In today's edition of The Australian is an article written by James Massola called Fast broadband best served by market: UN report.  Massola quotes from the report by the UN’s Broadband Commission for Digital Development. The report recommends:

"a market-led approach facilitated by an enabling policy environment" as the best way to promote the deployment of and use of broadband networks.

And it has called for a "technology neutral" mix of fibre, wireless and other technologies to get there.

Massola goes on to quote Malcolm Turnbull's response to the the report.

The report found that "it is unlikely that any single technology will be able to provide all the answers".

And while it described optical fibre as "desirable at the core of the Internet and for the majority of backhaul traffic", it found that "at the edges of the network and in particular in the hands of end-users, it is most likely that mobile devices will deliver many applications and services".

Please click here to read the full article and the full commentary from Turnbull.

In the comments below, please let us know what you think about the statement that "Fast Broadband will be best served by the Market". Would the free market delivering a hybrid of technologies be the best broadband network for the country? Or does a single technology such as Fibre to the vast majority of the nation provide a better result?

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Image credit: mikeleeorg Creative Commons

For all his faults, Stalin was a pioneer in the field of image manipulation. Airbrushing liquidated foes from official photographs was the photoshopping of its day. And although Stalin (like modern dicatators) would have loathed the internet for its uncanny ability to let the truth slip out, he would have admired the way information can be changed in realtime and disappear instantly.

Many companies and individuals have been caught out trying to redact embarrassing material, but we can't always be sure when, how and why information is changing. When do personal and corporate interests take over, and when is the law at play? As a champion of an open internet, while at the same time a corporate citizen in hundreds of jurisdictions around the world, Google has a fine line to walk. To many, Google is the internet and they are bombarded with requests to remove unwanted material. They have no choice but to take those that come from governments and the courts very seriously.

Today Google have announced a new initiative to bring some transparency to this process. Google's Government Requests page, announced here, shows breakdowns by country of the number of requests they get to remove information by service. The statistics for Australia for the last 6 months of 2009 are interesting in particular:

155 data requests (requests for private user data for purposes of criminal investigation)

17 removal requests (52.9% of removal requests fully or partially complied with)

• 1 Blogger
• 1 Geo (except Street View)
• 1 Web Search
• 14 YouTube

Despite the important role they play, Google are a for-profit company and not a government department or some kind of public utility. This can be a cause for concern; when the corporate interest an the public interest conflict, such as in matters of privacy, we can only hope that Google's directors give the latter due consideration. We also have no explicit right to know about the inner workings of Google's information management systems. We are therefore encouraged with Google's latest move which we can only take as a good faith attempt to be a better internet citizen.

Around the world it has often been difficult to get a picture on how prevalent such requests are and the Google information will be examined with some interest. The fact that they have released these statistics voluntarily is a welcome sign and Google should be congratulated for doing so. They have raised the bar for the other companies that play such an important role in managing and safeguarding the information that makes up our digital lives.

Starting Thursday 10 December, the Department of Broadband, Communications, and the Digital Economy (DBCDE) will be holding a two day conference on the future of broadband policy in Australia.

A number of local forums are being run in conjunction with the Sydney-based event. Check them out in the following locations:

• Parramatta
• Melbourne
• Brisbane

The main conference and each of the local events seem quite interesting, and we encourage anyone interested in the future of communications policy in Australia to go along, learn something, and make your voice heard.

The QUT Faculty of Law and Queensland Public Interest Law Clearing House are running two free intellectual property and technology law advice sessions in October and November in Brisbane.

Professor Brian Fitzgerald and Kylie Pappalardo from QUT Faculty of Law, in conjunction with Queensland Public Interest Law Clearing House (QPILCH), have established an IP and Technology Law Clinic to provide free legal advice for members of the creative and technology sectors with limited financial resources. Ask legal professionals about copyright, recording and publishing agreements, media rights, digital distribution, business models, and much more.

Book now for the inaugural advice sessions: Thursday 29 October 2009 and Thursday 26 November 2009, Brisbane CBD from 5:30pm-7:30pm.

To make a booking, call (07) 3136 6836

This is an excellent opportunity for those who need free legal advice in Brisbane. If you're not in Brisbane, you may even be able to get the lawyers at the clinic to give you advice by telephone.