Communications Day

The following article appeared in October 30, 2006 (Reproduced with permission)

Regions up a creek on Broadband Demand?

One of Australia's top geospatial consultancies is warning more needs to be done empowering local authorities to exploit broadband data and attract the investment they need in their regional towns and areas.

Following recent calls from the Australian Local Government Authority and industry lobbyist Paul Budde to the same effect, Callpoint Principal Consultant Brian Beckor told CommsDay that the majority of councils lack the capacity to gauge how well they are serviced and where demand is. While certain clusters of councils are on top of things, he says the majority of the 509 specifically under-served areas are in the dark, raising problems for Broadband Connect funding aspirants finalising local investment strategies.

"From a spatial viewpoint many, many councils and LGAs do have a fair investment in GIS (Geographic Information) systems. To what extent they have an understanding of broadband technologies as such, in which they blend their GIS capabilities with an understanding of broadband and what that means, that's a separate matter," he said. "More needs to be done in that area in order that local government and councils in the regions can actually leverage their GIS expertise in the broadband space."

APPLYING TELSTRA DATA: Callpoint has been an active participant in developing new ways to analyse broadband data in Australia, applying geospatial software systems to Telstra exchange boundary information, to chart the number of premises in the area, how many can access DSL and some can't. It ran the DCITA Demand Aggregation Program and more recently completed a major broadband blackspot analysis for the Budde-led Wholesale Industry Group.

From that work, Beckor is convinced that DSL availability holds the key to where investments should be made, regardless of the technology. "Given the fact that some 70-80% of Australia's broadband demand is still ADSL, and that there are some 5,000 exchange service areas around the country, DSL-based analysis for anybody, irrespective of whether they are a DSL carrier, somebody who does fibre or wireless is pivotal towards understanding where the market opportunities are, where the under-served or black-spot regions are," he said. "It enables them to put together a mixture of last-mile access technology-based services in order to actually reach those new markets."

While recognising problems with local governments, Beckor is not convinced they are the biggest challenge for Broadband Connect groups trying to build specific geographic plans into their submissions.  He says many clients have long been in consultation with local government, with several undertaking major investments and trials in certain regional areas. He says however that the Novermber 30 deadline remains a challenge, and many are feeling the pinch.

"Some of the biggest challenges are more to do with dynamics of working with partners under such very short time-frames. The ones that are best positioned are the ones that have been planning this for quite some time," he said. "I can imagine there is plenty of midight oil being burned right now across the industry."

Tim Marshall, Communications Day