THERE’S a lot of chatter at the moment about our national broadband network. Sadly, what should be a debate about the most appropriate technology and how we build a future-proofed service for the whole country has been kidnapped by ideologues looking at things from the point of view of their personal politics.

Seven years into the project there are still those who want to revisit the government enterprise verses ‘leave it to the market’ debate. We know from history that the best way to ensure ubiquitous delivery of telecommunications across our wide brown land is through a cross-subsidised financial model. The only reason why we’ve always had access to a basic telephone is because the old government owned Telecom was required to provide this. In fact these days, post privatisation, the telco industry and the Government jointly pay Telstra millions of dollars a year to fund a Universal Service Obligation so that it continues.

When it comes to the NBN, people living in rural, regional and remote Australia have become collateral damage. In order to reduce costs more premises are to be provided with satellite or fixed wireless connections and correspondingly fewer a faster fixed line service.

Internet access is not just about people keeping in contact with one another online through social media or watching television. Children struggling to complete distance education with limited download speeds, restricted data allowances and frequent service disruptions are all par for the course for people living outside the major population centres. Driving hours at a time for medical appointments could be avoided through videoconferencing and remote diagnostic systems, provided via high speed broadband.

The NBN is our biggest single nation building infrastructure project since the construction of the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme. Whereas the ‘Snowy’ was primarily of benefit to people in NSW and Victoria, providing universal Internet access will dramatically improve the lives of all Australians.

The market-driven approach ignores the broader returns on investment to the economy and the social fabric of Australia, through greater productivity, better education and health outcomes, and the increased viability of non-metropolitan areas.

However, it is not just about making the technology available. 2016 is the National Year of Digital Inclusion – a project designed to ensure that people have the skills to use the Internet.

Increasingly, government services are being moved online. So too, those provided in the private sector. For everyone living in the bush this could be a real boon, eliminating the need to head into town to fill out forms, pay money and so forth. However, online service delivery could become a nightmare for the digitally disadvantaged.

