confusing roadsigns which all read "e-Pay only this way" until you inadvertently end up at a toll booth where you get to pay about $5 for the privilege of being lost in a maze of poor signage. Why the equivalent of the 1789 French Revolution (to the power of 60 billion) hasn't occurred yet in Sydney is beyond me. But still, it is way cheaper to drive the 260 km from Canberra to Sydney and return, even taking into account the minimum $20 parking per day (and don't forget those 'inadvertent' tolls from your friendly NSW highway robbers!), than it is to spend the average $250 return flight (without counting the $80 taxi fare each way!).

(10) Howard's claim that the Liberal Party was a combination of the philosophies of John Stuart Mill and Edmund Burke would have had no impact upon Burke whatsoever (he accepted the American Revolution while denying the legitimacy of the French Revolution and would no doubt have empathised with Mr Howard) but would make J.S.M. (a fan of 'combinations' or unions) roll in his grave!

Opportunities and Challenges for Social Policy: Engaging Youth Online

In this article I outline some of the opportunities and challenges presented to social policy practitioners considering the use of social networking tools to engage with youth online. At present, most government uses of online social networking tools are limited to placing advertisements on banners in applications such as Google’s ‘Blogger’, Microsoft’s ‘My Space’ and the latest and most popular application, ‘Facebook’. However, little research has been conducted on the use of publicly-available social networking tools in social policy initiatives or the possibilities such tools present. Indeed, the tools themselves present challenges to entrepreneurs in designing business models which provide appropriate returns on investment, despite the market value of Facebook alone being estimated at some $US15 billion (1). Nevertheless, the market significance and exponential growth in numbers of users worldwide suggest that social networking tools are more than just a passing fashion. In this era of ‘responsive government’, information communications technologies (ICTs) have ‘the potential to further promote a culture of democratic decision-making in Australia’ (2) and here I suggest that social networking tools specifically provide a relevant, efficient and popular means to engage with youth on their own ‘cyber-turf’ if social policy practitioners are willing to confront the challenges.

Recent successes by policy practitioners engaging with youth include the Commonwealth’s ‘Stamp Out Chlamydia’ (SOC) campaign, described by one of my colleagues, a marketing lecturer at the University of Canberra, as ‘the best example of social entrepreneurship’ by a government agency. On the ground, this campaign is run by nurses and health practitioners and is a leader in engaging youth in social policy initiatives. The campaign provides free testing for the early detection of Chlamydia for participants while at the same time increasing awareness of a disease which is easy to catch, but also relatively easy to prevent and cure. Data from the testing is being used for research purposes through collaborative partnerships with universities and other health organisations, providing multi-faceted policy outcomes such as increasing awareness, engaging with citizens and increasing knowledge through research. As youth are at most risk of catching and spreading the disease, SOC was specifically designed to target tertiary students in Canberra. The secret of the campaign’s success has been the level of engagement with youth through the use of non-traditional media such as Canberra’s BMA (a free magazine devoted to local youth culture), the design of a youthful, ‘Jack Black-style’ logo displayed in most Canberra clubs, and dynamic and engaging staff at the coalface who actively seek support from target groups in the local community to help market the campaign’s events.

Hopefully the policy networks established during the SOC campaign can be utilised for other social policy initiatives, but there is a risk that the end of the campaign and subsequent staff turnover may result in these networks dissolving over time. This is an area where social networking tools could actually sustain and expand these local policy networks by enabling the networks to develop ‘virally’ online, reaching further into the target audience. The ‘viral’ nature of social networking tools occurs for two main reasons. First, any member of a campaign participant’s network can see another member’s interaction with the campaign’s social networking site. This means that, through the anecdotal ‘six degrees of separation’ phenomenon, it is possible to engage a very large, global audience. The major difference between social networking tools and other forms of communication is that the target (or receiver of the message) chooses if, when and how they receive the message. My experience with the tools to date suggests that human curiosity is the driver which encourages the target to at least see what another user has been doing – this type of curiosity is a very powerful marketing ‘hook’. Regardless, the target chooses if, when and how to receive the message and subsequently their level of involvement in the network, so the use of these tools tends to avoid the negative experiences often associated with more intrusive marketing campaigns.

The second reason for the viral nature of social networking tools is the accessibility to documented information which is available from any Net-connected computer anywhere in the world (where access to the relevant site is not restricted). Campaign events can also be added to individual ‘event’ sites, enabling the site’s hosts to monitor users’ indication of attendance and to organise their social calendar online. This function is particularly useful as youth are notorious for ‘forgetting’ about events - social networking tools provide timely and accessible reminders of the event’s starting time and location. The contact details and interaction of participants (selected at the participant’s personal level of privacy protection) are documented in real-time (or as the correspondence occurs), reducing the effort needed to document the correspondence or store emails and other records on an ongoing basis. Traditional records of interaction tend to be kept for a time before disappearing into silos of ‘too much information’ which are fated to deletion once the employees involved change jobs.

