BuddeBlog

End-to-end connectivity for national NGNs

Essential for health, education and energy services

In investigating and discussing FttH applications such as e-health, e-learning, e-government and smart grids it becomes increasingly clear that to provide a universal service for these applications an independent end-to-end infrastructure access regime is required by the authorities if they are to provide their services more efficiently and effectively.

There is general agreement on the necessity for reining in the costs of healthcare, aged care and education, while at the same time improving their quality. E-services are absolutely essential. The same applies to energy services. Nobody disputes the fact that we need to be more efficient and effective - and smart grids are a crucial element in this.

Governments need to be able to provide these services to all their citizens, regardless of whether they have an Internet or telephone subscription with the telcos.

In order for organisations to be able to use the national broadband infrastructure successfully it needs to be made available on an incremental cost basis. It cannot be priced according to vertically-integrated network/service structures. The rate of return on infrastructure investments required for vertically-integrated telecoms is double that of the ROI required by utilities-based infrastructure. Governments will not be able to afford to deliver these services based on the ROI required by vertically-integrated telecoms companies.

The solution will involve changes to telecommunications and energy legislation so that existing infrastructure can be used for these services. It would make no sense, and it would be far too costly, to overbuild existing national telecoms networks to avoid expensive telecoms charges.

Whole-of-government approach is needed

It is essential that the various government departments - Environment, Energy, Health and Education work together with government departments in charge of infrastructure policies such as communications and energy. Without the input of the users of these national services the traditional infrastructure departments will continue to develop policies along the lines they have done so for the last 50 years.

At the same time broad industry groups (telecoms, IT, utilities, media etc) have to come-up with converged solutions.

Issues such as e-health and e-learning have been discussed many times in the past. There are a significant number of underutilised national assets in the hands of railways, electricity authorities and other state and local government authorities.

A proper inventory of national infrastructure assets is required if we want to establish an efficient and economic viable national broadband structure for these services.

Regulatory frameworks are failing

The regulatory frameworks governing infrastructure in most countries are actually working against an effective and efficient use of the assets.

For that reason there is a significant degree of paranoia about having someone else’s services on your cable, duct or right-of-way! The individual departments in any state, provincial or federal body are often worse than the incumbents and the utilities and they are difficult to shift, as they hide behind regulations, scare tactics and ignorance.

In most cases there is also an unholy alliance between the electrical engineers protecting their patch and the electronics engineers fearful of commercial entities who may beat them in negotiations or technology. As there is no commercial driver for these groups, they lie low and wait for it all to pass over. Meanwhile thousands of kilometres of fibre are languishing and governments neither recognises its value nor has any will to reap the benefits.

National benefits are astounding

The community benefits that could ensue from utilising these assets would be astounding. E-health, aged care, telemedicine, e-local government and e-learning services could be provided along these routes.

E-health can save each country tens if not hundreds of billions of dollars over the next ten years. Energy savings of 25% can be achieved by smart grids. Patients and older people can be monitored by video nurses, linked to video-based community support networks.

Regulatory changes to telecoms and energy laws could use underutilised infrastructure for the delivery of these services. But, perhaps more importantly, regulatory changes to telecoms and energy laws could encourage a proactive regime by these asset-owners to use their networks for the new services, rather than the current closed network approach taken by these organisations.

Failure to implement national infrastructure policies forces government authorities to provide the services over expensive vertically-integrated networks, at great cost to the taxpayer.

Conclusions

Why can’t we come up with a clever approach to utilising and managing these valuable national assets? There is very little commercial value in overbuilding national infrastructure, either commercially or funded by government. This results in too many underutilised assets and too much wastage. There is a clear need for our government leaders to bridge the gaps.

Here are the steps that we should take to address the issue:

Understand and appreciate the status of the opportunity we have in relation to e-health, e-learning, smart grids and fibre-based broadband networks;
Have the political will across the Departments of Communications, Energy, Healthcare, Education and Energy to reap these benefits;
Regulate to clear the way to make it happen;
Create incentives to make it happen;
Provide support and training to make asset-holders less fearful, more confident.

With global discussions taking place regarding the development of next generation telecommunications networks we have a unique opportunity in the energy and telecoms market to make the regulatory changes to achieve all this. Interestingly, it is most probable that if the right regulations are put in place most infrastructure developments could be self-funding. To start moving in the right direction it is far more important to get the right leadership from governments, rather than them just throwing money at the problem.

Paul Budde

End-to-end connectivity for national NGNs

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