The Internet Society of Australia gratefully acknowledges the support of its Premier Sponsors, Telstra and Cisco Systems, Major Sponsors connect.com.au, Perth Internet and Internode Systems Pty Ltd, and Sponsor, TransACT.
In the year up to November 2001, ISOC-AU has significantly contributed to fostering a stronger Internet in Australia. We have helped to focus attention on infrastructure issues such as bandwidth and Internet standards. We have fostered greater effectiveness in provision of Australian domain names and greater understanding of provision of international domain names. We have contributed to development of an improved policy environment for development of the Internet.
In contrast to our previous experience, we were in a stronger position to influence developments and debate about Internet issues. This position has allowed us to make a positive contribution to business and individual expectations in the period following the dot-com bust. Australia needs to recognise the continuing importance of development of the Internet for our future prosperity and security. ISOC-AU needs to continue to demonstrate its relevance to debate over these issues.
I would like to extend my appreciation to the many people inside and outside ISOC-AU who have made these achievements possible. I have already mentioned the critical support of our sponsors. The volunteers of ISOC-AU have also made a substantial contribution to our success. Our enthusiastic directors and the volunteers who have contributed to our policy submissions deserve special mention.
I would also like to give special mention to Greg Watson, Simon Hackett, David Thompson and Erica Roberts who will retire as directors this year. Simon is a founding director of ISOC-AU and continues to make a substantial contribution to development of the Internet through Internode Systems Pty Ltd and its new broadband delivery projects. Domain names have been a major issue this year and Greg, David and Erica have been heavily involved in this area. All three have served joint roles as directors of ISOC-AU and the new dot-au domain administration organisation, auDA. Greg made a substantial contribution as co-Chair of auDA and President of ISOC-AU.
I commend the following report of our activity to you.
regards,
Tony Hill
Executive Director
November 2001
- Internet issues and the Federal Election 2001
The 2001 Federal Election promised to be a show down on the issue of access to the information society and economy. Labor placed this issue on the agenda well before announcement of the election campaign with announcement of its 'knowledge nation' strategy - http://www.labor.org.au. The following banner headline from Labor's Web site demonstrated the emphasis that they placed in this area:
'Kim Beazley's Plan for the Knowledge Nation - Our future as a nation depends to an increasing degree on the level of education and skills of our people, the amount and quality of the research we undertake and the quality of our modern infrastructure ... That's what I stand for!'
In response, the Coalition announced its detailed innovation action plan "Backing Australia's Ability" in January 2001 - http://www.innovation.gov.au/iap/. The Coalition has provided substantial funding for a wide range of Internet related projects.
ISOC-AU began our contribution to this discussion through development of Key Steps for high quality development of the Internet. These steps were developed with input from our members, including our organisational members who represent more than 40,000 Australian Internet users - http://isoc-au.org.au/Election2001/Index.html
The Internet Industry Association also placed a set of Internet policies before the major parties. Their points covered the following major areas that shared much with the issues raised by ISOC-AU - http://www.iia.net.au/election/
Our key steps are available on the ISOC-AU Web site in a way that allows ongoing discussion and contribution from our members. They will form a useful reference point for discussions with the new Howard government.
The turning of the millennium saw Australia truly enter the era of practical high bandwidth Internet connections for smaller businesses and individuals. Telstra embarked on the massive goal of making available ADSL, with speeds of up to 1.5 Mbps, to 90% of Australian residences by 2002 - http://www.telstra.com.au/adsl. TransACT began a smaller scale, but similarly ambitious roll out of new cable connections to broadband Internet in Canberra through VDSL technology with similar speeds - http://www.transact.com.au.
Demand for these services has been high, and waiting lists have formed. Debate continues on the pricing of services. When exchange rates are taken into account, then pricing in Australia is comparable with the United States. Wholesale pricing continues to be an issue of discussion between Telstra and the Australian Consumer and Competition Commission, and Telstra has recently announced changes to its retail product that will provide a differential that will give greater scope for other retail providers as well as changes to wholesale pricing.
