Broadband growth and speeds in Australia have lagged other OECD countries.  It has hurt our international competitiveness and the growth of innovative new businesses.  The debate has been raging for over a decade and generally has been linked to privatisation issues of the incumbent telco to add to the complexity.

We now have no choice but to act and show leadership and focus on the economic benefits of real high speed broadband in education, health care and quality of life.

It the past decades central governments built national infrastructure, like roads, ports and rail not to mention telecommunications.   In modern time the trend has been to privatise these assets and let the market be driven by innovation, demand and supply.  Government has now moved to the role of regulator on competition and safeguarding the needs of consumers.

However in times of crisis a more central approach may be needed.  Just as we are trying to take a Federal approach to water to manage the competing needs of the stake holders, broadband may need the same approach.

Is it such a strange idea for Government to build  infrastructure and lease it to a range of operators to provide a range of competing services?   It may be unfashionable in current economic practise but seems a sensible approach to avoid a single monopoly operator dictating terms.  Or worse a selective role out of non compatible technologies that would not deliver the social dividend that can be achieved by a ubiquitous network.

Australia has a history of patchy incompatible roll outs of infrastructure, a six gage rail network between states for many decades.   The delayed roll out of cable TV was a complete farce with many city suburbs being bypassed and some having dual capacity.

In a country with vast distances between markets high speed communications is essential.  I’ve given up on the idea of a high speed train 🙂