Technology gap widens
Australia is wittingly creating a technology divide that threatens to further disadvantage rural and remote areas. I refer to the selective roll-out of broadband technology that’s bypassing most small towns and farming areas.
Telstra controls the infrastructure that makes broadband technically possible. Any telecommunications company can establish its own infrastructure, but in both cases it isn’t economically viable in remote areas.
Imagine if our forefathers had taken the same pragmatic view of railways, electricity and the telegraph? Australia would never have developed into the homogenous nation that it was until recent years.
There are three major differences in attitude between today’s commercialism and yesterday’s nation building.
Politics: Australia’s population was more evenly spread before World War Two. It may not have made economic sense to service remote areas, but it was politically dangerous not to do so. Today our population is concentrated in cities along the eastern seaboard.
Vision: Our forefathers genuinely wanted to build a strong nation. Federation would never have happened if today’s leaders had been in power back in the 1890s. They wouldn’t have seen past their own self interest.
Privatisation: Infrastructure was historically a government responsibility. Today’s governments contract out everything they possibly can, eg prisons, utilities, etc. It’s a wonder the schools and hospitals haven’t been privatised.
I complained in public recently about Telstra failing to install ADSL capability at small exchanges. A Telstra employee rang me and commented the company has no universal service obligation when it comes to broadband.
Exactly. That’s the problem. The Federal Government, as the major shareholder and the people’s custodian of those shares, should insist on new technology being rolled out equally across the country.
The current situation will simply increase the divide between country and city, between small towns and big towns.
I’ve heard that dynamic visionary (not) leader, John Anderson, say previously in response to similar issues that “we choose to live where we live”. In other words, country people don’t deserve better because we’ve made a lifestyle choice.
That attitude condemns to disadvantage the people who can’t afford to leave the bush or who can’t leave for family reasons. It condemns small towns to a slow decay. It undermines the federation dream to build a strong nation from coast to coast.
In the case of broadband it’s also unfair.
I moved to Porepunkah knowing there wouldn’t be trams running past my front door. I didn’t know that I would be denied future access to vital technology.
When the Internet became widely available in Australia several years ago I was one of many people who saw its potential to bridge the divide between city and country.
It didn’t matter where you lived; you could still communicate with the world, sell your products globally and compete equally.
Today it’s only partly true. Broadband is the next generation of Internet. Fast downloads are expected, rather than desired.
The ABC’s 7.30 Report addressed these issues recently and commentators reached the same conclusion I’m reaching: Australia will be divided into a country of “haves” and “have-nots” when it comes to technology. The have-nots will be in rural and remote areas.
A solution is for the Federal Government to order Telstra to cross-subsidise the roll-out of ADSL or satellite alternatives.
Postage services are cross-subsidised. It costs the same to send a letter from Perth to Cairns as it does to send one across the road.
Good communications and proper access to them are essential for a nation’s well-being. I only hope enough people share this view and help create the necessary political pressure to change how governments think.
I'm a 41-year-old father of four working as a newspaper editor at Mount Gambier in South Australia.
