Supporting a faster, more accessible, more open Internet in Australia

Posted by Carolyn Dalton, Head of Government Affairs & Public Policy - Australia & NZ

Google's services – web search, Gmail, Google Maps, and YouTube – help to connect millions of individuals, groups and businesses around the world.  The technologies of connection are especially useful and important in a geographically vast and isolated country like Australia.  As Google's CEO Eric Schmidt told Australian reporters during a visit to Sydney in March 2008: 

"Google is helping Australians overcome the ‘tyranny of distance’.  We measure distances not in hundreds of kilometres, but in milliseconds." 

The same can be said of services provided by other online innovators – diverse names such as Yahoo, eBay, Wikipedia, wotif.com, MySpace, SEEK and Facebook – all of which are popular in Australia, and all of which enhance the ability of Australians to connect, to share, to learn, and to reach customers and audiences regardless of their location. At Google Australia, we've been pleased to play a role in this over the past years.

At the risk of stating the obvious, the economic and social benefits that flow from speedy and affordable Internet connectivity are numerous:

• It spurs creativity, promoting the creation of user generated content that is facilitated by “Web 2.0” applications such as YouTube;
  
  
• It drives new forms of economic activity, allowing (i) Australian businesses to reach new customers around the world through online advertising, (ii) Australian publishers to earn money by creating locally and globally compelling content, and (iii) Australian web developers to create innovative internet-based businesses;
  
  
• It creates new forms of social engagement and interaction such as social networking, Internet voice links, video sharing and citizen participation in democracy (as seen in the 2007 Google Australian election initiative);
  
  
• It cuts costs for Australian enterprises, government agencies and educational bodies, as they are enabled to utilise Web-based applications in ‘the cloud’, making their documents securely available from any computer with an Internet connection at greatly reduced cost;
  
  
• It empowers community groups, educational institutions and government agencies to reach constituencies (and each other) in new and innovative ways -- for example, the Catholic Church’s use of social networking for the upcoming World Youth Dayin Sydney, UNSW’s YouTube channel that assists in remote education, and Transperth’s use of Google Maps to provide public transport details to users.
  

For Australian users, communities and businesses to realise these enormous benefits, no infrastructure is more crucial than advanced communications networks.  Indeed, the United Nations has recognised broadband as essential infrastructure, just as necessary as water and electricity.

Google Australia's vision is of an Australia in which competitive broadband Internet is universally accessible, at best-in-world speeds and at affordable prices.  As you may be aware, the Federal Government has committed A$4.7 billion to subsidise the rollout of a fibre network accessible to at least 98% of the Australian population. Along with inviting bids from parties to build and operate the infrastructure, the Government has reached out for comment on what regulatory safeguards are necessary to maximise the public benefit.

Google is born of a highly competitive ecosystem – the open Internet – in which alternative services are only ever a click away, and where success only comes by providing superior services, constant technological improvement, and earning users’ trust.  We aim to provide our users with the best possible experience and service in a competitive, open and innovative environment, one click at a time. 

We believe that similar principles of openness, innovation and competition should be built into the regulatory framework governing Australia’s future national broadband network. Simply put, in a global economy, an open Internet and a competitive broadband market is necessary to ensure that all Australian consumers and Australian businesses can share in the benefits of the digital economy.

Our belief in the possibilities that broadband creates, and our underlying confidence in the innovative power of open and competitive communications environments, motivated us to put together a submission to the Federal Government’s enquiry into the regulatory principles that should govern the national broadband network.  Here's the link to the submissions, including ours.
 
Our submission makes a few important recommendations, including:

• The new broadband network and its owner should preserve the Internet's fundamentally open, neutral, non-discriminatory nature. 
  
  
• The rollout schedule of the new network should have the goal of prioritising those parts of Australia that are currently unserved, or underserved by broadband services. 
  
  
• To ensure competition, the winning bidder for the network should offer services on a wholesale basis to retail competitors on non-discriminatory and equivalent terms as it offers them to its own retail operations (from the perspective of both price and non-price terms and conditions).  Functional or structural separation of the network owner should be considered as options to ensure this.
  
  
• To ensure that those Australians who already have relatively fast Internet do not see a decrease in speed in the short term, existing ADSL 2+ and similar broadband services should co-exist with the new network, at least during a defined transition period.
  
  
• As Australians are increasingly important producers, not simply consumers, of content and applications, the Government should ensure the availability of high symmetrical broadband speeds (both download and upload). 
  
  
• To ensure maximum Internet speeds and efficiencies for Australians accessing the Internet, close attention should be paid to developments in the international capacity market and the peering market.
  

It's very important for all Australians, and for Australia's future economic prosperity, that the new broadband network embraces the right regulatory principles from Day 1.  We hope that you, and our policy makers, will take a look at our recommendations for an open and competitive Internet, where all Australians can get online and enjoy the benefits of world class broadband services.