Report on Sydney Consumer Consultation Meeting, 17 December 2002
The meeting was held in Sydney, on 17 December 2002, at the offices of Cisco Systems, kindly arranged by ISOC-AU director Andrew McRae.
Participants were advised that this consultation process is supported by
funding from the Department of Communications, IT and the Arts.
Below is a report of our discussion.
Wireless
The meeting discussed the growth of groups around Australia who are establishing peer to peer wireless networks - eg AWA, Brismesh. Some of the policy challenges in this area were also discussed, eg the possibility that Internet traffic may not be permitted if it makes one of the links in the connection into a carrier. Current policy settings in relation to hot spot providers were mentioned.
Wireless can be seen as the next generation of technology for the
Internet - eg DoCoMo. On occasions licencing the equipment can be a
challenge for instance, it must have proprietary connectors! But these
aspects would need to be confirmed. The possibility for ISOC-AU to hold
a 'wireless summit' should be considered if useful.
auDA and domain names
Some improvement in service levels had been noticed since introduction of competition for domain name services. However, some special circumstances may be challenging, eg .net.au moving to pricing may result in users losing 2 years already paid.
ISOC-AU's Key Points for maximising Internet benefits
In relation to higher speed access, the current wholesale pricing of DSL/ULL is still an issue. Relationships of pricing make it uncommercial to resell services to the domestic market. On the other hand, there may have been some procedural improvements. In Germany users are provided with a list of DSL ISPs for customer choice.In relation to accessibility, there were comments that it is fundamental to retain the open environment and encourage interoperability. Developments in adoption of open source were noted with a coming education conference in WA in February 2003, Linux.conf.au. Also, a distribution of open source for schools in Spanish speaking world was noted.
In relation to privacy, insufficient action was reported in relation to W3C P3P initiative sites and browser compatibility. This was seen as a chicken and egg situation between sites and browsers, where as a common approach to presentation of privacy information is needed.
Discussion of the global digital divide noted the higher costs faced in
regional neighbour countries.
Changes in Internet Service Provision
Changes to the structure of the Internet service industry were noted, including the increasing position of carriers providing ISP services which was diminishing the role of small ISPs. The high availability of access at work rather than through domestic packages may have led to some other changes, eg the Telstra Web site shifted from its portal approach to emphasise business opportunities with Telstra. Work time vs private time is becoming blurred and users are more likely to do bandwidth demanding Internet on the corporate net work, due to comparative cost elements. Generally, home connections emphasise use by kids.Capped downloads are seen as a barrier to uptake, eg MP3 and video
files, and users can't easily read the current cap. They end up
suffering the sudden irrevocable application of a throttle once
exceeding download. There is a need for consumer understanding of
relation between usage and costs because this relationship has changed
in relation to higher bandwidth services. There is uncertainty about
why are caps are applied in Australia and suggestions that it may be
related to peering dimensions.
Peering
Domestic capacity is dearer than international connections. We are currently operating under the peering arrangement between the four: Telstra, Optus, Ozemail, Connect. Regional peering points are practical, depending on traffic management.
Symmetric Pricing
It was suggested that Australia is suffering international trade constrictions from frustration of development of the Internet domestically. This constriction would be a constraint to the SME sector with innovation and employment implications, eg the potential for an architect document exchange based in Australia for Heathrow.Reliability is a key barrier for SMEs. There may be a need for a
legal mechanism to respond to reliability problems, eg denial of
service attacks could cause users a $22k bill depending on their
billing arrangement. SLAs tend to be either expensive or unreliable.
Some legacy systems for B2B are not compatible with Internet - eg
export documentation systems.
Summary
The Sydney meeting raised some interesting issues and another one will be held later in the year.
Tony Hill
President ISOC-AU
31 January 2003