However, our roll out of broadband Internet is not as fast as some other leading overseas countries, such as Korea with more than 20% of household Internet connections at broadband speeds - http://www.mic.go.kr/. In Australia, technical challenges and outages have been a problem for early adopters. The OECD has commented that Australia ranks 13th in the OECD in its report The Development of Broadband Access in OECD Countries 29 October 2001 - http://www.oecd.org. ISOC-AU is working closely with SPAN to develop the Broadband Xchange project to increase dialogue between service providers, applications developers and users about provision of broadband services in Australia - http://www.span.net.au.
Australia has seen the transfer of authority for dot-au domain names to the new domain name self regulation authority, .au Domain Administration, this year. The work of auDA's policy and competition panels was completed on time and the recommendations of these panels were adopted by the auDA Board. Two additional working groups also completed their work to establish dispute resolution procedures and technical requirements for operation of dot-au registries. The work of these panels has been widely accepted because of involvement from a wide range of stakeholders and the extent of consultation carried out during the process.
ICANN has approved re-delegation of dot-au from Robert Elz to auDA. This change allows implementation of the recommended competition model based on policies developed by the names panel. The competition model provides a uniform base for competition between registrars across second level dot-au domains. The names panel endorsed for the structure of second level domains and many of the requirements for obtaining one. It recommended harmonising of the rules across second level domains and relaxed the requirement that each organisation only hold one domain name. Also the constraint on generic words in dot-com.au names will be relaxed. The third level of dot-id.au is due to be opened to widespread access. It is essential that the changes in rules be implemented in tandem with the competition model. At the time of this report, auDA's request for tender for operation of registry services for all but dot-csiro.au, dot-info.au, dot-oz.au and dot-conf.au is closing. Full implentation of competition is expected by February 2002.
ISOC-AU contributed significant work to establishment of auDA as well as to the competition and names panels. The result is a structure that is unique to Australia which should produce significant benefit for Australian internet users. In particular, the retention of requirements for access to domain names in Australia should produce a more stable access regime for business to establish their online presence. In addition, Internet users will be looking for the new system to deliver cheaper domain name services in Australia. Continuing participation in auDA will be needed to provide a balanced view between industry participants and Internet users.
In March 2001, ISOC-AU hosted the ICANN meeting in Melbourne. This meeting was attended by approximately 500 people from around the world. The impact of this meeting was to bring Australia to the forefront of the world Internet community.
The meeting was a 'paperless' meeting in the full tradition of ICANN operations. Delegates accessed background material and working documents online during the conference. The meeting venue, Melbourne Exhibition and Convention Centre, was wired with Internet access as well as wireless access. There was LAN access available in the meeting hall during sessions. The tradition of ICANN video, audio and text streaming was continued at the Melbourne meeting.
The outcomes of the meeting were to support the continued functioning of the ICANN board, supporting organisations and constituencies, to allow Australians to view ICANN at first hand and to demonstrate to the international Internet community Australia's Internet capabilities. All outcomes were fulfilled successfully and to a high level of satisfaction from ICANN.
ISOC-AU expresses our appreciation to the Australian and international sponsors who supported the meeting and social events, including:
ISOC-AU chaired the local organising committee and we also express our appreciation to its members, including:
ISOC-AU has taken a continuing interest in the operations of ICANN following the Melbourne meeting. auDA's new role as delegate of dot-au has allowed Australia to become involved in discussions surrounding relations with country code top level domains. Also, ISOC-AU has nominated Justice Michael Kirby as a member of the proposed Independent Review Panel for ICANN.
The issue of online privacy came to a head this year with new federal legislation extending privacy requirements to the private sector. ISOC-AU provided commentary and input into the process of developing the new legislation. We were disappointed that the regime established by the legislation had significant exclusions and was overly complex, potential reducing confidence in the resulting privacy regime. In particular, the new legislation does not mesh with requirements already in place overseas potentially limiting access by Australian companies to major overseas markets such as Europe.