A current example of a ‘viral’ network is the US Facebook group ‘Psychology Marketing project - I need your help!!!’ set up by Monic Rokel which at the time of writing had 768,016 members globally. The project was designed to demonstrate ‘how influential viral marketing can be’ by the researcher generating a network of 200,000 random members. The membership goal was achieved in less than a week and following the project’s success, the network continued to grow well beyond its target despite the aim beyond 200,000 initially being ‘just for fun’. Nevertheless, viral networks present a challenge to public administrators who have traditionally attempted to control information dissemination and the nature of citizen engagement. As viral networks tend to resist centralised control (3), one of the major challenges in adopting social networking tools for citizen engagement is the need to relinquish control.

Relinquishing control presents a challenge to the use of social networking tools for two main reasons. First, most government agencies (and businesses) restrict the use of Net-based applications such as Facebook and Windows Live Messenger in the workplace because of the risk of staff using these networks for personal reasons during work time. However, according to Dawson (4), firms such as Deloitte Australia actively use Facebook inside the organisation, encouraging staff to use the tool to connect with one another and also to expand the organisation’s network. Second, there are obvious security issues involved in using any third-party or external system. Nevertheless, numerous private sector organisations actively use this software and have been able to overcome the security issues (5), so the challenges are not insurmountable.

There is an abundance of freely available social networking tools such as Facebook which in 2007 registered Australian members at the rate of 100 new users per hour (6). In addition, Facebook and YouTube were used to great effect in Rudd’s ‘Kevin07’ campaign despite the Coalition government’s criticism of these innovative campaign tools (7). The political use of Internet-based tools is not new - former British Prime Minister Tony Blair used an online participatory forum which proved very successful in the UK. The lessons from Blair’s use of online participatory forums are well documented (8) and some of the lessons from the UK experience are relevant for social policy practitioners, particularly the choices to be made about moderating participants’ comments in the light of bureaucratic control. Too much moderation can affect participants’ willingness to participate whereas too little can present a significant risk to government agencies if participants use the forum inappropriately or use offensive language in their correspondence.

The point is that online participatory tools can be effective if used appropriately. Major opportunities provided by engaging youth on their own ‘cyber-turf’ include increasing awareness of social policy campaigns regardless of physical distance and also increasing awareness of and attendance at social policy events. When used in conjunction with traditional marketing methods, social networking tools can help increase face-to-face participation by providing users with information and ‘diarising’ events. Attempts to increase youth attendance at student events at the University of Canberra are certainly proving this to be the case. ‘Viral’ networks are growing on tools such as Facebook with many interest group networks being created by the students themselves. Indeed, there are various Canberra-based sites dedicated to voicing youth concerns with innocuous policy issues such as local bus timetables which would no doubt be of interest to policy practitioners and politicians.

The major challenges to the effective use of social networking tools include: overcoming the traditional need for the bureaucracy to control public communication (protecting integrity reduces timeliness); online security and work practice issues (most social networking tools are banned or blocked in the workplace); a lack of technical skills to use the tools effectively (particularly by those specialists who run the social policy initiative); and possibly the reluctance of policy specialists (both practitioners and academics) to view social networking tools as a legitimate forum for policy participation. However, social policies such as the Rudd Government’s intended use of monies collected from the 70% increase in excise on sales of premixed ‘alcopop’ drinks in an effort to curb binge drinking in teenagers (9) will no doubt be the subject of much debate. If citizens, particularly youth, are to be involved with and educated about such issues, there are plenty of opportunities for non-traditional methods to engage youth in social policy communities online.

The most likely problem is that by the time public administrators are convinced of the usefulness of social networking tools, changes in technology and youth trends may require advanced skills for these tools to be utilised effectively in the future. The amount of time and effort required to stay abreast of the strategic and technical skills necessary for the effective use of social networking tools cannot be exaggerated. For this reason, it will be very difficult for policy practitioners to catch up if they are not learning how to use the systems to encourage participation in social policy now. In the meantime, the benefits of a free, globally available and rapidly expanding communication network waits for the next generation of social policy practitioners who dare to challenge the traditional approaches to citizen engagement.

