the net in Australia

This page provides an overview of the internet in Australia.

It covers -

• at a glance - basic characterisation
• the infrastructure
• the age of wizards
• into the wider community
• commercialisation
• normalisation
• studies

There is a separate 21 page profile on telecommunications in Australia and New Zealand, including discussion of the ISP and ICH sectors, infrastructure and regulation.

The profile supplements discussion in the Networks & GII guide and the Communications Revolutions profile elsewhere on this site.

     at a glance

The history of the internet in Australia closely resembles that in Canada and other Western countries, characterised by

• initial adoption by academic/research institutions (with management on a largely ad hoc basis by university network administrators)
• successive uptake by individual enthusiasts, 'new economy' enterprises, large public/private sector entities and then by most organisations
• increasing normalisation of the online population, inhibited by various digital divides but now encompassing around two thirds of households in Australia and New Zealand
• the emergence of government and nongovernment regulatory and network management frameworks, including internet-related communications legislation, case law on matters such as defamation and establishment of mechanisms such as auDA
• the rise and fall of 'internet exceptionalism', including journalistic treatment of a "unique" communications phenomenon, rhetoric about "the spirit of the net" (or conversely about pervasive cyberdangers) and the emergence-decay of internet-specific government agencies such as NOIE

That trajectory is similar to Australasian adoption of television, radio and telephony.

     the infrastructure

The changing shape of the telecommunications infrastructure and service provision in Australia (and New Zealand) is discussed here.

Both countries began the 1980s with an advanced national landline-based infrastructure in public ownership, with satellite and cable links overseas, rising consumer demand and a few private networks (primarily involving academic institutions and major enterprises).

Full/part privatisation in Australia and New Zealand was contentious. It was accompanied - with varying success - by competition in mobile telephony and POTS. It was also accompanied by the rollout of alternative infrastructure for major enterprises (particularly along the Brisbane-Melbourne and Wellington-Auckland spines) and - less successfully - to favoured consumers in major metropolitan centres. 2002 saw major operators enjoying a comfortable duopoly, tacit abandonment of plans for extensive rollout of broadband across suburban and regional Australia, and rebuilding of special-purpose high-capacity academic networks in an echo of the 1970s.

     the age of wizards

Networking in Australia during the 1970s reflected overseas practice, with proprietary virtual private networks for major government and business organisations (primarily through leased lines from Telecom or Telecom New Zealand) and smallscale file exchange by universities such as the dialup modem-based Australian Computer Science network (ACSnet) which used the X.25-based CSIROnet operated by national research organisation CSIRO but subsequently sold. A few institutions were in sporadic contact with ARPANET via electronic mail gateways and the Overseas Telecommunications Commission (OTC).

The early 1980s saw establishment of a permanent Australian university mail link to ARPANET. The dot-au ccTLD was delegated by Jon Postel to Melbourne University's Robert Elz in 1984. By 1986 only a handful of domains had been established and there were only a few hundred net-connected machines in Australia.

Adoption of the net at that time was essentially restricted to information technology specialists within Australian research institutions (eg CSIRO and the major universities). That uptake coincided with various - often expensive and unsuccessful - attempts to establish large-scale government, academic, commercial EDI and library networks. They included the abortive South Pacific Education & Research Network initiative by the Australian Vice-Chancellor's Committee (a national academic voice, fax and data network proposed by the Carrs Report).

In June 1989 Australia gained a permanent internet connection between the University of Melbourne and the US, with permanent links to CSIRO and major universities across Australia later that year as the basis of the Australian Academic Research Network (AARNet).

The division of responsibilities among the wizards club was reflected in establishment of 2LDs such as csiro.au, otc.au, the X.400 mail service telememo.au and net.au described here. Network administration was left to engineering specialists within CSIRO, the universities and the national telco. In 1990 Elz delegated some responsibility to Sydney University's Geoff Huston (ie 'edu' 2LD and 'gov' 2LD).

     into the wider community

Uptake of the net in Australia began to accelerate immediately before invention of the web, with enthusiasts and a range of organisations in the public and private sectors setting up newsgroups, swapping files and sending person-to-person mail. That was reflected in the growth of domain registrations. Registration was still undertaken by volunteers, rules were informal and proponents of alternative root schemes gained attention later perceived as undeserved.

A range of internet service providers emerged from 1989 onwards. Initially most had a small geographical coverage (eg within one city) and many operated on a noncommercial basis, eg the Australian Public Access Network Association (APANA).

