Date		6 June 2007
Time		10.30am - 3.30pm
Venue		Maddocks Lawyers, 123 Pitt Street, Sydney

Topic: Enabling Communications

Closed Session: 10.30 - 12.30

Present:
Holly Raiche, ED ISOC-AU
Gunela Astbrink,  National Coordiantor, TEDICORE
Sue Salthouse, Women with Disabilities, Australia
Paul Brooks, Managing Director, Layer 10
Peter Darling, Pondarosa Communications Pty Ltd
Barry Dingle, Fellow of University of Melbourne, Elec. Eng.

Welcome and Introduction:  Holly Raiche

Holly welcomed participants to this session, and said that this seminar (and
the open discussion to be held in the afternoon) were supported by the
Australian Government through the Consumer Representation Grants program of the
Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts.  Holly also
thanked Maddocks for providing the venue for today's meetings.

The purpose of the day's discussion is to better understand both the
opportunities and risks presented by new communications in the areas of IP
based networks, and in end-user hardware/software.  The purpose of the meetings
is for information of all participants, not to reach agreement on outcomes.
The knowledge/understanding gained by participants will allow more informed
input into the Access Economics Report being finalised for DCITA, for the
ACMA/CommsAlliance Consumer Summit in August, the current discussions on
broadband, any positions developed for the upcoming Federal election and any
review of telecommunications legislation.

Context of Meetings: Gunela Astbrink

Gunela welcomed this as the first meeting of the ISOC-AU Special Interest Group
on Accessibillity and Usability.  The context of these discussions includes the
UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which was passed by
the UN General Assembly in December 2006, and has been signed by Australia in
March 2007.  HREOC will be holding forums on many aspects of the Convention and
TEDICORE, depending on funding, will be holding forums on the ICT aspects of
the Convention. The Disability Discrimination Act also prohibits discrimination
on the grounds of disability in the provision of goods and services.  In the
regulatory area, OFCOM now requires that VoIP providers give customers
information if their VoIP service offers access to emergency services and the
FCCC has said that VoIP services should come under provisions of the US
telecommunications legislation.

Communications should be based upon 'universal design' - that is,
communications technologies and services are designed to be as inclusive and
usable as possible. Accessibility should be built into mainstream products and
services as much as possible to avoid the need to modify communications
services to meet the growing needs of people with disabilities.


Peter Darling:
The background to the Access Economics project is work done by Communications
Alliance (then ACIF) on Next Generation Networks.  The NGN Report pointed to
actions that could be taken both by Government and Industry.    Subsequently,
DCITA produced a paper on VoIP which was released by the Minister in November
2006.  After that, DCITA decided to do a consultancy on the policy and
regulatory aspects of NGN, with Access Economics as the successful tenderer,
and Peter as part of that consultancy.  The Access Economics Report will go to
DCITA at the end of June, and the hope is that it will eventually be publicly
available. 

The report will look at NGN as of the year 2015. The issues for NGN can be
viewed from an economic and/or social perspective.

In the NGN environment, there is broad consensus on the transport layer (OSI
layers 1-3) and the higher layers. The customer access network will be based on
IP technology.  There is likely to be a basic transport technology of either
FTTN or FTTH - with close to a monopoly provider. Therefore, what is available
to other providers in the transport layer will be critical.  On top of that,
people will be running IP core networks - which may be more open (like the
Internet) or more closed ('walled garden').  There will be the need to ensure
that independent third parties can offer services over the network provider.
This will probably require some form of regulation. 

Because we are in a global environment and standards are set internationally,
Australia is largely a 'standards taker' and the main issue is how to take the
international standards work on network QoS, adapt it for Australian use and
get all networks to support standardised QoS mechanisms. 

In future, there will likely be what can be seen as core services - possibly
called 'Socially Important Services' - that will include voice and probably
will include real-time text and video.  If the Government is to regulate for
these core services, the issues would be about interoperability and any-to-any
connectivity.  The balance will be between protections for core services and
flexibility. The real challenge will be to preserve the socially important
things while allowing the flexibility for innovation/new applications/services
based on IP networks and technology.


Paul Brooks:
On the issue of network QoS, Paul is chairing a Communications Alliance Working
Group on QoS internet interconnection.  The aim is to specify common
interoperable standards for QoS - i.e., agreed marking for QoS, and expected
performance measures for each level of QoS traffic.  There will be marking for
3 levels of priority being specified (leaving open the possibility of more down
the track) traffic like IP telephony that needs real time transport most
important traffic - e.g., signalling messages, corporate data - and would
include Text over IP  - and streaming audio/video over IP would be at this
layer everything else - on a best endeavours basis - as in today's Internet
traffic.

The Terms of Reference for that group are about developing a Guideline for Qos
over managed IP networks - VPNs, with the aim that end to end performance can
be predicted/assured. In future, the Working Group may move beyond the
immediate goal of QoS for VPN, to QoS for end-to-end network performance for
business and residential users. 

On the issue of being a standards taker, what this Working Group is doing is
ground breaking - it hasn't been done in other countries.  While the work is
operating within global standards, the work on this guideline is work that is
not replicated and does represent new work. 

