Senator the Hon Helen Coonan
Minister for Communications,
Information Technology
and the Arts

Deputy Leader of the Government
in the Senate

Pre-recorded address to Dutch-Australia Broadband Roundtable

Amsterdam

Tuesday 13 March 2007

I would like to begin by thanking you for this opportunity to build on the relationships developed during the Dutch mission to Australia last year.

I would especially like to thank Paul Budde for the role he has played in making this study and trade mission to the Netherlands possible.

Australia is home to about 300,000 citizens with Dutch heritage, and each year 50,000 Dutch people visit Australia and 60,000 Australians visit the Netherlands.

These strong personal connections are enhanced by the striking similarities between our two societies.

In a recent speech, Her Majesty Queen Beatrix spoke of these similarities and drew particular attention to the area of sport, in which Australia has a reputation as a world leader.

It may come as a surprise that along with information technology and communications, my portfolio responsibilities also include sport.

In sport, excellent infrastructure, strong community participation, sensible policy and well-targeted funding have all helped Australia overcome a relatively small population base to be on the podium with the world’s best.

These principles apply equally to the other areas of my portfolio and we are employing them to become a world leader in the effective use of broadband.

Broadband is fast becoming essential infrastructure around the world. It is critical for the private and public sector to compete in a modern global economy.

The Australian Government considers that broadband will underpin our continuing economic prosperity and social well being.

Communications is a very high priority for the Australian Government. That is why we have spent over $1 billion since 1997 and recently committed a further $3.1 billion to provide a platform for investment in Next Generation broadband infrastructure.

We are providing national leadership and coordination, extending access, maintaining sensible regulatory policy and providing well-targeted funding to overcome our geographic challenges.

I would like to talk today about what the Australian Government is doing to ensure our evolving broadband story continues to prosper.

Firstly however, I would like to acknowledge that there is much we can learn from each other.

Dutch/Australian ICT

It is pleasing to see that there are many similarities in the Australian and Dutch approaches to broadband, including the emphasis on the free market, robust competition and targeted government intervention.

Our Governments are also very supportive of the ICT industry, and the spectacular growth of ICT in the Netherlands led the Wall Street Journal to label it the “Dutch miracle”.

Australia too has a sophisticated, world-class ICT sector.

It is the 13th largest ICT market in the world and the fourth largest in the Asia Pacific region after Japan, China and Korea.

Many multinational ICT companies have used Australia as a test bed for new applications and have established based their Asia-Pacific head quarters in Australia.

These companies are taking advantage of our high-quality, cost-effective telecommunications, our favourable business environment and the fact that Australia is an excellent base for doing business in the Asia-Pacific region.

I would encourage Dutch companies to view Australia as a key base for the Asia-Pacific region and a supplier of sophisticated goods and services.

World leading examples of advanced networks

Australia also boasts a number of leading edge examples of next generation networks.

The Australian Government has provided some $60 million to support the Advanced Networks Program (ANP).

This program supports the development, trialling and demonstration of advanced communications networks, experimental networks and test beds in Australia and establishes a national advanced backbone network.

AARNet3, for example, is providing advanced network capabilities to all universities and research institutes, including all capital city campuses and most regional campuses across Australia, as well as isolated research facilities such as radio telescopes.

Australia’s challenges of geography and population density
While there are many similarities in the way our respective nations have tackled the deployment of broadband, it is important to keep in mind that we face very different historical, geographic and demographic circumstances.

National communications systems evolve from the complex interplay of legal, governmental and administrative frameworks over time.

The evolution of communication in Holland, in the context of its EU environment is also quite different to that of Australia in the Asia Pacific.

Added to this, the Netherlands is about two thirds the size of Tasmania, Australia’s smallest state.

For these reasons, policies and programs which work in one of our countries will not always be applicable to the other.

In land mass, Australia is the sixth largest country in the world but has the third lowest population density in the OECD.

This creates significant challenges, and requires innovative policies that reflect Australia’s unique position.

The fundamentals of our policy approach are a stable, yet responsive regulatory framework that supports competition as a key driver for lower prices and more choice for Australian consumers.

And where the market will not go, the Australian Government will provide targeted funding to ensure all Australians can access vital telecommunications services, regardless of where they live

The diversity in Australia’s telecommunications market and the continued rollout of fast broadband in Australia from a number of providers is a direct result of the pro-competitive and technology neutral approach that the Government has adopted.

Broadband take-up and speed in Australia

The Netherlands is clearly one of the most advanced countries in the world in terms of broadband.

