Exploring Media Landscapes - Essay Example

INTERNET IN AUSTRALIA Student’s Name University Name Background of Internet in Australia Computers science disciplines and then the departments were first recorded in Australia in the course of the 1970s. In mid- 1970s and during the ARPANET’s initial periods, few of Australia researches engaged in intense connection through the dial-up services that was being provided by the then Overseas Telecommunication Commission (OTC) (Clarke, 2004). It is within this period that two universities; The Universities of Melbourne and Wollongong engaged in a direct exchange of files between two Unix-focused computers with the use of a dial-up line (Clarke, 2004). Together, Bob Kummerfeld and Piers Lauder of the University of Sydney were able to operate a distinctive and successful Australian Computer Science network (ACSnet). Up to now, ASCnet is still operating with the Internet domain oz. au. In the early 1980s, a notably permanent Australian electronic connection to the United States of America- APRAnet was first established and it involved lots of contributions from different professional personalities like Bob Kummerfeld and Piers Lauders both working at the University of Sydney and Poole and Elz working at the University of Melbourne (Clarke, 2004). In the mid of 1980s, Geoff Huston at ANU made significant level of contributions towards generation of an email gateway from the underlying ACSnet mail delivery system and into the DEC VAX/VMS-the latter later recording a successful domination in University computer installations. In the period between 1985 and 1989, there were a great number of attempts made for purposes of setting up a rather wider university-based network all through to the second half of the 1980s. Specifically, in mid of 1986, after the domain-name system was formulated, IANA then was able to delegate the domain .au to Elz at the Melbourne University (Goggin, 2004). In 1989, University of Hawaii initiative came to being with a 56Kbps satellite circuit that was set up and sustained by different Australian organisations within the Australian end. In the period between 1990 and 1994, AARNet was purely ascertained as being an IP network based platform. Even though there was significant pressure to provide support to different multiple protocols; a decision was made not engage in this exercise of supporting voice, fax and the numerous international standard (ISO-ISO) protocols and especially X.25 (Ewing &Thomas, 2010). As a result of this, an international connection was then upgraded in a more progressive manner to ascertain a succession of Australian universities and the CSIRO. In the early 1993, a definitive AVCC document was formulated and that which described the AARNet as a private data network that is able to avail committed telecommunications services in support of only members’ research academic services and operational activities. In fact, due to a higher degree of both the combination of supply and demand, for purposes of communications and interestingly content, the Internet quickly gained lots of support and a major centre of attraction for people that were positioned outside the activities related to research and teaching as a whole (Ewing &Thomas, 2010). It is important to note that the Internet then became an infrastructure that fostered intensive communications as well as the immediate publication of content. It is during this period that there was intense innovation of Internet-based applications like the World Wide Web and Unix-based browsers. Emergence & Penetration of Public Internet in Australia It was not until the late 1990, the Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) was a body that determined the nature of material information that could be transmitted in the Internet hence made sure to restrict the adoption of Internet by the general public as a whole for any commercial reasons (Goggin, 2004). Going forward, the Clinton Administration engaged in the launching of a National Information Infrastructure (NII) initiative whose main objective focused on driving away the notion that Internet platform can only be funded from central research centres and universities. Certainly, the period saw an increase in commercial funding of Internet provisions and formulation of consumption policies that liberalised the entire platform. Individuals and business now saw the need for using the platform for new opportunities in relation to sales and profits (Goggin, 2004). In fact, due to increased demand, lots of access points were added, overall bandwidth was improved while at the same time new services were developed that relate to Internet usage. The very first commercial Internet access providers are first noted to be in 1995 through such notable organisations as the Australian Public Access Network Association (APANA) and Pegasus Networks. During this period the usage of Internet feature by non-AARNet user was significantly increased to more than 20% in overall traffic (Goggin, 2004). In mid-1995, Telstra engaged in AVCC and facilitated the transfer of most of the commercial customers; that were linked to the assets as well as the underlying management of interstate as well as international connections to the firm (Kurnia, Smith, & Lee, 2006). This