[LINK] Early Impressions at the Broadband Future Event

Roger Clarke roger.clarke at xamax.com.au
Thu Dec 10 15:03:15 AEDT 2009


http://www.broadbandfuture.gov.au/

http://broadbandfuture.gov.au/wiki.html
[But there are only 5 'spaces' for the five themes.
[There's no generic thread, to which these comments would be relevant.
[And it's too long for a twitter  (:-)}

The Broadband Present

The Chair (Paul Twomey, ICANN) warned the 200+ delegates at the outset not
to overload the Wifi network with video downloads.  On the one hand, this
seems ironic at a conference on broadband.  On the other, Mike Quigley
(Chair of NBNCo) leveraged off that to explain why the NBN is being
designed as fibre-optic to 90% of the population, with wireless only where
cable-based services are economically infeasible.

There's a much-less-cramped second hall, with a feed of the video from the
main hall.  But it didn't seem to be advertied anywhere, and the Conference
Help Desk didn't know it existed, and the screen was single-feed rather
than split between video of the speaker and the slides (but hopped between
them).

There's limited access to power-points.  And there have been reports of
users being frequently kicked off the Wifi network.  (Once I'd read the
instructions, it's worked fine for me).

So the Broadband Present was less thrilling than the 'Broadband Future'
under discussion.  Or, to put it another way, yes we'd a like Broadband
(Christmas) Present.


Keynote Content

The Conference could be depicted as a celebration, a ra-ra event, a promo
for the NBN generally, a coming-out for NBN Co in particular, a rev-up for
companies active in the space, and social networking for IT industry execs
(and consultants.  I've had 6 valuable mini-meetings so far).  

To be fair, a moderate number of individuals in the policy and community
spaces were invited.  (I was invited not in any of my eBusiness and info
infrastructure consultancy and research roles, but as Chair of the
Australian Privacy Foundation).

I'm uniformly bored by keynotes at events like this.  However, the lead
speech from the PM was to-the-point, well-conceived and nicely delivered. 
(I don't find him as boring or nerdish as the media try to suggest.  That
may say something about me rather than him or the media ...).

Mike Quigley's presentation of what NBN Co is up to actually offered useful
content in an accessible form.  

A presentation from MS and two from Google were blessedly short.  If the
whole of that time had been given to Vint Cerf, we'd have got more depth
and value.  (He extemporised;  but with an extra 10 minutes at his disposal
he'd have prepared better).  Australia Post was given a leading slot but
did little with it.  Nick Gruen's brief presentation on Gov 2.0 was more in
line with what's needed.


About the NBN

The messages are:
-   it's happening
-   it's a strategic decision
    (The definition I've used for many years for 'strategic' is 
    'not capable of being cost-justified'.  The epithet has the
    benefit of encompassing scepticism on the one hand and
    positive realism on the other.  For the record, I'm broadly
    supportive of the Government's NBN policy and, so far, strategy)
-   the business case (if we ever bother with one) will come later
-   the intention is "up to" 100Mbps for 90% of the population, 
    through FTTP, and 12Mbps for the remainder, through wireless
    (preferably WAN rather than LANs) and satellite where necessary
-   there are lots of things that we can do with broadband
-   "what excites me are the applications no-one has thought of yet"
    (quote from Rudd's speech)


Policy Aspects

There are some areas in which policy matters might come to the fore,
although perhaps only in the five parallel sessions.  But applications in
support of eHealth and carbon emissions reduction have been oft-mentioned
already, and there's an eCommunities stream.

For the most part, the event seems to be dominated by major players, and
public interest perspectives are likely to be a bit muted.  NGOs appear
mostly as session chairs rather than as contributors.  The Smart
Infrastructure stream rapporteur is from Google;  the eHealth rapporteur is
the CEO of NEHTA (inviting Fleming to continue his single-minded,
centralist, control-freak behaviour);  and the eCommunity rapporteur is
from Intel.

In short, it's entirely reasonable for the drivers for the event to be from
industry.  But the exposure offered to US corporations has been too great,
and the scope for questions, scepticism and warning-shots-over-bows appears
to be restricted to the parallel streams and chatter-space.

I think most policy-oriented people would actually speak quite positively -
I, for one, am in a positive frame of mind about the subject-matter.  But
they would put some key considerations on the table that are in danger of
being overlooked.


Privacy

Given that I was invited in my APF role, I should say something about
privacy.

The notion's barely arisen so far.  It doesn't need to be centre-stage, but
it will need a few mentions, because:
-   privacy is a design requirement
-   privacy is a potential impediment for users and providers alike
-   many of the applications mentioned during the sessions (MySpace,
    Facebook, blogs, wikis, the undefined concept Web 2.0, ...) have
    been badly conceived and/or are subject to seriously inappropriate
    terms of service and privacy policies, and will encounter frequent
    batterings from the media and users
-   organisations in the private sector need to get the message that
    privacy impact assessments and privacy strategy are essential if
    stop-start implementations are to be avoided

A couple of notes that I made in the sessions so far:

-   Rudd's speech mentioned "smart meters and in-home displays".  
    That's consumer-empowerment, and is the positive aspect.

    The 'smart grid' notion is excellent when it's applied to backbone
    services, but taken down to the level of individual premises, it 
    spells surveillance of homes and the behaviour of people in them

-   Jeff Cole (USC Annenberg) gave a fun (US-centric) talk, which 
    included mention of a popular use of Wifi in the home - on the
    toilet, with the lid down, in order to get privacy from one's
    fellow-householders.  (He attributed that to a WSJ study)

-   Jeff also followed David Brin's idea quite blindly, suggesting 
    that Abu Ghraib couldn't happen now, because soldiers would
    smmuggle film out.  [Sorry, but that's hopelessly naive.]


Roger Clarke                                 http://www.rogerclarke.com/
			             
Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd      78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA
                   Tel: +61 2 6288 1472, and 6288 6916
mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au                http://www.xamax.com.au/ 

Visiting Professor in the Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre      Uni of NSW
Visiting Professor in Computer Science    Australian National University

--
Email Powered by Apex Internet (www.apex.net.au)




More information about the Link mailing list