Google South Asia managing director Richard Kimble has told ABC television that while it was encouraging to have both sides of Australian politics proposing better broadband, they needed to look at the “overall ecosystem” for improvements.
“It is very important that we get high access speeds, particularly in the bush … not just the big cities,” Mr Kimber told the ABC Lateline Business program.
“But it's (also) about the content, it's about the education, it's about the skill set of people working in the industry,” he said.
“We need to think for Australia how we're building the whole ecosystem, how we're building the talent of our future internet leaders, our future internet businesses.”
Federal Labor leader Kevin Rudd announced last week a $4.7 billion plan to roll-out a nationwide, 12Mbps fibre-to-the-node broadband network to the 98 per cent of the population. The plan would make the Government a shareholder in a joint-venture with private sector organisations, using money drawn from the Future Fund.
Communications Minister Helen Coonan has rejected the proposal as “robbing the future”, saying Government will achieve the same end without raiding taxpayer funds.
Mr Kimber said policies for developing and maintaining skills would also play a huge role in Australia’s success in leveraging net infrastructure. Google’s experience had been that Australia boasted rich talent, but in limited numbers.
“We've got very talented people in this space, but there are probably not enough of them,” he said.
“I'd really like to see Australia having a big push in this area. The old adage about being a clever country is something we should start thinking about again.”
While welcoming the debate about improving internet access speeds, Mr Kimber said Australia had actually performed reasonably well – although it was time to start thinking about stepping up improvements.
“The issue now is our neighbours are growing quickly and so the days of our leadership in this space are numbered,” he said.
“The time is right to take a fresh look and start to think about what we will do in the next five to 10 years.”
For more e-Government and Telecommunications news, click here.
