Stuart Corner
Monday, 01 December 2008 06:59
Opinion and Analysis
Page 1 of 2
With the RFPs for Australia's National Broadband Network now in, communications minister Stephen Conroy is talking about awarding contract(s) by the end of March, but the Australian Computer Society has re-iterated its warnings that figuring out what we are going to use the network for should be a national priority.
The ACS has called for the Federal Government to support the development of value added broadband services, to foster economic growth and the growing digital economy. ACS chairman, Kumar Parakala, said: "There are no real gains from just creating broadband, but only from using it productively. The infrastructure alone is not sufficient, we need a holistic view on how to leverage this major investment, as it is equally as important as the infrastructure itself."
He added that "Whilst the lodgement of tenders is an important milestone, we are mindful that broadband is a facilitator, not an end in itself. There has been much discussion amongst leaders within the ICT industry and government about Australia's potential to play a powerful role in the booming global digital economy.
"The NBN is a critical infrastructure investment, long overdue in maintaining Australia's competitiveness in the global market. We must act quickly and align the thinking and the activities within both Government and industry to make this a reality."
"How you use this infrastructure to better deliver health services, diverse media and entertainment, address the sustainability agenda, teleworking and all those other things should be fully explored and that would take the shape of a digital economy strategy," Parakala said.
The Government's principal initiative in this direction is the plan by Conroy,
announced in September to prepare and publish early in 2009 an issues paper in preparation for the 'digital future' of the Australian economy.
In a speech to a Digital Economy Forum in Melbourne that month, which he chaired, Conroy said: "We need to position now for Australia to realise the full benefits from the Government's infrastructure and other digital economy investments, and realise our ambition to become one of the world's leading digital economies."
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