The Broadband Manifesto

It was an election issue in Australia last year, now the Telecommunications Users Association is attempting to make broadband a key issue the election will be fought on here.
The TUANZ manifesto released yesterday is only a short document, but it is worth a read. There are some good suggestions in there including:
- Form a "Digital Age" government agency on the Singaporean model to handle broadband issues, subsuming the role of the Ministry of Economic Development which is currently responsible for broadband infrastructure policy.
- A comprehensive Government engineering audit to see how much it will cost to get fibre-to-the-premises all over the country.
- Fast-tracking RMA application processes to get fibre infrastructure built out quickly.
- A comprehensive Government engineering audit to see how much it will cost to get fibre-to-the-premises all over the country.
- Sharing fibre-optic investment among central government, local government and the private sector.
- FTTP should be achieved nationally within 6-8 years. "Fibre must go to every home, business, farm and marae," says TUANZ.
- Make this new Digital Age agency responsible for ICT skills and addressing the ICT skills shortage.
TUANZ is reflecting the growing calls among consumers and the business community for a coherent, realistic but ambitious strategy for broadband infrastructure development, something that's so far been lacking from the Government.
Will this be an election issue? It damn well should be, but it is tricky to relate this sort of stuff to the average consumer.
In Australia, Kevin Rudd's Labor Party had already pledged to spend upwards of A$4 billion on fibre well before its election campaign got under way. People then had something to focus on and despite the plan receiving a hammering from critics, Labor stuck to its guns and broadband was recognised as an important issue by Aussie voters.
We'll only really get action on broadband infrastructure and the desperately needed shake-up in policy relating to our ICT industry when something happens to make the average voter interested in what is going on. Do you see the issue of improving our communications infrastructure as important as the other election favourites - taxes, health, crime and economic development?
Would you vote in the election based on a party's plans to upgrade the country's communications cables to fibre?