Telstra clears way for ADSL2 rollout

COMMUNICATIONS Minister Stephen Conroy has had a major victory, clearing the path for Telstra to roll-out ADSL2+ broadband services to an additional 900 exchanges across Australia.

In a joint announcement with Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, Senator Conroy said the roll-out would give an additional 2.4 million households access to next-generation high-speed broadband.

Telstra chief executive Sol Trujillo said the speed of the carrier's ADSL service would lift from 8Mbps to 20Mbps in 900 exchanges around Australia over the next eight months.

The Telstra announcement is great news for broadband in Australia. The company said it would proceed with the roll-out following assurances from Senator Conroy about the regulatory treatment of the initiative.

Telstra had previously baulked at rolling out ADSL2+ to exchanges because it said it did not have regulatory certainty about whether it would be forced to open up the investment to other carriers.

Until now, the company has only offered ADSL2+ at exchanges where other carriers had already installed their own ADSL2+ infrastructure.

The Telstra ADSL2+ investment means fast broadband with download speeds of up to 20 Mbps will now be available in more cities and towns throughout Australia.

“The Chairman of the ACCC, Mr Graeme Samuel, advised me that the ACCC has made a number of consistent public statements relating to the regulation of wholesale access to ADSL services,” Senator Conroy said.

“As a result of this advice, I concluded that there is a high degree of regulatory certainty in relation to the ACCC's approach to wholesale ADSL2+ services,” he said.

“I am delighted that I could provide this assurance to Telstra and that, as a result, a large number of Australian homes and businesses will have access to improved broadband services.”

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Cabinet approves $1b schools plan

FEDERAL Cabinet has signed off on a $1 billion plan to give every student in years nine to 12 their own computer at school, with the first $100 million in funding to become available in March.

The plan is one of the first election commitments to be put through the Cabinet process, and means that schools can start applying now for funding of up to $1 million each.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said an national audit of schools’ computer resources and broadband facilities would be conducted to determine those in most need.

Though funding is available to all schools – public and private – the first round money will go to those found to be in most urgent need.

Mr Rudd said schools can elect to spend the funding on a range of digital equipment – from computers, interactive whiteboards, networking equipment, digital projects and improved broadband connectivity.

Deputy Prime Minister and education Minister Julia Gillard has also outlined broad plans to improve teacher training in ICT skills to ensure they are equipped to teach in computer-equipped classrooms.

Under its National Secondary School Computer Fund commitment during the election, Labor noted that ICT “is also now becoming critical to most jobs in most industries,” for mining, to agriculture, manufacturing and services.

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ICT get a boost in new Cabinet

THE technology industry has been given a major profile boost in Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s first Cabinet, with the appointment of two senior Ministers with responsibility for ICT-critical issues.

Stephen Conroy was appointed as Minister to the newly-named portfolio of Broadband, Communications and Digital Economy. Senator Conroy has been shadow IT and communications spokesman since 2004, and had been expected to retain those responsibilities – largely because of the incredible complexities of telecommunications regulation (and Telstra-related regulatory issues).

Senator Conroy was a driving force behind Labor’s bold A$4.7 billion national broadband pledge, made in March.

Less expected was the appointment of fellow Victorian Senator Kim Carr as Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research. Senator Carr had been shadow Industry Minister, but Mr Rudd bolstered the portfolio with the addition of Innovation.

Senator Carr will oversee the implementation of industry assistance programs – which will play a huge role in the development of indigenous software companies.

The appointments have been welcomed by the industry.

“We are pleased that the Prime Minister-elect, Kevin Rudd, has acknowledged technology as the driving force of our nation’s economic prosperity and reinforced this stance by including the ICT portfolio in Cabinet,” said the Australian Computer Society’s out-going national President Philip Argy.

“Innovation is a pivotal force in building our national economy and energising our industry. Our prosperity is dependent on productivity gains underpinned by innovation in information and communications technologies,” Mr Argy said.

Lindsay Tanner’s appointment as Finance Minister in the Rudd Cabinet has also been welcomed. Mr Tanner has been a Shadow Communications Minister and is very familiar with the industry.

As a technology buyer, the federal government wields, tremendous influence through the Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO), which falls within the Department of Finance.

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Rudd pushes Green export opportunities

GREEN and clean technologies present excellent export opportunities for Australian innovators, according to Kevin Rudd.

The Labor government would make supporting the development of clean technologies for export markets a priority, Mr Rudd told the National Press Club in Canberra.

As part of that plan, Labor will spend $15 million on a Energy Export Strategy, and $20 million setting up a Clean Energy Innovation Centre.

“Responding to climate change and global warming is not just an environmental imperative; it is an important economic opportunity,” Mr Rudd said.

“Both carbon trading and renewable energy technology provide opportunities for the export of goods and services,” he said.

Australia would become a clean energy hub for the Asia-Pacific, Mr Rudd said, making clean energy central to Australia’s economic and environmental future.

“Labor will harness clean energy research, innovation and enterprise, so that Australia can build a low carbon economy and export climate change solutions to the world,” he said.

The Clean Energy Export Strategy will provide critical capacity in Austrade to promote Australian clean energy exports of products, technologies and services. Austrade liaison officers will work with individual clean energy firms to match their strengths with opportunities in clean energy growth markets such as China, India, Japan and the United States.

