Report on Perth Consumer Consultation Meeting, 23 January 2003
The meeting was held in Perth WA, at the University of Western Australia, on 23 January 2003. The annual Linux open-source software conference, Linux.conf.au, was also being held at the university during the week, so we were fortunate that a number of people from the conference were able to attend our meeting too. Jeremy Malcolm, a director of ISOC-AU, organised and publicised the meeting locally.
Participants were advised that this consultation process is supported by
funding from the Department of Communications, IT and the Arts.
We discussed a wide range of issues, including spam, broadband, peering,
wireless, domain names and access via both software and infrastructure.
Attendees were keen to ascertain what notice would be taken (or actions
initiated) from the meeting by ISOC-AU. Below is a report of our discussion.
Spam
Spam is universally disliked and seems to be increasing at a great rate. Concern was expressed at the content of some spam, but the sheer volume is the larger problem. One suggestion was that a special site be set up so that anyone could forward any spam they have received to the site, so real statistics on what people are actually getting could be accumulated and the scale of the problem could be recognised.Legislation against spam was generally favoured: the problem of much of its origin overseas is enormous, but at the same time, a legislative approach could at least stem some of the local activity, and also provide a social disincentive and educative role for Australian spammers, some of whom have no idea that their activity is actually very destructive to Internet functionality in terms of bandwidth and communication.
Legislation would also give legal backup to ISPs, who do not currently have clear guidelines on what they can do about the problem. The ability to sue spammers would also be very useful - it would not stop all of the activity but it would at least be a start.
Broadband
It was commented that the Broadband Advisory Group (BAG) report had been released the day before and was seen by some attendees as extremely disappointing - it had little detail, no cost estimates, no commitments, and reiterated old achievements that had nothing to do with the current situation.It had been expected that the report would have engineering proposals, costings and more content. The problem is complex and it needs a deep inquiry that is forward-looking and provides motivation to industry to become involved. The belief was expressed that although the BAG included some leading names in the industry, because the group was chaired and subject to the veto power of the Minister, it unfortunately cannot be regarded as a neutral examination of the issues.
Currently broadband to the home is shackled by prejudices about the type of content that might be being accessed, but this approach ignores how many people need to use it for home office access, telecommuting, international teleconferencing during overseas business hours, etc.
Roughly one-third to one-half of the attendees had broadband
connections to their homes. Costs were seen as very high relative to
overseas. Attendees who work in the ISP industry also commented on the
very high level, around 50%, of installations by telecommunication
companies did not function properly from the start. The self-install
option for ADSL was mentioned by one attendee. Problems with Telsra's
RIM units and general availability were also discussed. It was agreed
by most people that the retail and infrastructure sections of major
telcos should not be part of the same company, but should be split in
some way.
Peering
Peering in WA has been a great success due to WAIX, the Western Australian Internet Exchange, an arrangement by the major WA ISPs to not charge for traffic onto each others' networks through common exchange points. Enormous cost savings are made to the benefit of all of the WAIX participants, and thus to their customers as well - the amount peered at WAIX is roughly 30 Terabytes a month.
Wireless
It was commented that there seem to be a lot of people going broke with Wireless - it's a good idea but doesn't have working business models as yet. The borderline between community groups and commercial activity is seen as difficult to define. Wireless could provide a partial solution to the "last-mile" problem.
Accessibility and Regional Issues
One comment about accessibility was in terms of government websites and banking sites that demand specific features of commercial browsers to be able to use them - they are not browser-neutral, so make access difficult for users of open-source Linux and other Unix-based operating systems. The dangers are very high in letting government infrastructure depend on the viability of a single monopoly platform.Access in terms of infrastructure is also a major problem in such a large state as WA. Only the major cities have sufficient infrastructure - for regions north of Geraldton there are ISPs serving whole towns connected through only a single 128 kbps ISDN circuit. The large mining companies have very good telecoms but they are usually remote from the towns so there is no possibility of sharing bandwidth. A recent study has recommended data link sharing by co-located remote regional government agencies, with public access to the aggregated network facilities - this was seen as a very good initiative.
It was mentioned that the situation caused by bushfires in Canberra,
where much of the TransACT infrastructure was carried on electricity
poles, provided a salutory lesson in protecting infrastructure access
in the future. Dozens of mobile phone base stations failed due to
outages of open-air power lines as well.
auDA and domain names
General satisfaction with domain name services, but one attendee thought that new rules for .org.au now demanded an ABN. (Later checking of the requirements indicate that an ABN, ACN or Incorporated Association Number are now required, plus a declaration that the organisation is Not For Profit.) The ability of users to provide input on requirements like these to auDA and take part in making or amending policy decisions was discussed.
Summary
In general this was an energetic and very informative meeting, with emphasis on regional difficulties, but also appreciative of the advantages that city infrastructure can provide. It was strongly emphasised that co-operation and peering agreements between carriers and ISPs have provided enormous advantages for both the Internet businesses themselves and the consumers of telecommunications services in WA.
Kate Lance
Executive Director ISOC-AU
31 January 2003