NOTES:

(1) Guth, R.A., Vara, V. & Delaney, K.J. (2007) ‘Microsoft bets on Facebook stake and web ad boom’. In The Wall Street Journal, 25 October.
(2) Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO) (2008) ‘Principles for ICT-enabled Citizen Engagement’. Canberra: AGIMO. URL: http://www.agimo.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/55745/Principles.pdf (Accessed 28 April 2008).
(3) De Percy, M. (2008) ‘Broadbanding the nation: lessons from Canada or shortcomings in Australian federalism?’ in Butcher, J. (ed) Australia under construction: nation-building: past, present and future. Canberra: ANU E Press.
(4) Dawson, R. (2007) ‘Companies that close networking doors jeopardize their future’. URL:http://www.rossdawsonblog.com/weblog/archives/2007/08/%20companies_that.html (Accessed 28 April 2008).
(5) Ibid.
(6) Schliebs, M. (2007) ‘One hundred Aussies per hour joining Facebook’. URL: http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22027833-2,00.html (accessed 27 April 2008).
(7) ABC News (2007) ‘“Kevin 07” just a media tart: Govt’. URL: http://www.abc.net. au/news/stories/2007/08/07/1998490.htm (Accessed 28 April 2008).
(8) Wright. S. (2006) 'Government-run Online Discussion Fora: Moderation, Censorship and the Shadow of Control' in British Journal of Politics and International Relations. Vol. 8, No. 4, November 2006: 550-568.
(9) Viellaris, R. & Stolz, G. (2008) Alcopop tax 'will stem teen binges' in The Courier Mail, 28 April 2008.

Social Capital: The Cause and Effect of Broadband

Social capital, when defined as the 'networks of relationships among persons, firms, and institutions in a society, together with associated norms of behavior, trust, cooperation... that enable a society to function effectively' (1), has noticeably diminished in Australia. Paul Kelly's (2) concept of the Australian Settlement, although often debated, challenged and refined by Australia's best in the Australian Journal of Political Science, outlines one of the key factors which has helped to diminish this capital: state paternalism. State paternalism for my purposes here refers to Australia's persistence in seeking single national solutions to problems which are best dealt with at a local level (3) - an attitude I regard as a relic of Settlement. And, funnily enough, state paternalism, which diminishes social capital, is also causing Australia to lag behnd the rest of the developed world in the infrastructure which actually enables the networks necessary for building social capital: broadband.

While conducting research in Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia to discover why Canada is fourth in the OECD (4) for broadband outcomes (5), it was readily apparent that Canada's federal system is inherently rich in social capital. Communities with poor or no broadband access could approach businesses, civil society organisations and all levels of government to lobby for solutions. Indeed, various municipal, provincial and federal solutions have helped to maintain Canada as a leader in global telecommunications and where these solutions have not been forthcoming, some communities have decided to build and maintain their own networks! It is not a national single solution which has kept Canada at the head of the pack, but 'full participation of all interested parties', enabled by a transparent regulatory framework with a focus on 'consensus building' in developing and implementing regulations (6). Further, federal government programs helped to educate communities in policy processes while aggregating demand to attract private sector solutions, creating additional social capital in the process.

Meanwhile, back in Australia, state paternalism from both major parties left voters with a choice between two shades of grey: a national solution with mostly private sector solutions or a national solution with slightly less private sector solutions. But neither of these 'solutions' address the shortcomings in social capital which is both the cause and effect of sound broadband outcomes. While state paternalism persists, Australians will simply get the Settlement regurgitated and repackaged with modern wrapping. This attitude is so deeply ingrained that even attempts by federal governments to involve the private sector result in government simply handing over the Settlement to business while the 'disinterested' citizenry follow along (usually only out of curiosity) until there is enough public outcry. The bottom line is that the Dark Decade of luddism and neglect of social capital, super-imposed on the persistent Settlement attitude of state paternalism, have left Australia in a deep hole. Until governments entrust people to be involved in transparent policy-making processes, tired old 'national solutions' will keep Australia at the wrong end of the OECD broadband rankings. It is time a new approach, specifically localised infrastructure solutions, are trialled to improve broadband outcomes. National solutions haven't worked and to persist with the same old policy is, well, as the saying goes: 'When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging!'

NOTES:

(1) In Deardorff's Glossary of International Economics, see http://www-personal.umich.edu/~alandear/glossary/s.html.
(2) Kelly, P (1992) The end of certainty: The story of the 1980s. St Leonards: Allen & Unwin.
(3) Gans, J. (2006) The Local Broadband Imperitive: Appropriate high-speed Internet access for Australia. Melbourne: CEDA
(4) OECD (2007) OECD Communications Outlook 2007. Paris: OECD.
(5) That is, access to (penetration) and speed of the relevant broadband services.
(6) OECD (2002) Regulatory Reform in Canada: From transition to new regulation challenges. Paris: OECD.