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Equitable access to the means of communicating with other people was a
principle behind the widespread adoption of a telephone system that reached
even into remote country areas. To achieve this, costs were averaged between
city, country and other areas to cross-subsidise expensive country and
public connections from revenue made from very profitable ones in cities.
This concept was called the universal service obligation (USO).
Likewise, a similar principle of equity underlies the idea of nonprofit
community broadcasting, which promotes access to radio and television
outlets for those that would be excluded on purely economic reasons or
by virtue of their language, culture or social position. Ideally, this
would be funded by a proportion of the license fees of commercial services,
but it is currently part-funded directly by government to the Community
Broadcasting Foundation. Now the topic of access to the so-called information
"highway" - or rather, "any means of communication" - through computer
and telephone line systems like the Internet and World Wide Web, has highlighted
the equitable access issue again.
Today, however, this idea is under threat by proponents of a user-pays
approach who want to remove special consideration for remote, disadvantaged
and cultural interests and, instead, put in place the "laws of the market
and competition" which are seen as being best able to serve these interests.
What is needed is a balance between the two competing ideas that allows
large players to compete under strict federal competition regulations,
and another parallel locally-controlled system that also supports smaller
and different players or participants to also be involved. The larger
commercial and government players would partially cross-subsidise the
smaller community and independent ones. This would be an expanded and
updated concept of universal service that would demonstrate the government
and industry's commitment to the communities they serve and benefit from,
by returning a benefit to those communities.
To maintain this balance, the government must show leadership and mandate
reservation of, and provide incentives for, an "open" ("basic" or "nonprofit")
space in each domain of communications complementary to the commercial
access system under the control of commercial operators. Available communications
channels would then be divided into two dual "backbones", "tiers" or delivery
systems: a freely received "open" or basic tier; and then the other commercial
tiers, with different levels of service attracting an increasing scale
of fees.
In the US, this idea of the basic tier is being promoted by the Federal
Communications Commission (FCC) as a "data dialtone lifeline", where the
normal dialtone or simple phone connection is upgraded to one capable
of carrying electronic digital "data" or a signal, carrying voice, text,
images and sound. This would be an affordable low resolution service that
would operate over normal phone lines.
In the case of cable television, the basic service would have no charge
applied for delivery of programming, only for carriage. The parallel subscription
section would require payment of a regular monthly fee to service providers.
People can then add on pay services at their discretion and possibly after
having sampled them on cable via the open tier. Open sections of different
communications domains - voice, cable television, the Internet and other
new services to come - would provide a "bundle" or cluster of local (two
way) communications and menu channels, community, cultural and educational
channels, free-to-air services and other non-commercial services for just
a connection and rental fee.
People will then be able to gain access to the system even if they are
unwilling or unable to pay for all the services. You could "sample" the
services on offer through the open bundle and then choose subscription
services if they appealed to you. You could also just remain with the
freely-delivered services which would still supply vital local and other
services for no programming charge.
2. History
Cable television has been around in the United States for over twenty
years and has come to stand for everything in television that is not part
of the big three networks. It was in America, lacking a fully funded government
television system like our ABC and SBS (but having the partially funded
nonprofit Public Broadcasting System or PBS), that the idea of public
nonprofit access first gained acceptance to make up for the lack of public
input into, and access to, the broadcasting system.
It was also adopted because cable companies in the States could buy a
monopoly franchise or licence to operate in one area, such as a whole
town or part of a large city, only by competitively bidding against other
rival companies (for its history see Stuart M. DeLuca's excellent book
Television: the Next Twenty Five Years). To make sure they got
the licence from the local councils that controlled licence allocation,
companies often "sweetened" the deal with community services like public
access studios and other resources.
Although many American community-based access channels failed (it's a
hard business running cable channels - even when you have lots of money)
some important new ideas and talent came from these stations and some
channels successfully operate today allowing a wide variety of groups
to make programs (see Tracey Naughton's book, To watch is o.k.. but
to air is divine). In New Zealand, Britain and parts of Europe, cable
channels, either community-controlled or with public access elements and
programs, also successfully operate.
In Australia, experiments in several blocks of a Melbourne housing estate
trialed a cable system in the early 80's and , in Sydney, Community Cable
Television-One (CTV -1) has cablecast community made programs to 2,000
Housing Commission units in Redfern for the last eight years.
The Internet began as (and still largely is) a communications system for
academics and researchers using phone lines remotely connecting computers
together. This communications system is much more like the easily available
telephone system, rather than the more complex, but more influential,
radio and television broadcast system. Now, with the easy-to-use graphic
overlay to the text-based Internet - the World Wide Web - the Internet
is becoming more and more like radio and television in carrying moving
pictures, sound and images with just a simple click of a button (and access
to a fairly expensive computer and modem).
The number and variety of Australians using the Internet is rapidly increasing,
as it is in many other countries, and now the percentage of women using
it is also increasing. It provides a way for many special interests to
"gather together" and exchange information cheaply and easily - once they
can access a computer.
The Internet has the potential to become as popular and as available as
the telephone system and could be the central communications and information
technology of the next century. Carriers, particularly Optus Vision, government,
through projects like the Community Information Network (CIN) run by the
Department of Social Security, and community and nonprofit groups, are
embracing the Internet as way to provide many of the services that the
so-called "broadband and interactive" services only propose to offer some
time in the future. However, without strong representation and involvement
by community groups and their advocates, many potential benefits could
be lost, as happened during the development of television.
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