The new legislation will come into force on 21 December for companies with turnover greater than $3 million, all companies dealing with personal information and all private sector organisations in the health sector. Following from the new legislation, the Federal Privacy Commissioner, Malcolm Crompton, has issued guidelines for industry that help to establish a more consistent privacy regime online. In particular, the guidelines emphasise the importance of 'opt-in' arrangements for online direct marketing to control the degree of SPAM email.
For the Internet industry, IIA has developed its own code of practice. ISOC-AU provided commentary on the draft code and supported the special extensions to provide consistency with European requirements and protect the privacy of children online. We also provided suggestions for strengthening the proposed code in relation to:
ISOC-AU has also provided participation into two working groups that were organised by the Federal Privacy Commission. These groups examined:
Our participation in both these groups was 'without prejudice' so we were not bound by the results. But our participation helped to ensure that the resulting reports were as comprehensive as possible. The research results and discussion paper are available on the Privacy Commissioner's Web site at http://www.privacy.gov.au.
In 2001, we participated in establishment of a new sectoral grouping of industry, professional and user organisations from the information and communications technology sector. This grouping is called the ICT Alliance and involves eleven leading organisations including:
This grouping is not meant to deliver all of the objectives that ISOC-AU has for the Internet. However, there is a strong common Interest between the organisations. The variety of opinions around the group helps to emphasise the importance of the issues where we share common ground.
ISOC-AU has worked hard to build a positive attitude to the Internet in the period since the dot-com bust. We continue to work directly with industry and through the ICT Alliance to build this attitude. As a non-aligned organisation we are in an excellent position to present trusted advice and commentary on development of the Internet for businesses and individuals.
In the period since the dot-com bust, there has been a decline in interest in exploring new Internet developments. Sales of Internet related equipment have fallen. Major international vendors have been forced to reduce staff. These changes have followed the collapse of Internet related speculation.
In this context, ISOC-AU has a strong responsibility to ensure that business, individuals, the government and the general public understand what is happening. We need to increase our efforts to counter the impression that the boom in Internet activity was a passing fad that will not have any longer term benefits or implications. This is a significant challenge given the massive publicity given to collapses of dot-com companies.
The good news is that businesses in the Internet sector have a strong common interest in pursuing the same objectives. We worked with Cisco Systems to present the views of Fred Baker to the Australian Internet community on the future prospects for the Internet. Fred provided a wealth of information on potential developments of the Internet, particularly in relation to IP addressing, security, scalability, quality of service and service provision. This information is now available from the ISOC-AU Web site - http://www.isoc-au.org.au. It provides a rich potential for ISOC-AU to pursue future discussions with many sectors. In addition, other businesses have encouraged ISOC-AU to work on projects that will promote the Internet to Australian businesses, particularly small business. In line with this interest, we have been developing proposals to move this area forward. As yet, it is disappointing to see that these proposals remain unfunded.
Siginificantly, the importance of the Internet for increasing productivity in the Australian economy has just been documented by staff from the Productivity Commission - http://www.pc.gov.au/research/staffres/itaaps/index.html. Contrary to some previous commentary, that Australia's substantial increase in productivity during the 1990s was due only to micro-economic reform, this staff paper documents the role of information technology, including the Internet. The paper also points to the possibility of a future second wave of productivity growth arising from use of IT and the Internet.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics suspended its quarterly survey of use of the Internet by households from the November 2000 collection - to be replaced by an annual collection. The results of this final quarterly survey were published in February 2001 and we have had no further statistics on household use of the Internet since then. Naturally, this change in direction by the ABS is very disappointing because we are still facing significant challenges in Australia as discussed in the ISOC-AU annual activities report for 2000. Digital divide issues are becoming more critical as Internet usage levels have increased because the minority without Internet access becomes even more excluded from mainstream services. In the final publication of series 8147.0, the ABS has provided a summary of more than two years of growth in Internet access between February 1998 and November 2000. To my knowledge, ABS did not consult Internet users on this change in approach. Timeliness is a key factor in development of the Internet and information from the Annual survey for 2001 is unlikely to be available until mid 2002.
