Concerns over broadband strategy

A state government strategy to roll out broadband infrastructure throughout Western Australia may have potential flaws that could threaten its effectiveness.

As reported in WA Business News' Daily Business Alerts, the government last week launched a Statewide Broadband Network Strategy with plans to package its agencies’ combined $100 million-a-year telecommunications budget and offer it at tender for 10 years.

Premier Alan Carpenter said the strategy planned to create a state-wide broadband network that would offer speeds of 10 megabits per second in the initial stages.

However, Western Australian Internet Association president Richard Keeves told WA Business News the plan, while good in theory, appeared to not have been thoroughly thought out.

“This is one of those nice ideas, but is ultimately unworkable,” he said.

Mr Keeves doubted the quality of the service in, say, Kununurra, would be of a similar standard to that in Perth.

He said that, while the plan may create further competition with the possible emergence of a state-wide telecommunications provider other than Telstra, the network would ultimately be uncompetitive in both speed and cost compared to other service providers.

“Western Australia is the biggest state in the world and with its highly dispersed population it becomes less of an attractive market than the [concentrated population] of the Perth metropolitan area,” Mr Keeves said.

“Due to the highly competitive pricing and higher speeds offered by Perth providers…they will continue to evolve even without government backing, with the government scheme offering slower speeds by comparison.”

Mr Keeves was also concerned about the lack of sufficient funding to cover the infrastructure required and the issue of changing technology, which would result in further costs if the provider chose to upgrade its services.

He also highlighted the pricing inequity of charging the same for city access as for country access as a result of the policy of equality.

“Ultimately, it may end up being of some benefit in WA’s rural areas, but for metropolitan Perth it will offer few benefits as providers will already be offering better services at high speeds,” Mr Keeves said.

However, ICT Collaboration Centre chair Sharon Brown told WA Business News there may be some confusion in the industry as to the meaning of the strategy.

“The government hasn’t put forward a requirement; it’s really asking industry to come up with the best way it can implement this strategy in WA,” she said.

“We are really hoping to get the industry to collaborate together with a mix of technologies. No one group could implement this. It has to be a collaborative effort.”

Australian Information Industry Association WA state chair Lou Martini said AIIA strongly believed in the strategy.

“We can’t just keep sitting around waiting,” he said. “It is important to get [statewide access] up and going.”

The government says a competitive tender process for the contract will be undertaken early next year.