In September 1993 Huston "on behalf of the Australian network community" requested over a million addresses from IANA. The expectation was that would facilitate establishment of a national registry and reduce delays in allocations from the US. The request underpinned establishment of the Asia-Pacific Network Information Centre (APNIC) in Brisbane as a regional NIC.

     commercialisation

Adoption of the net by businesses and other organisations took off after release of web browsers and publicity about developments in the US, growing in tandem with the emergence of the Australian ISP industry. By late 1994 "non-AARNet users" accounted for over 20% of traffic on the academic network and were growing rapidly, posing cost and regulatory challenges for the AARNet administrators.

The Australian Vice-Chancellors Committee (AVCC) accordingly transferred AARNet's commercial customers and the management of its interstate/national links to Telstra. (AARNet2 was established in mid-1997 as a national private ATM-based network linking reseatrch bodies and is currently being replaced by a higher-performance GrangeNet)

Local operator connect.com.au (subsequently absorbed by Telecom NZ) has claims to be the first true ISP from May 1994 onwards, followed by major players such as Telstra, Ozemail and Optus. By the late 1990s Australia had around 650 ISPS (many transient, most with only a few hundred subscribers).

Increasing registration numbers - and expectations about standards, rules and accountability - were reflected in changes from voluntary to more formal domain service delivery. In 1996 Elz delegated responsibility for the 'com' 2LD to a commercial unit of Melbourne University, subsequently floated as Melbourne IT. That entity had a VeriSign-style monopoly regarding registration of the most popular 2LD in the dot-au space and faced similar criticism.

Movement from rule-setting and action by a small number of volunteers and technical specialists - often operating on a handshake basis and not readily identified by people outside the 'club' - was evident in increasing involvement by government and advocacy groups. The federal government established the National Office for the Information Economy (NOIE) and Office of Government Online (OGO) within what became the Department of Communications, Information Technology & the Arts (DCITA) - the 'content & carriage' ministry.

That development reflected overseas models, such as the US National Information Infrastructure Taskforce and UK e-Envoy, and was associated with release of a range of reports and discussion papers with a strong flavour of internet exceptionalism.

In the nongovernment sphere a handful of enthusiasts established ISOC-AU as the local chapter of the Internet Society, in contrast to New Zealand where the then Internet Society of New Zealand (ISOCNZ) was unaffiliated. And business interests coalesced around the Internet Industry Association (IIA) and narrower Australian Interactive Multimedia Industry Association (AIMIA).

     normalisation

Government had been somewhat slow to grapple with the net, arguably because it was seen as a private network under the control of academic administrators, abuses hadn't generated substantial case law and online activity had not posed major commercial concerns.

That changed over the course of the 1990s, with

• characterisation of the net as a key part of the national and global information infrastructure (GII)
• turf wars between government agencies, initiatives such as Networking the Nation (often criticised as lacking substance) and
• representations by business or other advocacy groups about a range of governance concerns that included trademarks, taxation, security and censorship.

That change was reflected in state/territory and federal legislation, notably relating to electronic commerce (eg the federal Electronic Transactions Act) and content regulation. It was also reflected in support for more formal management of the dot-au space.

The establishment during 1997 of the nongovernment Australian Domain Name Administration (ADNA) proved abortive and a dot-AU Working Group under Commonwealth auspices became bogged down. NOIE agreed to facilitate creation of a new Australian internet self-regulatory regime, with transfer of authority from Robert Elz to a new entity.

1999 saw establishment of auDA, a nongovernment body responsible for domain registration administration as part of the federal government's co-regulatory regime. Its operation was underpinned by the federal Telecommunications Legislation Amendment Act 2000 and the 2000 letter from NOIE's CEO to ICANN on Principles for the Delegation & Administration of Country Code Top Level Domains, the major international statement on government responsibility for ccTLDs. auDA formally assumed responsibility for the dot-au space from Elz and other volunteers.

As we've discussed in the separate profile on auDA, that organisation subsequently introduced competition in the provision of dot-au domain services and developed a coherent set of policies through a public consultation process (including working parties which included a Caslon representative).

There was similar activity in New Zealand.

     studies

There is no detailed and wideranging history of the net in Australia or of phenomena such as the dot com bubble.

Most publications, online and otherwise, have had a very narrow focus - either offering background for government and commercial initiatives (eg the introductions in a range of government reports about electronic commerce and content regulation) or written for a small audience and celebrating the achievements of particular individuals/organisations.

Points of entry to the literature include Virtual Nation: The Internet In Australia (Sydney: UNSW Press 2005) edited by Gerard Goggin and Trevor Barr's Newmedia.com.au: The Changing Face of Australia's Media and Communications (St Leonards: Allen & Unwin 2000). Other works are highlighted here.

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