Over the 33 months, covered by the quarterly survey of household use of the Internet, the ABS chronicled an increase in Internet access from 19% of households to 37%. This period was undoubtedly the major period of expansion of popularity of the Internet. In the 12 months to November 2000, 50% of Australian adults accessed the Internet.
However, the ABS statistics also show the challenges that we face in working to ensure that 'The Internet is for Everyone!' There are 50% of Australian adults who have *not* be able to use the Internet in 2000. Also, in the most popular group the 18-24 year old adults, usage rates did not increase between May 1999 and November 2000. According to the survey however, usage in older age groups and among women continued to increase. These results show a plateaux in the levels of Internet use among some groups. Without the continuing release of ABS statistics, it is hard to estimate the size of the information disadvantaged group that may be emerging. Price of computers, price of Internet access and understanding of the technology are likely to be factors inhibiting wider take up of the Internet.
The timeliness of statistics is a key issue with measuring business use of the Internet in Australia. This usage is only measured every two years. There are no more recent statistics on business use that the ones that formed the basis of ISOC-AU commentary in 2000. At that time, micro businesses were the most disadvantaged with only 50% connected to the Internet and only 9% with web sites.
ISOC-AU has survived the dot-com bust and continued with a high level of activity into 2001. However, our sponsorship levels in 2001-2002 could show a decline that should be considered by directors if we are to avoid a limit on our level of activities. In particular, we will have to concentrate our focus on funded activities in future and limit our capacity to undertake unfunded activities. Regrettably, our participation in a range of international standards discussions had to be postponed for this reason during 2001.
During 2001, we achieved the highest level of activity yet for ISOC-AU. Our Premier sponsors are Telstra, Cisco Systems, connect.com.au and the Australian National University. Perth Internet continued as a major sponsor. Siemens Ltd decided to discontinue their sponsorship and Melbourne IT has decided to continue its support as an Enterprise level organisational member. The provision of sponsorship by these organizations is strongly appreciated. It demonstrates a commitment by all of these organizations to development of the Internet and the interests of Internet users. We commend these companies for their commitment and look forward to working with them and others to maximize Australian participation in the Internet.
In addition, we received substantial sponsorship support for the meeting of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers held in Melbourne in March 2001. We received support from the National Office for the Information Economy (NOIE), Multimedia Victoria (MMV), City of Melbourne, Melbourne IT, Maddock Lonie and Chisholm, .au Domain Administration, Ericsson, Verisign, NativeNames.net, i?DNS.net International and Cybersource Pty Ltd.
ISOC-AU continued to support the operation of a full time executive director during 2001. Mr Tony Hill has continued in the position of executive director and has contributed substantially to the activities of ISOC-AU, through:
ISOC-AU's relationship with a wide range of Internet users has increased substantially during 2000, particularly through our new categories of organisational membership. Through these categories, we have been able to build close working relationships with the following major user organisations that together represent more than 40,000 Internet users:
ISOC-AU has again brought in its most successful year ever in terms of finances during 2000-2001. Full details are available in our audited financial report - http://www.isoc-au.org.au/AGM2001/FY01/index.html.
During 2001, ISOC-AU has continued to suffer from the effects of a low Australian dollar, relative to the United States dollar. Since our establishment in 1996, the impact of devaluation in the Australian dollar has seen an increase of more than 50% in the cost of affiliation to the Internet Society. For the first time, we were forced to increase underlying membership rates to $90.00 in order to cover the substantial increase in costs due to the exchange rate. It is pleasing to see that ISOC has begun to consider ways of improving its relationship with its chapters.
