Abstract

This historic first issue of the Australian Journal of Telecommunications and the Digital Economy is dedicated to Peter Darling, one of its founding editors, who passed away on 2 October 2013. Peter was a prodigious contributor to the former Telecommunications Journal of Australia (TJA). He was famous for his gifts in writing accessible tutorial articles on quite complex new developments in telecommunications technology and regulation. This short commemorative article references nine papers that Peter authored in TJA from 2002 to 2013, and an extended interview he gave TJA's Liz Fell in the year 2000.

Peter DarlingPeter Darling's death on 2 October 2013 from heart failure was a great shock to his many friends in the worldwide telecommunications industry.  Coming so close to publication of the first edition of this new Journal, for which Peter was a founding member of the Editorial Board, there has not been time yet to prepare an adequate obituary. 

A commemorative event to celebrate Peter's life and career will be held in Melbourne on Monday 25 November.

Much of Peter's earlier career, up until May 2000, was captured by Liz Fell in an interview she published in the Telecommunications Journal of Australia (TJA) in that year (Fell 2000).  

In the meantime the Editorial Board has decided that this first issue of the Australian Journal of Telecommunications and the Digital Economy (ajTDE) will be dedicated to Peter, in appreciation of his distinguished record of contribution to the former TJA as a prolific author, reviewer and editor. He was particularly gifted as a writer of tutorial articles on often quite complex new developments in telecommunications technologies and regulatory frameworks – just part of his range of contributions to Australian and world telecommunications, especially in the development of the technical standards necessary to underpin new telecommunications services.    

A list of Peter Darling's publications on telecommunications

 The following bibliography may be incomplete, but it includes the many articles he authored between year 2000 and his untimely death in 2013.

A. Publications in TJA online 

Darling, Peter. 2012. 'Universal telecommunications service for the 21st century'. Telecommunications Journal of Australia 62 (2): 23.1-23.9. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7790/tja.v62i2.317 

Darling, Peter. 2011. 'Telephony and the NBN'. Telecommunications Journal of Australia 61 (2): 17.1-17.11. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7790/tja.v61i2.210 

Darling, Peter. 2010. 'Building the National Broadband Network'. Telecommunications Journal of Australia. 60 (3): pp. 42.1 to 42.12. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.2104/tja10042

Darling, Peter. 2010. 'All change for broadband'. Telecommunications Journal of Australia. 60 (1): pp. 3.1 to 3.11. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.2104/tja10003

Darling, Peter. 2007. 'Towards a broadband policy'. Telecommunications Journal of Australia 57 (2/3): 30.1-30.24. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.2104/tja07030

B. Publications in TJA print editions

Darling, Peter. 2006. 'Telstra's Next Generation Network'. Telecommunications Journal of Australia. 56 (1), Autumn 2006: pp. 23-32.

Darling, Peter. 2005. 'The 21st century CAN [Customer Access Network]'. Telecommunications Journal of Australia. 55 (2), Winter 2005: pp. 3-14.

Darling, Peter. 2004. 'The marriage of telephony and the Internet'. Telecommunications Journal of Australia. 54 (1), Autumn 2004: pp. 3-17.

C. Editorials

Darling, Peter. 2007. 'New Phone Zones''. Telecommunications Journal of Australia. 57 (1), Autumn 2007: pp. 45-47.

Darling, Peter. 2002. 'Is regulation working'. Telecommunications Journal of Australia. 52 (2), Winter 2002: p. 2.

D. Interview

Fell, Liz. 2000. 'Interview with Peter Darling. Telecommunications Journal of Australia. 50 (4), Summer 2000: pp. 67-76.