A leading business application service provider has warned that Australia needs to aggregate its websites if it hopes to be able to keep its broadband infrastructure working to expectations.Building an online infrastructure that groups together content – such as MySpace with music and YouTube for video – is paramount for the new government if it hopes to compete in the worldwide internet economy, says the provider.

Hostworks, an Australian service provider for large corporations such as Network Ten, Seek and Ticketek, says that while the majority of internet content accessed by Australians comes from overseas, we need to start building a local structure that better manages websites and content.

“The critical issue is not how fast [broadband] goes into people’s houses: It is how fast it runs across the country and the speed of backbone data links for commercial service providers like Hostworks,” said Hostworks managing director, Marty Gauvin.

“This year, I spent three months trying to get a 10-gigabit data link from either Telstra or Optus. They’d say ‘sure you can have it’, but when I asked for a price, they’d say, ‘it’s not quite ready yet’.

“As a nation, we need to think about broadband more comprehensively than just the end points. If the incoming Government succeeds in fulfilling its broadband vision, it will create a massive online gridlock.”

According to Gauvin, we don’t have a backbone locally to handle the capacity of broadband content demand in the future.
Gauvin’s warning follows a recent OECD report which shows that Australia’s broadband performance is improving – and Australia is rated fourth among developed countries in per capita broadband take-up at June 2007.

“If Australia wants to succeed internationally as the online economy evolves, we need to start thinking much more innovatively. As well as building the infrastructure to support the online population we want, we need strategies to aggregate our online content to make it much more accessible and compelling,” said Gauvin.

“The new government has an opportunity here to demonstrate real leadership.

“On the other hand, we are at the balance point: Australia’s ability to produce a content industry that is internationally effective is quite good at the moment. That said, this potential is being seriously hampered because we can’t get the bytes out there fast enough.”