Report on Sydney Consumer Consultation Meeting, 26 June 2003
The meeting was held in Sydney at the offices of Cisco Systems on 26th
June 2003. Our thanks to ISOC-AU director Andrew McRae for
facilitiating the venue. Participants were advised that this
consultation process is supported by funding from Department of
Communications, IT and the Arts. Below is a report of our discussion.
Usage of the Internet
Participants outlined a number of Internet functions that they see as fundamental to their usage in daily life:- The Internet has developed as a marketplace for ideas both in an intellectual sense and as a commercial sense eg eBay. Australia is fortunate to have structure of States under a Federal Government compared to Europe. NSW Education is building minimum 2 meg links to all schools, with some provided through satellite.
- The Net has revolutionised information. Large Internet vs Australian Internet issues, as users of the Internet, we can leverage the Internet for Australian benefit eg rural access, improved government policy.
- A great benefit from the Internet is in communication and bringing all around the world closer, but disadvantage is that people communicate by text messages rather than other mechanisms like voice. Emails work better than voice for accessing job market. Internet is excellent as a research tool for university and higher degree. The initial scepticism has been overcome.
- Always-on access is valuable - but with DSL, getting the service at all is a challenge where there is a long run to the exchange. In China the investment in last mile has been in wireless.
- The high profile of the Internet is good - most people know about it, but half can't do without it and others don't understand why they need it. It is quite a gulf.
- Looking at the social perspective on issues that have arisen from the Internet, email is the driving force and how could we live without it? Are you on the social list if you don't have email? Age is not a barrier because older people can use it effectively. Share trading can work effectively online. Success stories have managed the technical and social side eg Comsec for share trading. Maturity level of the use of the Internet has increased.
- The Internet is continuing the process of technology allowing sharing around the world. It is just that the Internet is more ubiquitous than ham radio and has become a great leveller. But the digital divide means that some do not have access.
- The Internet permits knowing what is going on at a micro level in many places eg corporations. Academic fields are varying their approaches to Internet sources as formal references.
- The Internet has changed the way that law is practiced. Previously there were letters and telexes. Now, most of the time with customers is with email and this has become very useful for instance so that customers can read the detail of documents, etc. Internet is going through a gestation. Legal positions can still be fluid and awareness is not necessarily available. International complexities can be difficult with conflicting laws. Is the Internet still anarchic?
- It is like roads and other forms of transport, sometimes they deliver great interest and it is another facet of interaction, eg Internet phones with portals for elderly parents and youngest children.
- The Internet has made it possible for Micro business to access technology and business resources from all around the world to supply to customers all around the world. Users want to use the Internet now and not in so many months 'when the technology is ready'. But surfing is a good way to lose focus. Messaging for non-profit organisations is an excellent approach to organising volunteers eg fostering messages from participants. Easy access to summary information is very useful. Privacy - can we have it both ways? We need to make careful choices about intrusion.
- The Internet still works because of significant goodwill of many people, eg Sweden regards Internet as essential infrastructure. But now we are going to beyond goodwill to legal and commercial dimensions, though some service providers still allow free flow of traffic through their network eg UUNet. But are they going broke?
Issues and Problems with the Internet
On the negative side, as at almost all consultations, SPAM is seen as a major problem. Speed, access costs, poor Web design, security and operating system vulnerabilities and the digital divide were all discussed as detracting from valuable Internet functionality:- SPAM will be sent to any addresses, personal or mailing-lists, appearing on the Web. But some approaches to SPAM have been effective. Still there is a lack of maturity through the chain, eg vulnerable operating systems, low security.
- Security is another key issue. After sending just a couple of emails many SPAMs were attracted. Traffic can be examined in transit by packet sniffing.
- But difficulties with unsolicited emails - we could look at some sort of registration process. But where is the enabling technology in this regard? Internet needs to evolve to a push technology instead of client-server. Can we move more towards peer to peer?
- The Internet sees itself as not following the rules of society. But domain registry should be managed by ASIC to maintain link back to the owning organisations. Conversely .com space is useless. SPAM - received email should be registered with Australia Post and clearly identified against corporation.
- A large problem with the Internet is that response times are too slow, so delivery of Web pages may be in seconds. WWW has become world wide wait. Internet backbone has moved to fibre which is not being fully utilised. What is this bottleneck for Web browsing? Will we see another golden time of investment in the technology so we will need to improve investment gradually? Physical limits of transmission are yet to be reached but Web browsing off university networks can still be slow.
- Has the innovation in protocols slowed or stalled?
- Problems with the Internet - growing digital divide, some talking about how we can get access to large bandwidth, but ubiquitous access is very important. How can we get wider accessibility?
- The Internet is restricted by proprietary technologies.
- There is a lack of awareness of good Web page design. Do people understand html coding?
- Perceptions of privacy and security are issues, compared with bricks and mortar.
- The big Internet vs Australia - in Australia issues are mostly about what government thinks about it, which impacts on content and media ownership.
- There is too much unnecessary fear and uncertainty being created, eg in the area of censorship.
- Costs of speed and access are still a problem.
- There are problems in intelligent content delivery, check the access speed against delivery. A babel-fish (translation) technology is still missing. More development is needed.
- Costs and controlling levels of staff access are an issue.
- A young person's view - have been using the Internet all their lives, particularly like neopets.com, a virtual pets Web site, with single and multiple interaction, must know someone and know their name to use this site. Don't like pornography, it should be age-restricted.
- Proprietary operating systems are too complex - could we have simpler devices that do simpler things?
- Managing traffic on the technical side is difficult, particularly in supporting multiple services.
- There are not too many barriers, just opportunities. Trustworthiness of a dot-com name compared to a dot-au name is one issue. Need to be able to trust who you are dealing with, but is it different from a bricks and mortar business?
Tony Hill
President ISOC-AU
26 June 2003