Hostworks warns new Government to invest in broadband backbone

Gauvin, whose company manages the availability, performance and running costs of its customers’ critical business applications, said the election-driven political debate about broadband had overlooked a bigger problem -- the backbone capacity to handle the nation’s demand.

“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.

“The critical issue is not how fast it 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," he said.

Gauvin added that “choke points” created by broadband infrastructure represented a failure of market forces to deliver the best outcome for the country.

“If we leave solving this problem to market forces, then Australia will just go backwards,” he said. “If Australia can start making its content both relevant and available, then we can become a net data exporter and really begin to engage in the global online economy.”

“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.”

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