Community-Owned Wireless Broadband in Australia?

Steven Haigh asks: "I'm the president of a community based group on trying to establish a community owned and operated wireless broadband network in Melbourne, Australia. The Australian Government have started an inquiry into wireless broadband. As can be expected, community groups like ours are not even mentioned in these inquiries which seems to be tailored to big businesses and telcos. As submissions are now being accepted, what do we include in our submission?" Looks like someone is trying to follow in the footsteps of the UK, here. Is anyone looking to do similar here in the US? It would be interesting to note how many communities worldwide are interested in implementing broadband wireless services, especially since commercial interest in the "last mile" market have dwindled, recently.

What to put in

[cthugha]

As the DCA page linked to points out, the inquiry will be given specific terms of reference to address. Your submission should therefore address what points you think are relevant to those terms of reference. It seems the most relevant to you would be:

* The potential for wireless broadband technologies to provide a 'last mile' broadband solution, particularly in rural and regional areas, and to encourage the development and use of broadband content applications; and

* The effect of the telecommunications regulatory regime, including spectrum regulation, on the development and use of wireless broadband technologies, in particular the Radiocommunications Act (1992) the Telecommunications Act (1997), and Parts XIB and XIC of the Trade Practices Act.

Since there will probably be expert groups and witnesses covering the technological aspects covered in the terms of reference, I suggest you stick to those two (plus any other policy-related terms I haven't mentioned). The economics of bandwidth distribution and the importance of not concentrating supply in a few major players are also important points.

Not having done this before myself, I would suggest you try and find any info about drafting submissions, appearing as a witness, procedure, etc, on the Parliamentary website [aph.gov.au]. You may also wish to talk to a lawyer about any legal issues that you may wish to address (plus, a good lawyer is excellent at drafting arguments in the best way possible). Try and get in touch with various advocacy groups which may be interested and have done this sort of thing before in a related area, like EFA [efa.org.au].

Good luck, it's in everybody's interests that wireless broadband be as widely available as possible, IMO, so I wish you all the best.

air.net.au

[neonman]

is a nice little wireless freenet in several australian cities/areas.