Continuing Discussion on the Future of Australia’s NBN

On 31 July 2019, TelSoc (the Telecommunications Association, publisher of this Journal) held a forum on the future ownership of Australia’s National Broadband Network (NBN). Three papers from that forum are published in this issue. The NBN Futures Forum: Discussing the future ownership of Australia’s National Broadband Network is a summary of the forum itself, including the four speakers’ main points and the subsequent discussion. NBN Futures: The Option of Merging NBN Co with InfraCo, as a Benefit to the Digital Economy is an expansion of the speech given by Professor Peter Gerrand at the forum. Getting the NBN Infrastructure We Need is an account of Dr Jim Holmes’ argument for keeping NBN Co in public ownership.

These papers are a first contribution to the debate on the future of the NBN and NBN Co, the builder and operator of the network. As such, they have been made open access so that they are freely available to all interested readers. We commend them to you.

The debate on the future of the NBN will continue during the final stages of the network rollout and subsequently as the Australian government considers how best to leverage its investment in the network. This will be a significant public-policy issue in the early 2020s. Public discussion meanwhile can help to clarify the issues around the future of the NBN and, hopefully, build consensus among all stakeholders.

As a next step, TelSoc will be holding a second forum on Realising the User Potential of the NBN in Melbourne at lunchtime on Tuesday, 22 October 2019. Details can be found on the telsoc.org website. As in the first forum, there will be four speakers making brief opening remarks, followed by general discussion. We expect to publish outcomes from this forum in the next issue of the Journal.

The historical reprint in this issue continues the NBN theme by reproducing a paper from the Telecommunications Journal of Australia in 2013 entitled E-learning: Supplementary or disruptive? It considers the potentially disruptive effect of the NBN on online learning. Although it is only six years old, much has changed since then.

In This Issue

In this issue, in addition to the papers related to the NBN, there are several technical contributions.

S-MANAGE Protocol for Provisioning of IoT Applications on Demand proposes a layered architecture and a specific protocol for configuring and managing applications on IoT devices while hiding the complexity and diversity of those devices.

Sanctus: An Architecture for Trusted Products argues against the Balkanization of software and systems distribution and describes an architecture in which a trusted device or subsystem can be embedded in systems or products to provide cybersecurity and trust.

The Journal, Looking Forward

The Journal welcomes papers on telecommunications and the digital economy, including theory, public policy and case studies.

Technological change is a constant in telecommunications. The Journal is especially interested in papers on how new technologies – especially 5G – will affect Australian telecommunications consumers.

Regulation and competition are also continuing themes. We encourage papers on the topics of International Telecommunications Legislation and Regulations and International Mobile Cellular Regulation and Competition that reflect on where the global telecommunications market is now, how it got to where it is, and what is going to happen next.

Papers are invited on local and international topics in telecommunications and the digital economy, broadly conceived. The Editorial Advisory Board also values input from our readership, so please let us know what themes you would like to see in future issues.

All papers related to telecommunications and the digital economy are welcome and will be considered for publication after a double-blind peer-review process.

Leith H. Campbell