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PC-makers eager for a Rudd govt

PC hardware makers have been showered with big-ticket promises from both parties during the election that has them looking forward to sweet years ahead for their education sector business units.

From the Kevin Rudd promise to turn every school into a “digital school” (an admittedly vague commitment) to John Howard’s tax rebates on education expenses, its looked like a Christmas come early.

But just how much of the funding commitments – Rudd said Labor will spend $1 billion over four years on its digital school plan – translates as new money for the industry remains to be seen.

A large number of the middle-class beneficiaries of the election largesse would have purchased computers on a regular upgrade basis anyway – and they’ll simply (and happily) enjoy the middle-class welfare being put forward by both major parties.

Still, in the absence of industry development policy the IT sector might reasonably have hoped for, the money being tipped into the education sector is generally positive for the industry.

Federal Labor’s National Secondary School Computer Fund will allow every Australian student in years 9-12 to have access to their own school computer.

The National Secondary School Computer Fund will allow secondary schools to apply for capital grants of up to $1 million to acquire new or upgrade information technology equipment.

This could include personal laptops or computers, thin clients with virtual desktops and internet network infrastructure to plug our secondary schools into the information superhighway.

Under Labor’s plan, 99 per cent of school children will also get access to broadband connections of speeds up to 100 megabits per second at school through fibre to the premises (FTTP) broadband infrastructure.

The other one per cent of students will get improved access at school, via the best available fixed line, wireless and satellite technologies.

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Ballmer quietly greases government wheels

WHENEVER a Great White Chief’s corporate jet descends into Australian airspace after the long flight from their US headquarters, you can be sure they’ve got government on their mind.

It’s a well worn path. Once every two or three years, if you head an American IT giant, all roads lead to Canberra.

And so it was with Microsoft’s larger-than-life chief executive Steve Ballmer quietly slipped into Australia last week.

It was as low a profile visit to Australia as is possible for a Microsoft chief to make.

The IT press were unhappy that Ballmer wasn’t being made available for a press conference (nor the fact that they were locked out of an American Chamber of Commerce luncheon, among other events).

Microsoft’s PR tried hard to throw the media a bone, issuing a statement to say the company had signed a meaningless agreement with the Department of Defence.

Talk about slim pickings … the agreement was so meaningless that a parliamentary secretary was wheeled out to sign it. Good grief! Now that’s a sure-fire strategy for keeping the general media’s interest in the boss’s visit at sub-coma level.

Still, these visits are all about the private meetings – not the public ones. Ballmer met the Prime Minister, yawn (the PM has not been a supporter of this industry). And he met Kevin Rudd, presumably to talk about the latest polling data.

Much more interesting was news that the Microsoft chief met with Health Minister Tony Abbott and with a group of state Government chief information officers.

In the next five years, Health is going to deliver a motherload of business to the IT sector. In Europe, the health sector has become the focus of some of the biggest IT projects ever undertaken in the public sector.

In Australia, after many false starts, governments are trying to use IT to reduce the administrative burden in the health sector. They believe the cost savings will be measured in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Including the health and welfare smartcard, these health IT projects in the next several years in Australia will be some of the biggest and most complex ever undertaken in this country.

There is nothing like the Great White Chief coming to town to get you in front of the right people.

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Ad blitz: Labor turns up broadband heat

FEDERAL Labor has launched a national radio advertising campaign aimed at galvanising the support for its ambitious national broadband network.

ALP national secretary Tim Gartrell said the party had booked a national run of 30-second radio spots to push leader Kevin Rudd’s plan to invest $4.7 billion with the private sector in building a fibre-to-the-node network.

It is the second time this year the ALP national machine has booked Australian-wide campaigns, following the Australia Day TV personal message from Mr Rudd,

The 30-second ads’ national run will include areas from Sydney, Perth, Adelaide, as well as key regional areas like NSW Central Coast, NSW Central West, as well as Tasmania and Queensland.

“The ad highlights Federal Labor's plan to revolutionise Australia's internet infrastructure by creating a new world class National Broadband Network and boost internet speed by more than 40 times, the ALP national office said in a statement.

In an election year, broadband is seen by Labor as a platform for attacking the Prime Minister John Howard on his strong suit – his economic record.

Labor says government’s inaction on “real” broadband has kept Australia’s productivity growth rates low, and has robbed Australians of opportunities in new markets.

Writing in The Australian newspaper, Labor Treasury spokesman Wayne Swan said Mr Howard’s failure to act on improving broadband was evidence that government was “self-satisfied, backward looking and complacent.”

“With the possible exceptions of climate change and education, nowhere is this complacency more obvious than in its chronic neglect of Australia’s broadband needs,” Mr Swan said.

The economic arguments for Labor’s broadband plan were compelling and backed by the Government’s own broadband advisory group, which say the economic benefits of high-speed internet could be as high as $30 billion annually.

“Lifting productivity is a particularly urgent priority at a time when we are slipping further behind the productivity leaders,” Mr Swan said.

“Productivity growth in Australia averaged less than half that of the US over the past five years and represents a major hole in the Government’s economic agenda,” he said.

“Labor’s broadband plan will allow health, education and other public services to be delivered in newer, faster ways … (and) will mean Australian businesses will be kicking with the wind in hyper-competitive global economy.”

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