The state government has taken steps to bring Western Australia’s broadband network into line with those of leading developed nations following the recent launch of its Statewide Broadband Network Strategy.
The state government has taken steps to bring Western Australia’s broadband network into line with those of leading developed nations following the recent launch of its Statewide Broadband Network Strategy.
The government hopes the strategy will stimulate broadband infrastructure spending in Western Australia, and has offered a tender to the private sector to create a statewide broadband network with speeds of 10 megabits per second.
The strategy will involve the government packaging its agencies’ combined $100 million-a-year telecommunications budget into a 10-year, $1 billion tender to fund the plan.
A competitive tender process for the contract will be undertaken early next year.
Premier Alan Carpenter said people in WA typically had internet access speeds well below those of leading developed nations.
“This is not only putting the brakes on e-commerce in WA, but it is also holding back delivery of important services which could benefit significantly through on-line interactions,” he said.
”High-speed broadband will give householders instant access to high-definition movies and internet television and allow them to conduct videoconferences with their friends. It will also eliminate those frustrating download times.
“It will allow the transfer of large files, such as engineering designs and big medical images, and to update staff skills on-line.”
The government’s announcement came as a surprise to local IT players.
While few were prepared to comment without seeing the detail, iiNet CEO Michael Malone said he felt the government did not realise the access that most Western Australians had, with 90 per cent of Perth residents having the ability to access internet speeds of 24Mbs.
The government cited 512 kilobits per second as the maximum speed available to many people in the state.
Mr Malone said regional growth of internet access speeds was occurring naturally in the South West, with the northern part of the state being the only area where a relatively cheap solution to broadband speeds was unlikely to be found in the near future.
The strategy follows high-profile criticism of Australia’s broadband services by media barons James Packer and Rupert Murdoch, with the latter labelling national broadband services “a disgrace” last month.
Mr Murdoch said Australia was being left behind because of inadequate broadband infrastructure.
“I think we should be spending – the government with Telstra should be spending – $10 billion or $12 billion on it (so it gets to) every town in Australia – they do it in Japan, they do it in South Korea, we should be able to do it here,” Mr Murdoch said.
Telstra chief executive Sol Trujillo said last week that he agreed high-speed broadband was critical to Australia’s global competitiveness, but did not believe Telstra shareholders should bear the burden of providing infrastructure to the benefit of the company’s competitors.
“We at Telstra want to do the right things in the right places for all of our customers, but at the same time we have a duty and obligation for shareholders to do it in the way that they get the benefits and the benefits of their risk capital are not to be shared with those that we compete with that have shareholders that are not risking,” he said.
Recent figures from the OECD have ranked Australia 17th on the broadband subscription rates of 20 developed nations, based on statistics up to June.
