Network Insight Institute

Broadband for what? Driving demand

This publication contains the full record of our seminar held in Sydney on 18 September 2001.

The purpose of the seminar was to share ideas and information about demand drivers for broadband in Australia, and how to manage and deal with a possible glut of capacity over the next few years; including investment issues.

• Where are the technical and price bottlenecks between the hungry end user and the bulging fibre backbones? In the customer access networks? In the national networks? In the international links? Or in the Australian business psyche?
• How can broadband capacity be packaged, traded and sold, especially in a glut? Do we need to use new commercial models? And how safe is it to invest?
• How do we compare, in strategies and productivity, with world leaders such as Korea, Singapore, and even the United States, and what can we learn from overseas experience?
• Too much capacity? Microsoft, Sun, Gartner, are saying we urgently need more, and companies such as Nextgen, Nava Networks and Amcom are building it.
• But what about the under-used HFC networks of Optus and Telstra, which cost in excess of $2 billion to build? What are the strategies to use these assets? Does the government need to intervene somehow, or promote broadband for all?
• What services and applications will build the broadband market: Video, music, movies, multimedia Internet, interactive TV, videoconferencing, data, personal communication?

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