In June 2006, the OECD reported that the Netherlands had the second-highest broadband take-up rate in the world, and the fourth ranked per-capita growth.

Partly because of its geographic isolation, Australia can often be slow to take-up technology but – like with mobiles and dial-up Internet – once we latch on to a technology, we begin to adopt it with increasing frequency.

In recent years Australia’s adoption of broadband has dramatically improved to the point where our broadband take-up is above the OECD average and is second in the OECD for per capita broadband growth.

Australia has close to four million broadband subscribers and our broadband take-up is in line with our GDP per capita ranking.

As to broadband speeds, few people are aware that close to 90 per cent of Australian households can already access fast broadband providing speeds of between 2 and 8 mega bits per second (Mpbs).

Nearly fifty percent of the population can access even higher speeds of up to 20 Mbps from ADSL2+ broadband and Pay TV cable networks

Australia also has internationally competitive broadband pricing, with a 2006 UK report ranking Australian residential broadband plans as lower than those of South Korea and the United States.

Wireless Broadband availability in Australia

Not surprisingly, given our geography, one of the really big news stories in Australia right now is wireless broadband.

Wireless broadband services grew 242 per cent in the year to September 2006 and with 6.5 million premises able to access wireless, Australia now has the largest national wireless network in the world in terms of geographical coverage.

Hutchison, Telstra, Optus and Vodafone have already launched 3G services, and last year Telstra launched its 3G network— called 'Next G' — which it claims this year will deliver up to 14.4 Mbps to 98 per cent of the population.

Regulation and competition

The rapid growth of broadband take-up and speeds is underpinned by the Australian Government’s telecommunications policy.

The bedrock of this policy is encouraging commercially-based, private sector investment in new infrastructure and services.

This is as true for the broadband market, which is a top priority for the Australian Government, as it is for any other sector of the industry.

Like other countries around the world, we are always examining the policy mix to ensure the right levels of incentives are in place.

This includes finding the best balance between encouraging investment in infrastructure and the role of providing access to such infrastructure.

There are minimal requirements to enter the Australian market, self-regulation is encouraged, and access obligations are based on demonstrated need.

In addition, broadband prices are not regulated; they are left to the competitive marketplace.

Regional telecommunications – next steps

Clearly the Government’s broadband policy is not one dimensional, nor is it static. A cornerstone of the Government’s policy has been meeting the challenge of providing broadband services right across Australia’s large landmass.

While the Government recognises the importance of providing very fast broadband, the Government is particularly concerned to ensure all Australians can access broadband, regardless of where they live.

The Government’s most significant investment in communications to date is the $1.1 billion Connect Australia package and the $2 billion Communications Fund.

The majority of the Connect Australia package comprises the $878 million Broadband Connect program.

Broadband Connect will be used to support the rollout of new wireless, satellite, fibre and high speed copper broadband infrastructure.

If sustainable infrastructure-based competition in broadband services can be fostered broadly in regional areas, I am confident that consumers in regional and rural Australia will have equitable access to new and emerging services.

The Government aims to ensure that Connect Australia is a long term, sustainable investment in scalable infrastructure.

I have set aside $600 million of the Broadband Connect funding to stimulate the development of a competitive wholesale access network in regional Australia that will provide a broad basis for ongoing infrastructure-based competition.

Government funding support for such infrastructure would contain some strong requirements, including guaranteed wholesale access for service providers at fair competitive prices, and a key focus on providing full access where regional terrestrial coverage is not complete.

I am confident this program will represent another leap forward for sustainable broadband services in regional Australia.

The future of the Internet

As broadband becomes increasingly ubiquitous in Australia it is important to consider Internet wide issues and we have commenced work on policy issues concerning the future of Internet.

This work will cover the reliability and resilience of infrastructure, the economic impacts of broadband on economic growth, innovation and human capital and cross-border cooperation.

I look forward to the outcomes of this research which will be presented at the OECD Communications and IT Ministers meeting to be held in Seoul, Republic of Korea, in June 2008.

Conclusion

Australia and the Netherlands face some similar challenges in ensuring that our populations are able to gain the best possible access to high speed broadband.

It is clear that we can learn from each other and I welcome the opportunities this trade mission provides.

I know for example that the Netherlands is a world leader in Fibre-To-The-Home technology and I understand that the Australian delegation will have a chance to study Amsterdam’s city-wide fibre-optic network, CityNet.

I appreciate this opportunity to share our experiences with the development of broadband, which will be an important foundation of the emerging global knowledge society.

Thank you.