Telecoms Society calls on industry to identify opportunities from NBN

Stuart Corner
Tuesday, 07 June 2011 11:42

IT Industry - Strategy

The Telecommunications Society of Australia has issued a 'call to arms' to the industry to "identify and address current NBN policy opportunities, in order to maximise the benefits of the services delivered via the NBN infrastructure and to encourage investment in new, innovative and beneficial services."

The TSA says: "Technical specifications for the NBN itself are in good shape, having been produced with the pro-active collaboration of the supply side of the industry through Comms Alliance. But the NBN is just one part - or more accurately, one set of pieces - in the jigsaw of the digital economy that will deliver the economic and social benefits across all sectors in Australia."

The Society's journal, the Telecommunications Journal of Australia (TJA) recently invited a wide range of stakeholders in the NBN, especially end users, to contribute papers on perceived gaps in NBN policy that threaten its early take-up and early delivery of its potential benefits. These were published in its most recent, May, edition.

According to the TSA, "The policy gaps identified so far are quite significant and include;

- How will the standard telephony service be supported by the NBN?
- The lack of any designated agency to ensure national end-to-end quality of service of national telecommunication services in the multi-service provider NBN era, once Telstra has vacated its de facto role as the national network planner;
- The need for equitable operational peering policies for retail service providers in the NBN era;
- Educational measures to assist ordinary citizens to gain the ability to make good use of the NBN;
- Policies to assist citizens with disability to use the NBN;
- Support for infrastructure applications in the education and health sectors to ensure early take-up of enhanced delivery of education and health services with the NBN;
- Confusion as to which federal agency is responsible for technical regulation of high-speed broadband infrastructure.

To address these issues the TSA will hold NBN Policy Fora in Melbourne (28 June) and Sydney (30 June), chaired by former ATUG managing director, Allan Horsley, and which the authors of the published TJA policy gap papers will provide 10 minute presentations on their conclusions concerning policy gaps identified. Their proposed solutions will then be discussed by the forum.

Confirmed speakers include: David Swift (ATUG), John Stanton (Comms Alliance), Peter Darling (Pondarosa Communications), Dave Lee (NSW Farmers Federation), Wayne Hawkins (ACCAN), Mandy Salomon (Swinburne University), Ros Eason (CEPU), Mike Rocke and Kit Wignall (Gibson Quai-AAS), David Havyatt (DigEcon Research) and Peter Gerrand (TJA).