The Undemocratization of the Australian web

-- By MathewKenneally - 14 Mar 2015

The conservative Australian Government’s (the LNP) telecommunications policy since 2013 has been marked by two changes: the replacement of the previous Government’s National Broadband Network (NBN) a system of Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) with a cheaper policy mixing FTTP and Fibre to the Node (FTTN); and the compulsory retention of all meta-data by service providers for two years. Taken together these policies are illustrative of a telecommunications agenda that favors the interests of spooks and corporations rather than citizens. The agenda, whether intentional or not, is to make the Internet less democratic.

The previous Labor Government planned to build the NBN, a network of fiber optic cable to 93 per cent of the nations premises. It would have delivered download speeds of 100mbps to 1gps and upload speed up to 400 Mbps. The LNP dismissed the program as unaffordable in the 2013 election. Now in Government the LNP is delivering broadband to most homes through FTTN. This is the connection of fibre optic cable to a Node of the old copper wire network. The copper wiring is than used to connect to the premises. The network can deliver download speeds of 50 Mbps and upload speeds of 10 Mbps. The LNP plans to extend FTTP to new estates where no copper wire infrastructure exists and areas of high demand such as hospitals, schools, and business centers.

The LNP argues its policy is more cost effective, will deliver higher download speeds sooner than the FTTP. The Minister for Telecommunications has emphasized that activities such as, streaming content and video conferencing, will be easily achievable under the LNP policy at a lower cost. The Minister proudly claims to have removed the “ideology” from the program in favor of cost/benefit analysis.

However, the removal of ideology masks the substitution of an alternative ideology. The LNP has undervalued the democratic benefits of FTTP. The overlooked and poorly understood weakness in their policy is slow upload speeds. These speeds are what gave the previous policy transformative potential. Upload speeds of 400mbps change the nature of the Internet. Individuals can create and upload their own video streams. The NBN would have given each Australian a “printing press” to create and distribute content. The technology had the potential to accelerate the democratization of media.

The LNP policy embeds a culture of servers and clients. The limitation on upload speeds ensures that communication is still asymmetrical. The policy ensures that media will still be accessed by servers, or the cable TV providers, of which there is only one: Murdoch’s Foxtel. The existing copper wiring infrastructure is still owned by Telstra, a 50 per cent shareholder in Foxtel. There is nothing to stop Telstra bundling Foxtel with high speed broadband at a reduced price to consumers as part of a process of “competition”.

Upload speeds could also have increased social and economic participation by people unable to leave their homes: the old, the young, the disabled, and those living in isolated community. They could communicate in business through video conferencing and uploading documents. See the Doctor from home. Children in remote communities could attend schools in a metropolitan area, and university courses could be run in or out of an individual’s home.

The LNP policy restricts access to FTTP to commercial areas and social structures such as business districts, schools, and universities. It restricts high speed Internet to existing social institutions, rather than extending social participation.

The LNP policy may be cheaper and the trade offs necessary. But it is not stripped of “ideology”. The policy emphasizes cutting costs to meet the nation’s immediate economic, rather than building technology with the capacity to transform the society. It is, unsurprisingly, conservative.

The Government’s “metadata” retention bill compounds the process of restructuring the web in Australia to favor established interests. The Government has introduced legislation to compel Internet Service Providers (ISP) to store meta-data: what website users visited, when they visited, how long, and from where. The data can be accessed without a warrant by Government agencies including the Australian Federal Police, ASIO, Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, and the Australian Securities and Investment Commission.

The Labor opposition has successfully introduced safeguards to the Bill: warrants to constrain Government agencies from accessing the actual content of e-mails; a requirement the data only be used in criminal investigations; and a restriction on the data being accessed for civil litigation if it is retained “solely for the purpose of compliance with the scheme”.

The changes, while meritorious, ignore and undervalue what is lost. Australian Internet users can no longer choose to use an ISP that does not record their activity. Access to the web is conditional on consent to total surveillance.

Further, once the data is present, the protections can easily be unwound by vested interests within and outside of Government. The mere existence of the data will please the media interests pursuing copyright infringement. The film industry might argue that in light of an “existential crisis” they must have access to meta-data to prohibit meta-data. Alternatively the Government may introduce criminal penalties for copyright violations. Merely making it a crime would open every citizen’s consumption of books and film to being scrutinized by the State.

Citizens could seek to access VPNs to avoid surveillance. However, by accessing those services – by choosing not to leave a record - citizens may be deemed to be suspicious and may be subject to greater alternative methods of surveillance. It is a catch-22.

The dual policies of the LNP have made the Australian web less of a force for democratization. In not delivering FTTP it has lessened the capacity of the Internet to change the media market. By adding total surveillance no citizen can explore radical and new ideas without the knowledge that for two years their actions and thoughts are being recorded. Despite the safeguards, the implementation of data retention begins the process of social control.