[LINK] broadband Canadian style

[Tom Worthington]

Kim Holburn wrote:
>> Canada avoids broadband duopolies, keeps line-sharing alive
>> By Matthew Lasar | Last updated September 1, 2010 8:49 AM

Australian-born, Professor Catherine Middleton, researches broadband policy funded by the Canadian government. She has written several comparisons of Canadian, Australian and other national broadband policies: 
<http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=broadband+policy+canada+australia++author%3Ac+author%3AMiddleton&btnG=Search&as_subj=&as_sdt=2001&as_ylo=&as_vis=1>.

In 2003 I handed Catherine the ANCCAC Medal recognising her work <http://www.acs.org.au/news/170603.htm>. She has been to see NBN progress in Tasmania.

The work I find most interesting is not on how to get broadband infrastructure, but what we can then do with it, such as Catherine's "Preparing Canada and Canadians for the Digital Society", submission to Canada’s Digital Economy Strategy Consultation: <http://www.broadbandresearch.ca/ourresearch/de_middleton.pdf>.

The Premier of Tasmania released a "A Vision for an Innovative, Sustainable and Prosperous Tasmania" (25 August 2010), which has "digital economy" as one of five economic sectors to target <http://www.media.tas.gov.au/release.php?id=30240>:

"In the digital arena, the government sees innovation transforming 
businesses and communities. With the roll-out of the NBN, the digital 
economy will create new opportunities for existing businesses as well as 
stimulating the growth of new enterprises. The NBN allows Tasmania to 
overcome the tyranny of distance."
From: "Tasmania’s Innovation Strategy (4.9Mbyte PDF) <http://www.development.tas.gov.au/innovationstrategy>.

This is along the lines I suggested in my Launceston talk "Green Broadband Jobs" and in discussions with government and industry people last year : <http://www.tomw.net.au/technology/it/green_broadband/>.

Unfortunately the policy release was been marred by poor use of the 
Internet. The media release failed to load, with the Tasmanian 
Government web server reporting:  "The server is temporarily unable to 
service your request due to maintenance downtime or capacity problems. 
Please try again later.". The detailed policy document is a large PDF 
file which is difficult to download and difficult to read. The report is 
poorly formatted making it difficult to make use of the document.

The Tasmanian government is not alone in failing to make effective use 
of the Internet, but given it sees this as a key area of the economy, 
they could take steps to gain competence in this area. Some of the 
government people might like to attend WCC2010 in Brisbane, starting 20 
September 2010: <http://www.wcc2010.com/>.


-- 
Tom Worthington FACS CP HLM, TomW Communications Pty Ltd. t: 0419496150
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia  http://www.tomw.net.au
Adjunct Senior Lecturer, School of Computer Science, The
Australian National University http://cs.anu.edu.au/courses/COMP7310/


-- 
  Tom Worthington FACS HLM
  PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia
  http://www.tomw.net.au