Internet Association to set broadband target

Stuart Corner
Thursday, 27 July 2006 12:08

IT Industry - Strategy

The Internet Industry Association (IIA) says it will on Monday 31 July release what it claims will be Australia's first ever national broadband targets for 2010.  However it has given no indication of how these might be achieved.
IIA CEO, Peter Coroneos said: "We have produced a set of aspirational targets for both fixed and mobile Internet for the nation. The intent is to put a stake in the ground by which Australia's progress can be measured against other advanced economies - it will give policy makers and industry participants an objective assessment of where we need to be by the end of the decade."

Coroneos said the IIA had tried to remain technology neutral. "The time frame is near enough that we can take account of existing and developing technologies that are likely to deliver Australia's broadband needs, and also to assess where we think other countries will be."

On the other hand, he said: "2010 is far enough away to allow some degree of planning for what we hope will be a coherent, nation building approach to provisioning Australians with high speed, high capacity Internet. We are looking at the kinds of applications we believe users will be seeking by 2010 to ensure that we have enough capacity, performance and reach to satisfy these needs."

While no specific broadband targets have ever previously been set for Australia, there has been no shortage of supposed strategic planning: in the early 1990s the Broadband Services Experts Group (BSEG) deliberated for several years. It delivered its final report in March 1995, recommending that a national strategy for new communications networks be implemented "based on three key elements: education and community access, industry development and the role of government".

It recommends that "broadband links be provided to all schools, libraries medical and community centres by 2001." Its recommendations disappeared with the Labor Government that had created it.

The Coalition did little for six years until it set up the Broadband Advisory Group in 2002 which product the National Broadband Strategy and its subsequent action plans. Without any reference to these, communications minister, senator Helen Coonan, has announced plans  to develop a broadband blueprint.