In 2000, we also had to increase membership fees with the introduction of GST. ISOC-AU administration is now aligned with requirements of GST.
ISOC-AU has continued to foster development of communities of interest on the Internet. Our organizational membership category continues to foster this development and has been popular with a range of Internet user organizations and small to medium businesses. We have been working with the organizers of the 2002 Community Networking Conference to further enhance building of online communities.
- solid operational based for auDA:
ISOC-AU has continued to work to achieve a solid operational base for auDA. We made a significant unfunded contribution to the auDA names and competition panels. The operation of these panels is well regarded in the sector and has produced highly transparent recommendations. ISOC-AU will continue to look for auDA to deliver user benefits from the introduction of competition for DNS services in Australia.
We have seen no change in the regime for content regulation by the Australian government during 2001. Unfortunately, the latest report on operation of this regime has been delayed by the Federal Election. A review of the legislation is due in the coming year and ISOC-AU will continue to press for reforms. We welcome statements made by the Howard government during the election campaign that ISPs and content hosts should not be liable for content that they are not directly responsible for, and of which they have no knowledge. We have been calling for revisions in this direction and look forward to further discussions with the government on these issues.
- access to full Internet without censorship:
As for the previous entry.
Also, we note with regret, attempts by some Australian state governments to introduce measures that take content regulation on the Internet beyond community standards. In particular, South Australia and New South Wales appear to be pressing ahead with policies and legislation in this regard. These censorship regimes do not recognize the unique nature of the Internet medium and seek to impose inappropriate models of censorship from print and other media. For instance, the NSW proposals appear to make it illegal to host R-rated material on the Internet, even with age verification protection.
- forum for Australian businesses:
ISOC-AU continues to develop sponsorship and organizational membership opportunities to enhance our dialogue with Industry. We are also working closely with the major ICT industry associations through our membership of the national ICT Alliance.- monitor and advise on technical and social matters:
ISOC-AU has continued to monitor a wide range of technical and social matters relating to the Internet during 2001. Given the range of issues impacted by the Internet, this area continues to be a substantial challenge that we address with the volunteer support of our members. We have used this substantial base to input policy into the 2001 Federal Election process in conjunction with our major organisational members.
- assist government to improve their internet policy:
With the strong user and technical knowledge base of our members we have been able to continue to support government policy development in relation to the Internet particularly, this year, in relation to privacy, tax, bandwidth and domain name policy.
ISOC-AU has continued to contribute to this enhanced business use of the Internet by fostering a stable policy base and providing a respected and independent voice for Internet users. Development of e-commerce and other Internet activity relies on developing a strong climate of trust for Internet users, particularly in the post dot-com period. ISOC-AU is in a unique position to foster and build this climate of trust.
- unbiased info for new users:
ISOC-AU has continued to operate a help service for Internet users through our Web site and we continue to answer a wide variety of queries about the Internet with the help of our members.
Untimed local calls to the Internet have become a reality for the whole of Australia during 2001. Telstra in particular has helped to build this level of access through the offering of its 'Megapop' product. Untimed local calls have helped Australia to reach one of the highest levels of Internet usage in the world. Paradoxically, the convenience of untimed local calls may now be inhibiting Australian's access to higher bandwidth access.
- research on international bandwidth:
The proposal we helped to foster for a CRC for Smart Internet Technology was successful in gaining substantial funding from the Australian government over the next seven years. We are continuing to work with this CRC to include effective input of user requirements into the research process and to foster an effective working relationship with the international Internet standards process. We look forward to working with proponents for the ICT Centre of Excellence for a similar outcome.
- support all uses of the Internet without restrictions:
Digital divide and Internet censorship continue to provide barriers to access to the Internet. In addition, we are working with various groups supporting increased usability of the Internet through accessibility initiatives that will benefit people with disabilities.