On the issue of symmetric/asymmetric broadband speeds. Paul is also
participating in a working group looking at VDSL.  In a single copper access
network, there can only be one band plan, and the issue is which to choose.
One being proposed is very asymmetric (very large download speeds and moderate
upload speeds) based on the argument that the users will be mainly residential
users, and that broadband will be mainly used to download movies, etc. There
are other views that upstream capacity may become increasingly important, for
uses such as education, remote health, business, more participatory
communications as well as video conversational communications. In other words,
end users have an increasing capability to generate content e.g. video, that
they may want to upload. 

The meeting agreed that the real issue is not so much whether the broadband
speeds are symmetrical or not, but that the upstream as well as downstream
capacities are based on bandwidth requirements.
 
 
Discussion

The following points were made:

Australia can still contribute to standards through, for example, the IETF or
processes such as the CommsAlliance guideline development.  What is important
is independent resourcing for such contributions.  

Universal design principles should be followed so that the underlying transport
and terminals and applications are open and accessible for all. 

Affordability can be a barrier to the use of new communications technology -
particularly for people on low incomes. 

The use of mainstream services rather than the development of 'special'
services can improve accessibility and affordability.

The underlying requirement for the transport layer is to support communications
services, including issues such as accessibility, cost, location and
connectivity. 

One issue for the near future is that networks, in the name of security, do not
inadvertently block Text over IP or Video over IP.



Open session: 1.30 - 3.30 PM

Present:
Holly Raiche, ED ISOC-AU
Gunela Astbrink, National Coordinator, TEDICORE
Sue Salthouse, Women with Disabilities, Australia
Paul Brooks, Managing Director, Layer 10
Peter Darling, Pondarosa Communications Pty Ltd
Barry Dingle, Fellow of University of Melbourne, Elec. Eng.
Teresa Corbin, CTN
John Burton, Access Economics
Gerry O'Reilly, ACMA
Mike Ryan, Telstra
Bert Ciavarra, Telstra
Mike Elsegood, Optus
Chris Purnell, DCITA

Welcome and Introduction: Holly Raiche

Holly again acknowledged the support of the Australian Government through the
DCITA grant for consumer representation, and again thanked Maddocks for the use
of their venue.

Gunela Astbrink, Peter Darling and Paul Brooks:
Review of earlier contributions.

Discussion:

Barry Dingle: Stressed the need for mainstream services to be as accessible as
possible, so that only small change is needed to accommodate a person's needs
On the symmetry/asymmetry question, we are moving towards more conversational
type services, which need more symmetric speeds With VoIP services, there is
the ability to differentiate other services such as Text over IP or Video over
IP.  In future, there is a need to ensure that, in the name of security, text
and video over IP are not blocked

General Discussion:

The procurement policies in the US (requiring government agencies to procure
accessible ICT goods and services) is an issue to be taken into account in
Australia, as a way of promoting accessible software and hardware.

Australian work on standards needs independent resourcing so there is an
independent, well resourced voice 'at the table'. 

In an employment context, as we move to new applications, there is the
potential to move to Text over IP as a general service and this should be
supported by Telcos.

The procurement policies in the US (requiring government agencies to procure
accessible ICT goods and services) is an issue to be taken into account in
Australia, as a way of promoting accessible software and hardware.

Australian work on standards needs independent resourcing so there is an
independent, well resourced voice 'at the table'. 

In the issue of moving from TTYs to other text over IP, there will be a
continuing need to support TTYs, and to develop migration paths that can move
customers from TTYs to other Text over IP services.  Ways the
Government/industry might support that migration could be a text gateway, a TTY
exchange program etc.  TTYs now represent a closed user group and the aim
should be to promote more open, mainstream text communication. This approach
would also reduce the need for Relay services. 

There is also the need for inter-operability both vertically and horizontally
between the network layer and the service/applications layer.  The vertical
interoperability is about open standards - reasonably open and accessible
standards.  

There is a need for continuing dialogue on NGN issues that involve DCITA, the
Government, regulators, providers and consumers.

TTYs now represent a closed user group and the aim should be to promote more
open, mainstream text communication. This approach would also reduce the need
for Relay services. 

There is also the need for inter-operability both vertically and horizontally
between the network layer and the service/applications layer.  The vertical
interoperability is about open standards - reasonably open and accessible
standards.  

There is a need for continuing dialogue on NGN issues that involve DCITA, the
Government, regulators, providers and consumers.

Web accessibility:  Gunela Astbrink reported that Version 2 of the Web
accessibility guidelines has been released in draft form - and is different
from the earlier version.  Aside from accessible websites, there are other
accessibility guidelines on authoring tools and multi media . There is also the
need to ensure that the activity on the website is accessible such as
accessible security validation.  The Government Online strategy did set
standards, and initially had  an audit function. The current Minimum Web
Standards does not have an audit function which is needed as websites change.

The meeting agreed that there should be an ongoing dialogue, and that a list
should be established of the meetings' attendees plus other interested parties
to keep the dialogue going.

Paul Brooks said he would welcome any feedback on what speed capacity is enough
for the uploading channel, as a decision is expected to be taken soon which
will determine the amount of upstream capacity might be available on any future
VDSL2 network.

Participants were thanked for their attendance and input into the consumer
consultation process.