OzHub, the Macquarie Telecom-led cloud computing alliance, has come down firmly on the side of Optus over the copyright controversy surrounding Optus TV Now, warning that any moves to change the law "risk branding Australia a global luddite state."
The National Broadband Network (NBN) could become a technological platform for innovation by Australian companies, according to a senior executive at a leading professional services firm.
Jim Sloane, UK vice chairman of Deloitte, believes that the NBN will provide a platform for innovation by Australian companies, providing the Federal Government provides the right incentives and regulatory environment.
"I believe the challenge in Australia is to create that innovation, that excitement and enthusiasm for developing applications that will drive traffic and revenue on the network," said Sloan.
"For example, what led to the success of Apple’s iPhone is its continuous adoption of innovative applications now numbering in the thousands. Similarly, the success of the NBN will depend on the creation and utilisation of applications that can be used on this vast network."
Pricing incentives are the key to the development of applications running over the NBN, he explained.
"Without widespread development of new applications, there is a danger that all you will have is a very fast but largely empty and so underutilised network with a very considerable capital cost associated with it."
Sloan believes that Australia's unique situation in which NBN Co will own all the relevant infrastructure means good regulation will be essential.
"Unlike in the UK where the infrastructure isn't government owned, the role of the regulator in Australia is going to be even more important to ensure a level playing field, where everyone has equal access and the prices are appropriate.
"The ACCC is going to have to be very focussed on the efficiency and effectiveness of NBN Co to ensure the cost base is appropriate for an effective pricing structure."
The concept put forward for the NBN is that NBN Co will operate the network and provide access on a wholesale basis. However, there are a variety of models that could be adopted within that. For example, would an individual household purchase services exclusively through one provider, or will they be free to enter into agreements with multiple providers for (say) Internet access, IPTV, home security monitoring, and telephony?
"The level of regulatory intervention will be much more significant than any other country," said Sloan.
"The consumer will definitely be expecting this, and importantly, telecommunication companies will be expecting it also. They'll be buying wholesale product from NBN Co, and will want to be sure, that it will be at a regulated price, with full transparency and disclosure and enough scope to make it still a business worth being involved in," he added.
David Frost
| SYDNEY– February 9, 2012. Gigamon®, the world leader in Traffic Visibility Fabric solutions, announced that it has expanded the breadth and s…
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.
