Abstract
Executive Summary
The financial crisis has led to a major rethink on the way that the various
political, social and economic systems operate. Instead of repairing broken
systems, new approaches are being developed that are better-suited to the
current environment.
Increasingly the market is recognising the importance of telecoms within a
range of social and economic applications. As a result telecoms investments
now play a key role in most economic stimulus packages. At the same time
Internet access and digital media depend on good telecoms infrastructure, and
this will drive developments and opportunities in the market.
For the next few years mobile will continue to be dominated by voice and SMS.
Data access will increase in importance but the current networks are still not
suitable for mass market mobile media. In 2010 infrastructure issues will be
paramount - issues such a fibre-based National Broadband Network and wireless
networks are the all-important foundation for the digital economy.
With government involvement it will be possible to use the telecommunications
networks for the national good. BuddeComm has been involved in the generation
of government policies around open networks, structural separation and
trans-sectoral developments on three continents. In the report we discuss some
of the high-level strategic developments occurring as a result of the economic
crisis.
At the core of new policy-making is trans-sector thinking - looking across
sectors to create synergy - and the Australian government is leading the world
in this. The report discusses in detail the opportunities within the ICT
industries to utilise new telecoms networks for e-health, e-education, smart
grids (managing renewables, saving energy), etc.
This way of thinking applies across infrastructure projects - looking at the
potential synergies between the building of roads, sewerage systems, water and
gas pipe networks as well as telecoms and electricity networks. This also ties
in with the initiatives the government has announced since the NBN.
And eventually this leads to the concept of smart communities, the development
of connected and sustainable communities based on intelligent infrastructure
such as broadband (FttH) and smart grids. But trans-sector policies and
strategies need to be developed before these smart communities can be built.
They can' t be built out of the silo structures that currently dominate our
thinking; they require a holistic approach, which includes environmental
issues such buildings that are self-sufficient in relation to energy,
community-based ‘exchanges' for renewable energy and e-cars, and the
delivery of e-health, e-education, e-government services in addition to
digital media and Internet services.
The report discusses and provides examples of some of the developments taking
place around the world towards building smart cities and communities.
Australia is taking a leadership role in these developments. The decision from
the government to invest $43 billion in a FttH NBN is a clear indication that
it believes broadband infrastructure is a collective good. With its
trans-sector multiplier effect it delivers massive social and economic
benefits. There is no other way - if you want to build a digital economy you
need FttH, and for that to work it can only be built by a utility. Early
indications are that Telstra is going to cooperate are very promising.
The new broadband plan offers unprecedented opportunities for Australia - not
just in relation to telecommunications, broadband and the Internet, but also
for a range of new applications, most of which we can' t even envisage as this
point in time. The report addresses the enormous opportunities that this
infrastructure, as a utility, has to offer. It also covers the essential
high-level issues that need to be addressed.
One critical point is that this needs to be perceived as the infrastructure
for the digital economy; to simply view it as an upgrade to ADSL broadband
would be a grave mistake. A section of the report includes comments from the
Digital Economy Industry Working Group and our International (Obama Team)
BigThink Strategies Group.
With so much emphasis being placed on advances in the fixed network it is easy
to overlook the enormous developments that are simultaneously taking place
around wireless technology. The mobile communications market in Australia has
been shaken up by the merger of the third and fourth largest mobile network
operators, Vodafone and Hutchison Australia, to form VHA. If VHA is successful
in the longer term it may challenge both Optus and Telstra in an attempt to
become the largest mobile service provider in Australia.
The extent to which Australia suffers an economic slowdown in 2010 will have a
significant impact on the growth of the mobile communications market.
Competition may intensify between mobile operators, resulting in lower mobile
call charges for customers. In mid-2009 Woolworths launched a major new mobile
virtual network providing low-cost prepaid services. Voice calls are
increasingly moving onto the mobile networks at the expense of the fixed-line
networks and mobile broadband has grown rapidly in Australia in 2009. These
trends are likely to continue into 2010 as mobile tariffs fall further and
certain customer segments reduce their use of fixed-line voice and data
services.
With these massive changes underway and as it becomes unshackled from the
operators' portals that have dominated it for a decade - all without having
made any significant inroads into the content use of mobile users - the mobile
media market is set to change forever.
The new capped data packages, fuelled by further competition, will see a total
revamp of this market. It will no longer be based on portals but on direct
services by content and services providers via open source phones and
mobile-friendly Internet-based services. The next step will be the arrival of
micro-payment services, like those being developed in countries such as Kenya,
Philippines and India. This will create a new e-payment system for the mobile
market, away from the hefty charges the carriers put on PSMS payment
facilities. However, there is a limit to the mobile networks' spectrum
capacity and we will have to wait for true IP-based wireless broadband to
become available before the operators can deliver fully on the promise of mass
market mobile broadband.
Last but not least, the social media are receiving widespread attention and
the events in Iran have propelled Twitter right to forefront. Social media
developments are fascinating and exciting; they show the great potential of
the new communication and information tools that are becoming available,
thanks to the Internet, Web 2.0, email and broadband infrastructure. However,
for these new social media tools to succeed they need to be totally integrated
into our daily communication. Current social media sites such as Facebook,
MySpace, LinkedIn, Plaxo, Twitter, YouTube, Wikipedia, Google and Second Life
are important incubators for these new services; they provide us with new
tools and allow us to experiment.
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