Australian Computer Society

Canberra Local Access Study Seminar

Thursday, 27 February 1997

Members' Dining Room, Old Parliament House

Report by Tom Worthington, President, Australian Computer Society, 27 February 1997 (Postscript 2 March 1997)

The Seminar was hosted by the Office of Government Information Technology (OGIT) and I was invited to attend for the ACS.

Agenda:

Introduction
OGIT's Telecommunications Initiatives
Wide Area Network Projects
ACTEW's Plan for Fibre Optic Network
Local Access Study
Discussion
Summary

From OGIT's invitation:

"The Office of Government Information Technology (OGIT) has the responsibility to increase functionality and contain costs of Commonwealth Government's telecommunications networks. An area of significant cost is the "last mile", ie. the access from an Agency's buildings to the public networks and inter-building communications within the same campus/business district. After July 1997, large telecommunications users (such as the Commonwealth) will be able to plan cost-effective local access infrastructure for their "Immediate Circle" through a range of telecommunications Carriers."

"A Study into the competitive provisioning of Local Access in Canberra has been initiated by this Office with the objective to gather sufficient information to determine the viability of obtaining a greater choice of high speed local access services for the Commonwealth Government offices in the ACT. Canberra has been chosen as a focus for this study as it represents the hub of most Government networks."

OGIT contact is Mr Yogesh Kashyap (E-Mail: yogesh.kashyap@ogit.gov.au) and are available on their home page at http://www.ogit.gov.au/clas.html.

Some notes on the presentation:

1. Introduction - Yogesh Kashap

Yogesh gave an introduction to the seminar.

2. OGIT's Telecommunications Initiatives - Anthony Goonan

Anthony gave an overview of OGIT's efforts to rationalise Commonwealth Government communications and reduce costs.

3. Wide Area Network Projects - John Wilson

John talked about lessons from the USA. The Commonwealth doesn't want to build its own telecommunications company, but get maximum benefit from aggregation. Types of communications are changing and there is a massive growth in the Internet. Security is a major issue. A Commonwealth network which can combine services from different carriers is envisaged.

5. Canberra Local Access Study - Yogesh Kashap & Dominic Quai

A "Questionnaire on Telecommunications Requirements" was handed out on floppy disk for Commonwealth agencies to fill in by 14 March. The purpose is to see what network requirements agencies have in Canberra and if they can be co-ordinated at a lower cost (particularly for smaller agencies). This will be facilitated by expected deregulation of telecommunications. Rough calculations show that the set-up cost would be covered by the savings in telecommunications charges in the first year. There is a steering group of agencies, chaired by OGIT (I stood in for the regular Defence representative on the group for a few weeks in January).

4. ACTEW's Plan for Fibre Optic Network - Joe Ceccato & Bill Kitto

Joe gave an overview of the "TRANSACT" project ( http://www.actew.com.au/transact.htm). This is to look at the business opportunities for ACTEW to build a broad band network for the ACT (for those not from Canberra, ACTEW is an ACT Government owned corporation which supplies water and electricity). ACTEW would provide the cabling via existing overhead electricity poles in backyards (also used for telephone cables). The network would be available to Pay TV and telecommunications companies. Bill Kitto gave a very good overview of the issues with designing a broad band network to the home. ACTEW would run a high bandwidth optical fibre ring around Canberra. Businesses would be connected directly by fibre. The problem comes with what is an affordable, workable connection technology to homes.

6. Discussion

7. Summary

Some Comments

The ACS proposed Telecommunications Plan for the ACT in 1992, not just for federal government, but for commerce and the community (Reference 1). The ACT Government didn't adopt this recommendation and instead embarked on an project, since abandoned, with Telstra to lay fibre optic cable in North Canberra. The Federal Government did some planning work (Reference 2) following representations from the ACS, but the plans do not appear to have been implemented.

The ACTEW proposal for broad band cabling in Canberra and OGIT's plans appear better formulated than previous efforts. However, this is not a substitute for flexible long term plans by the ACT Government, which can accommodate rapid technological change.

As an example of rapid technological change last year I visited Andy Hopper, Vice President Research Olivetti, at the Olivetti & Oracle Research Laboratory in Cambridge UK and had a demonstration of wireless ATM at 25mbps (Reference 3). This may render obsolete broad band cabling within two years.

Postscript 2 March 1997

Roger Clarke pointed out 1 March that AT&T have announced a fixed wireless system that can initially provide a household with two phone lines and the capability for high-speed Internet access at 128 kilobits per second.

This is relatively conservative engineering and not unexpected. As I have suggested previously, wireless technology may render the Telstra and Optus Pay TV cabling obsolete before installation is complete. AT&T's technology isn't fast enough for pay TV, but that is a legacy application anyway, the "killer" application for telecommunications is the Internet. AT&T's technology is fast enough for the Internet and radio-with-pictures applications, while also providing a plain old telephone service as well. I expect that we will see gadgets like this in Australia as soon as deregulation begins.

References:

Discussion Paper on Telecommunications in the Draft ACT Territory Plan, Australian Computer Society, 19 March 1992 http://www.tomw.net.au/twnpln2.html
ACT Telecommunications Plan, Draft Amendment of the National Capital Plan, Amendment No. 18, National Capital Planning Authority, 1995 http://www.tomw.net.au/twnpln.html
"Windsor and Cambridge visit report", Tom Worthington, ACS, 18 November 1996 http://www.acs.org.au/president/1996/epubs/uk.htm