This Consumer Consulation meeting was held in Canberra at the Department of Computer Science and Information Technology, ANU, from 5.30pm to 7pm, Monday 22 May 2006. ISOC-AU would like to thank Mr Bob Edwards, Department of Computer Science, for organising the venue for us.

Participants were advised that this consultation process is supported by funding from the Department of Communications, IT and the Arts.

Report on IPv6 & Current Internet Issues
from Tony Hill, Internet Society of Australia

Although Australia has a high access rate to the Internet, other countries are working hard to catch up, and IPv6 is central to their desire to join in: their future will be based on it. There is major interest in IPv6 among Australian trading and strategic partners, but a lack of information here. In north Asia, the focus is on consumer electronics, with a vision of the world as becoming ubiquitously connected. In North America the current Internet is fine, but Defence forces wants better interoperability, so are using IPv6 to develop a Global Information Grid. In China they are using it to prepare for the next Olympics, and in Korea a commercial implementation is planned for 2010.

IPv6 was designed by the IETF, the volunteer open standards group working under the umbrella of the Internet Society, ISOC-AU's parent body. We are holding another IPv6 Summit in Canberra at the end of 2006, to assist Australians understand the advantages and implications, providing independent advice on policy and technical issues arising from such developments in the Internet.

Open discussion

• Quality of service in regional and metropolitan areas is a major problem - e.g. at Mt Isa, less than 1k bps in 1999; Brisbane, a 15k modem delivered 8k, leading to restricted access compared to overseas countries like Finland where service is better and speed is recognised as being in the national interest. Only small improvements since early days, e.g. Armidale, when more than 4km from town there is no access to ADSL, but there is satellite. Compares poorly with rollout of fibre in India, constrains development of home businesses.

• Online banking for businesses is expensive - suggestion that ISOC-AU could provide some guidance to cheaper options.

• Home and work-based user - there is a shameful difference between access in regional areas and metropolitan areas. Particularly concerned about maintainability and sustainability of information on the Internet, how do we maintain collections of information given the lack of stability?

• Home user - Major issue is the irritation of spam. Also, locating appropriate information, particularly from government and official sources - web sites are named and organised differently, how can you find authoritative information?

• Home user - line rental keeps going up, needed as a condition for access, but little increase in value with cost.

• Intellectual property: the print model is being applied to the electronic world, and legislation is killing us.

• Within 4km of local exchange in Adelaide, state of copper is poor and does not deliver the speed from ISP that is paid for. Speaker needs two accounts - fixed for broadband, dialup for travel, plus wireless for hotspots - costly. Australia is not receiving true broadband, compared to e.g. France. We need connectivity for education: essential needs are broadband, plus computer, plus education.

• Home based user - connectivity slow and drops out - stats on Indian PC ownership, is Australia really the 'clever country'? - comparable to India in that in some places we can't function properly.

• User as micro-business and as exporter of real goods and services - need quality of service at the right cost point, why are we 'adding on 30% at each level of provider'?

• A parent in the 'last residence in Australia to get broadband' - concerned about the impact on dynamics of families, even watching TV is more communal, how does the presence of the Net affect the dynamics of the family?

• Concerned about spam. Also, document formats - new ISO document standards are good. Internet access in Milton, Brisbane, 5 minutes from CBD, could only get dialup or costly frame relay access.

• Positive influence on family dynamics, as user works from home since ADSL recently became available. But where is ADSL2? Regulatory issues are important - media convergence, does the Government 'get the whole thing'? Our kids' future - how will we keep up with the world and be a clever country or become a digital backwater? Disparities with the rest of the world, especially in the cost of wireless and very high mobile phone rates.

• User from Canberra Institute of Technology who teaches English to migrants, working with people who are illiterate or semi-literate - e.g. people from the Sudan are used to contact face to face, print is a strange concept. On the Internet so many Web pages are just pages of print - how can we get Web sites with a friendly face that will talk to you - how would you get a project up to go about this? Even just pictures of faces, with sound?

• What about people with disabilities? - Deaf people need to use sign language, so need video with affordable synchronous speeds. Also young people doing multimedia school assignments where they need to upload as well as download, hindered by asymmetric speeds. What about VoIP coming into the consumer area? - need quality of service and easy to access interfaces.

