Obama telecommunications advisor keen on NBN detail
- 28 October, 2009 12:29
- Comments 10
The Obama administration's interest in the National Broadband Network (NBN) continues, with the US president's key telecommunications advisor meeting an Australian analyst earlier this month to discuss the $43 billion plan.
Buddecomme director and telecommuncations analyst, Paul Budde, met with former ICANN board member and Obama's special assistant for science, technology, and innovation policy, Susan Crawford, to discuss the Federal Government's NBN approach. The meeting took place in the second week in October.
"There is an enormous interest from the United States in what we are doing here," Budde told Computerworld. "Not that they are looking to copy us, not at all. But it is fascinating for them to see how things are developing and obviously how they can learn from it. They are now a strong believer in this trans-sector approach."
Budde has written several reports on telecommunications for the Obama administration and, along with other analysts and industry bodies, has also spent the last few years assisting communications minister, Senator Stephen Conroy — and the former minister, Helen Coonan — to develop Australia's digital economy strategy.
The strategy, released by Conroy in July, is partly based on using broadband infrastructure to boost other sectors of the economy such as healthcare, education and smart grids. It is this trans-sector approach which the US advisor and Budde discussed in the meeting.
"There needs to be a multiplier effect in the investment you make in telecoms — it should not just be limited to high-speed Internet," Budde said. "That is pretty new and in the US it is nearly communism, that sort of thinking. They are not used to that level of sharing and going away from free-market politics to a situation whereby you are looking at the national interest. In all my 30 years in the industry, this is the first time America is interested in listening to people like myself from outside.
"The interesting thing is the White House also has a trans-sector team, so under Obama they really have a team that looks at that multiplier effect."
The analyst also indicated the New Zealand and Dutch governments were actively investigating the NBN and that mutual cooperation between the four nations would continue.
The international interest in the NBN has been ramping up in recent months. Conroy is understood to have met several world leaders at the recent ITU Telecom World 2009 summit in Geneva during the first week of October. The minister also traveled through the UK and Singapore on his return trip and it is likely he met with respective officials to discuss the NBN, however a spokesperson for Conroy would not confirm the details.
It is also understood the company responsible for rolling out the network, NBN Co, has been approached by several international telcos, including US giant AT&T.
In other recent NBN news, the second stage of the rollout in Tasmania was announced, with the addition of seven locations across the state. The locations include Sorell, Deloraine, George Town, St Helens, Triabunna, Kingston Beach and South Hobart, adding to the existing locations Smithton, Scottsdale and Midway Point.
And Conroy set off a stormy debate when he blundered in tabling a January 2009-dated ACCC document, which was marked confidential, containing a valuation of just under $8 billion for Telstra's consumer access network, in parliament. Telstra has valued its own network at $33 billion.
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Comments
Anonymous
Your looking in the wrong place Obama....
Anonymous
Judging by your grammar, YOU'RE not educated enough to make any meaningful comment.
I would happily pay the $1953.58/person (based on Wikipedia's 2009 Australian population) up front, right now to get access to an FTTx connection. The people behind the roll out and planning of the NBN are not necessarily the same numskulls you see in parliament.
ThanksPaul_NowBuggerOff
I don't know who "Paul Budde" is, but as a resident of the United States, I will thank him to take his "advice" and packet forward it to his nether regions.
I like free markets. They work. Notice the rapidly increasing mobile broadband speeds?
Fiber, and physical wiring to the home? In this country we have property rights, free associations of individuals who create housing areas based on free market concepts, and a litany of other reasons that you’re UK / Aussie telecom experience would be rightly called what it is.
But then Paul must already know what some of us call his "concepts". He self confesses that his concepts would previously have been considered "almost communist".
If the shoe fits sir.
R Baillou
Go Obama! I think it's great and after the sudden death of plans for city wide broadband this could be another needed public option.
Anonymous
And once you have access, enjoy the massive cap you have to endure.
Charlie Root
Look to your own telcos! http://www.newnetworks.com/
Matt
I think the biggest gap that America and Australia need to close is the limited pipeline from Sydney to LA. With a higher speed network (satellite or under sea cable) and cheaper data capacity, monthly usage quotas could be raised or removed in Australia...
The proposed 100M/bit connection is going to be fairly useless if plans are capped at 60Gb... I'm already struggling to keep to my quota and I only have a 20Mbit connection (which I might add, am paying through the nose to have)
In terms of cost, the NBN providers are going to have their work cut out for them... Many Australians find it hard enough to justify spending more than $50 on ADSL as it is, let alone a super expensive fibre link. More effort needs to be put into providing content that is less accessible to ADSL other wise the average family user won't find the need to jump. This is an opportunity for the TV networks to start investigating TV over IP or other interactive services. Hulu is a great example of TV via the internet (in America) and there is no reason why it couldn't be rolled out on the NBN.
Eric Brooks
Free markets??? Give me a break. Have you looked around you and noticed the global economic collapse that is occurring specifically -because- of the inane past few decades of everyone drinking 'free market' mantra cool-aid?
Business booms when government subsidizes universal access to fundamental transport and communications.
Recall the railroad boom of the 1800s. The economic explosion that was triggered in the U.S. by the interstate highway system. Broadband fiber is no different.
Local, state and national Governments need to subsidize a massive, big bandwidth, and net neutrality anchored fiber roll-out, to every home and business. Such a move would help trigger a new worldwide economic boom that would do much to pull us out of the current global collapse.
Eric Brooks
Free markets??? Give me a break. Have you looked around you and noticed the global economic collapse that is occurring specifically -because- of the inane past few decades of everyone drinking 'free market' mantra cool-aid?
Business booms when government subsidizes universal access to fundamental transport and communications.
Recall the railroad boom of the 1800s. The economic explosion that was triggered in the U.S. by the interstate highway system. Broadband fiber is no different.
Local, state and national Governments need to subsidize a massive, big bandwidth, and net neutrality anchored fiber roll-out, to every home and business. Such a move would help trigger a new worldwide economic boom that would do much to pull us out of the current global collapse.
Jim
At best, Paul Budde could be called an advocate, more realistically, a deluded fool, but he has never analysed anything in his career. He is just lucky in Australia to have found someone more stupid than himself to listen to him. I suggest the USA does the same that the telecoms industry in Australia does, just ignore his pathetic attempts at self publicity.
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