The Government has offered Australia's three mobile operators, and vividwireless, renewal of their existing spectrum allocated on 15 year licences in the late 90s and early 2000s at set prices, while the Government expects to rake in $3 billion.
Federal Communications Minister, Senator Stephen Conroy, will hot foot it over to Germany next month to be part of a high-powered Australian delegation to visit the world's largest technology fair CeBIT in Hannover.
Senator Conroy, under fire from many quarters in
Australia for his controversial mandatory content filtering proposal,
is expected to conduct side meetings with political counterparts from
around the world, as well as European Union policy-makers.
CeBIT Hannover is the largest trade event of any industry in the world,
and has for more than 25 years been considered the most important ICT
event on the industry calender. The event is held across more than 20
giant exhibition buildings on a fairground the size of about 11
football fields. Shuttle buses are required to ferry visitors around
the event because of its large expanse.
In 2008, CeBIT attracted more than 5,900 exhibitors and 495,000
business visitors through its doors. CeBIT 2009, which runs from March
3-8, is expected to be opened by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, EU
President Jose Manuel Barroso, and Californian Governor Arnold
Schwarzenegger.
Senator Conroy plans to play a lead role in on-going discussions with
European Union authorities in the giant Framework Program, the EU’s
primary instrument for funding research and development across Europe.
Included in the Australian delegation to CeBIT – which is being led by
Hannover Fairs Australia managing director Jackie Taranto – is NICTA
chief executive Dr David Skellern, a CeBIT regular and one of
Australia’s most successful ICT sector entrepreneurs.
Ms Taranto applauded Senator Conroy’s decision to engage with the
global ICT sector at CeBIT, saying the development of the digital
economy in Australia was critical to future economy growth.
“Senator Conroy’s presence in the Australian delegation to CeBIT adds
significant weight to an already strong delegation,” Ms Taranto said.
“The European Union is the world’s largest single market, and has
tended to be overlooked by previous Governments.”
“The political weight that Senator Conroy adds to the delegation will
certainly help demonstrate that Australia is serious about engaging
with Europe in serious trade and research-based relationships.
Senator Conroy will join a CeBIT Hannover conference program with a
speaker list that includes Intel chairman Craig Barrett; European
parliament President Dr Hans-Gert Pottering; Microsoft chief operating
officer Kevin Turner; and Linked-In founder and chief executive Reid
Hoffman.
David Bass
| ComOps, a leading Australian provider of business software products and services, has won a competitive tender to deploy its Salvus safety, r…
How to Make Business Discovery Work for Your Business
Business Discovery takes its cues from consumer apps. Like Google, it encourages us- ers to hunt for and explore data without worrying about or even noticing the underly- ing technology. Their entire experience is working within an intuitive interface to get real-time, self-service results with only minimal training. ...more
Try an easy-to-use set of web-enabled
tools for business-class productivity services. Office 365 provides
anywhere-access to email, important documents, contacts, and calendars
on almost any device.
