Thursday, July 28, 2011

Regional Telecommunications Review

Senator Conroy has announced the membership of the new Regional Telecommunications Independent Review Committee.

The committee is due to report in March 2012.

The committee has legislated terms of reference to report on the adequacy of services of significance in regional areas. They have been also tasked to report on "initiatives that will enable regional communities to participate in, and realise the opportunities of, the digital economy".

Quite disappointingly the ever eager Department has refreshed the RTIRC website - listing the new committee and scrubbing it of the last report and the government response to it. One would think that the RTIRC site could have its own archive for each of the previous reviews containing any discussion papers submissions and transcripts together with the reports and government responses.

Hopefully this will be rectified. In the meantime I have created a repository of the reports and Government responses on the DigEcon Research website.


Novae Meridianae Demetae Dexter delenda est

2 comments:

Jack Archer said...

Hi David,

I came across your blog through an IT News article the other week and have been enjoying your posts.

I am interested in your thoughts on the review and what it can achieve.

I have done some work recently on the implications of faster broadband for rural industries from a productivity perspective.

Not a lot has been done in this area and while the private sector is innovating away at the micro-level, the digital economy, rural industry R&D and regional Australia policy agendas don't seem to be meeting up in any meaningful way.

Given the NBN is coming on stream in rural areas first there seems to me to be a lot of potential in this area for rural and regional industries.

What are your thoughts?

Jack Archer

Jack Archer said...

The report mentioned in my previous comment can be accessed at:
https://rirdc.infoservices.com.au/items/11-038