The great Australian digital divide Tuesday, 16 February 2016

News article written by Corbett Communications. The statements made or opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of Engineers Australia.

Vodafone Australia's CEO Inaki Berroeta says there is $25 billion's worth of untapped digital business in regional areas of Australia, calling on the government to put the 'digital divide' on the agenda. Recent research from PricewaterhouseCoopers also reveals there’s $49.2 billion to be had over 10 years in untapped digital business in Australia, 53% of this figure is in areas outside Australia’s inner metropolitan areas.

Speaking at the recent Digital Transformation in Agriculture Breakfast at Parliament House, Berroeta said there's money to be had in them there hills, or across Australia's vast distances at least.

“Australian agriculture will never reach its potential to deliver innovation, jobs and growth for regional communities without telecommunications reform to deliver more competition and more reliable telecommunications services to regional Australia,” he said.

“Agriculture is one of the areas where Machine to Machine (M2M) technology can make the biggest differences, but changes are needed to ensure farmers don’t miss out on the opportunity to take advantage of advances in technology.

“M2M can enable farmers to work smarter and faster, such as to remotely monitor and adjust soil moisture levels, or receive live updates from the paddock on their tablets.“

Regional Australia has been on the wrong end of the stick (not the selfie) for quite some time when it comes to unreliable internet access and mobile phone black spots. And now there is an emerging new threat to connectivity with people installing cellular data repeaters trying to improve service but creating interference as they do not comply with Australian specifications. Telstra offers a repeater unit for rural customers for $900 and if an external antenna is required, then that figure is doubled. This is compared to repeater devices bought online for about $50.

A thorn in Berroeta's side is the universal services obligation (USO) agreement which he wants to see changed. In the agreement, the government pays Telstra more than $300 million each year to maintain payphones and a copper network in regional areas.

“The USO is a roadblock to effective competition in regional areas, which means customers are paying more than they should. In fact, the Centre for International Economics found the price premium paid by Australians for telecommunication services is $3.1 billion each year,” Vodafone said.

Berroeta told Business Insider the funding which is nearly $300 million annually is being spent on an outdated network, not only for maintenance but sometimes to increase the fixed voice network. But only $110 million is spent on the blackspot program and Berroeta emphasised there could be “four blackspot programs rather than one and that is a lot more important”.

Image: Inaki Berroeta at the Trans-Tasman Business Circle meeting via YouTube.