Topic Description: The National Broadband Network plans announced by the Australian government in early April have caused a lot of (virtual) ink to flow both in the APAC region and elsewhere. In scope, this is the largest public-financed FTTH project anywhere in the world with a projected A$43bn on the table to deploy fiber to the home infrastructure to 90% of premises (homes, schools and businesses). A lot of the commentary has been admirative, and in Australia most of the telecom industry has come out in favour of the deal (although clearly the questions on Telstra's positioning in the face of this paradigm shift remain open). Inevitably, the politicial opposition and a few other industry players (most notably AAPT) have opposed the decision and promised economic doom for the sector and for the Australian consumers. The Rudd government had to respond and did so in the form of a speech given this morning to the National Press Club by Senator Stephen Conroy, Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy. I strongly encourage you to read this speech. In essence, it's about vision in troubled times and how you can't always anticipate all the impacts of a policy decision as big as this one but you can make educated guesses that strongly suggest the benefits will outweigh the costs. The speech outlines just a number of areas in which the National Broadband Network will generate macro-economic benefits: * smart grids driving more efficient energy consumption and lowering consumer spending on energy * homeworking allowing a drastic lowering of carbon emissions and efficiency gains for businesses * connected healthcare systems allowing better patient care at lower costs and helping patients cope better with their ailments * in-home elderly care allowing for considerable savings in the face of the ageing population * e-education allowing more geographically egalitarian education to be delivered, both in-schools and to students and out of schools and to adults * smart infrastructure allowing for a better management of infrastructure deployment and maintenance (roads, water mains, buildings, etc.) * productivity and employment benefits There are a lot of references in the speech to external studies on each of these topics. I'll be tracking some of them down if they're public material, but since many readers often ask me for these kinds of references, you've got them there! I won't deny being a "believer" when it comes to the macro-economic benefits of FTTH. Until we have enough hindsight to actually run proper wide-scale studies, it will be hard to have definitive figures that prove the point. I do think however, that there is enough incidental material out there on the impacts to make the "leap of faith" and it's heartwarming (and, frankly, somewhat astounding!) to see the government of a country as big as Australia make that leap. I believe that the government has gotten one thing right about this (amongst other things) and that's looking at it in a very aligned and transverse way. For the benefits to be real and tangible, a lot of other things need to evolve to take into account the advent of a true broadband infrastructure. That's the beauty of a publicly financed deployment: the pressure is on the government to ensure that administrative services, education, healthcare and all other sectors of the economy align themselves to the possibilities. The risk of a uncoordinated private deployment is that it is only when the network covers a significant critical mass of citizens, that the government will realise the opportunity for public services and private businesses to take into account the new possibilities offered. Instead of anticipating the change, economic players will have to scramble to keep up with the changes and inefficiencies will inevitably arise from this. As a comparative example of how a transverse public thinking can allow the benefits of broadband to be reaped, there's a very interesting article in the Washington Post (Do Jobs Follow Broadband?) which illustrates this point at a municipal level: two nearby towns get FTTH, one benefits, one doesn't. The one that does has prepared for the arrival in terms of synergies, training workforce, etc. I'm not naïve though. I can see the angelism in Senator Conroy's speech. Part of it is politically motivated, part of it is designed to energise. The challenges ahead of the Rudd government on this topic are momentous, and the political opposition and the press will be in ambush at every turn to point out the inevitable snafus and slowing-downs that will hinder the progress of such a huge machinery. But the very fact that the Rudd government is willing to embrace the complexity of such a development shows that they have a holistic view of the stakes, and that alone is groundbreaking. There's a lesson in there for governments all around the world: the benefits from the infrastructure, no matter who builds it, have to be transverse. That means a number of things: * ensuring that the infrastructure is open on some level to third party providers (whether public or private) * ensuring that services can be delivered accross a patchwork of heterogeneous networks * ensuring that industries that can benefit from the infrastructure are aware of the possibilities and engage the network builders early on That alone is a coordination challenge for many governments. Time to get to work!