• Dislike about the Internet - spam! 1 in 10 to 15 messages is legitimate. But like Internet shopping very much, particularly with relatives and resources overseas.

• Internet excellent for travel services - recent complicated European trip with planes, trains, buses - all travel and accommodation successfully booked online.

• User works with small micro and home business users, who need access to decent affordable broadband - are we developing an additional dimension of digital divide between broadband and dialiup users? Access in new areas is limited by RIMS and Pair Gains - developments in games, new ubiquitous services (eg 3G) demand high speeds, expensive.

• Running a small business from home - issue of ADSL being pushed by Telstra, but is asynchronous, and businesses (.g. architects) need to upload large files, sometimes next to impossible. Also, quality of service issue for VoIP that may cause a digital divide issue - good service only with high-speed access.

• Pointed out that A in ADSL is for 'asymmetric', not 'asynchronous.'

• Home-based user with own business - photographer - where do people get access to setting up domain names apart from a number of registrars? Who owns that system - now there are more than 100 registrars and resellers? Could there be independent Web sites to give you daily information on the cheapest price for domain names? Who decides new top level domains under .au? (Discussion later with ISOC-AU director from auDA board.)

• Home-based user - wading through spam!

• Teacher in Computer Science - is IPv6 going anywhere? Why are static addresses charged at a higher level than dynamic ones?

• ISPs are treating the Internet as a broadcast medium, ie excluding uploading as important. What about archiving and proprietary formats? Problems if we don't support documents in open formats, other operating systems. Even when tax returns made available electronically for Macs, a virtual PC program was necessary!

• Online shopping in Korea has clothes at the top of the list, two areas where sizing is easy - premium quality and cheap commodity.

• Being able to share information is essential - upload speeds for photos on home websites are slower than download speed. Internet used to be peer to peer, but now asymmetric - Web led people to think that there are only centralised sources of information for downloads - why can't I install a home server cheaply to share information?

• Education and training has been clearly advantaged by high speed access in Western Europe and North America - e.g. USA cross-subsidises schools and libraries at 90% rebate for Internet access - e.g. UK in 2001 announced targets for schools across UK that are now exceeded at most education sites, matched funding by local authorities and national government. Killer application in primary and high schools is video conferencing - but not available in Australia due to lack of bandwidth.

• Access Grid is available for universities in Australia with powerful sharing capacities.

• Video conferencing quality can be lacking, may be difficult to set up - in UK there is a nationally run service for GPs in outer areas to access specialists.

• In Health areas broadband very useful - significant government funding has been provided to assist GPs in Australia but this approach is being used on a sector by sector basis.

• Australia once led the world on remote access, through the Flying Doctor and School of the Air services - have we lost the initiative? Where is the national policy and national targets? Recent meeting has called for a 'national vision.' A telco consortium has now set up, with utilities, construction industry, etc, considering how to access an array of dark fibre, provide alternative fibre rollouts - but will still help only %40 of people.

• Are we overestimating the way that VoIP can replace the phone? Good VoIP needs 64k symmetric bandwidth. Phones have been designed to be more robust under challenging conditions - e.g. banks of batteries in exchanges survive power outages, but Internet vulnerable.

• Can we recognise the Internet as essential infrastructure? Implications for reliability - requires a change of attitude. We can still allow consumer choice between a range of price and service levels.

• 30% of attendees have used voice services over the Internet. Are finding it very different experience form the phone - much more interactive, especially for separated families. People wander in and out of rooms and conversations, have group interaction, different from one-to-one on phone.

• ANU has introduced a VoIP internal phone system - has none of the benefits of VoIP and all of the disadvantages!

• Example of Australia falling behind - eg Korea has a coordinated approach, with government leadership in improving infrastructure, not just for some sectors but all according to the Digital Divide Act, which took the country to advanced level very quickly.

• Some people attending have made formal complaints about spam - effective - some complaints have resulted in apologies from CEOs of companies. Many have used filtering, but filters can slow systems. Federal police have been very effective in following up on fhishing attempts, with hotlines, information.

• Demonstrates the need for international cooperation in governance arrangements - debate about .xxx domain highlights the roles of various organisations in Internet governance.

• Inconsistencies from print world to digital: in the games area, only those suitable for 15-year-olds are available, even for adults.

Tony Hill
President, ISOC-AU
24 May 2006