is noted as being the major transformation point of Internet in Australia whereby lots of equipment and connectivity was donated to the AUNIC registry that was tasked with the administration of the Australian IP-address up until 2001. Governance of Commercial Internet in Australia The overall network infrastructure in the entire Australian region is entirely owned and controlled by different private entities; however, the government is still the 50% shareholder in such dominant companies like Telstra. In terms of regulation, it is ascertained that entire Internet operations in the country is still a subject to distinctive set of laws and regulatory agencies. Amongst the well-known legislation is the Telecommunications Act 1997 as well as the Australian Communications Authority (ACA) (Kurnia, Smith, & Lee, 2006). In the period between 1997 and 2004, National Office for the Information Economy has continued to formulate and legislate on matters related to e-business and e-Government. In regards to overall IP-address management, it can be noted that there immediate allocations were successfully established and sustained by AUNIC. APNIC was initiated as a very pilot project in 1993, but later transformed into IP-address registry for more than 60 economies within the larger Asia-Pacific region. It however; was relocated from Tokyo to Brisbane, Australia. Activities related to domain-name management ascertains the final area of governance for which local activities linked to allocation of domains- a factor that has resulted to Australia being the 5th largest in domain numbers across the globe (Kurnia, Smith, & Lee, 2006). As a result of this enormous demand for these domains, Melbourne IT engaged in elaborate plans to formulate a great number of business opportunities through charging domain name registrations. Due to this, lots of Australian-based firms within the Internet industry and the community at large cried foul given that Melbourne IT was allowed to operate as a monopoly in a period exceeding 5 or so years. Statistically, in the mid-2003, there was close to 180M registered nodes on the Internet with 40M websites and 700M uses across the world (Kurnia, Smith, & Lee, 2006). Within the Asia-Pacific region, Australia enjoys 54% of overall users of Internet. Due to intense demand of Internet facility, the level of infrastructure has been substantial overtime and is now being managed and controlled by top notch marketplace telecommunication companies in Australia in form of both wholesale and retail IAPs as well as ISPs (Ewing &Thomas, 2010). Telstra continues to invest large within this sector with currently being known as the most notable company that has engaged in vertical integration. There have been little or no levels of competition as there has been continued over-loading and relatively fragile overseas linkages. However, the issue has been sorted with a distinctive number of numerous connections being in use and overseen by numerous parties (Ewing &Thomas, 2010). In regards to accessibility of internet, there has been low broadband penetration due to high pricing and incomplete availability frameworks. At least more than 86% of overall connections are still being conducted through modems. Cable connections are mostly situated with the affluent suburbs of Sydney and Melbourne as well as a section of Canberra. Existing users in areas where broadband is deemed unavailable or unaffordable have access to 56Kps from their immediate dial-up linkages (Ewing &Thomas, 2010). The future of internet in Australia is indeed positive as there are extensive usage and adoption rates. However, the continual dominance of such well-established and sophisticated companies like Telstra has resulted to a constrained level of competition; thereby sustaining an artificially-positioned high level of prices while still holding aback possible aspects of progress. In close conjunction with the ever-growing diversification of relatively smaller set of devices, a robust increase in the level of wireless access has been established (Ewing &Thomas, 2010). This has really penetrated in regards to wide-area network, LAN that adopts the use of Wi-Fi as well as personal-based access like Bluetooth. Despite this positive attributes, there has been a great degree of tension between liberty and authoritarianism. Alliances related to both businesses and government have made efforts to necessitate Australians to adopting identities that are issued by authorities that are authenticated and can be successfully use for purpose of profile growth and development (Ewing &Thomas, 2010). Proper means are being formulated for the purpose of fostering required surveillance that further includes intense proposals to have unique identification of devices as well as digital rights management schemes for purposes of availing unique and traceable copies of hardware devices. Advantages & Disadvantages of the Internet First, it is argued that the internet provides an important platform for all Australians to keep in touch with one another. It is arguably clear that the internet has increased the amount of time people use in communicating with close friends and family and this aspect has, in fact, been strengthened in the past two or so years (Vromen, 2008). This effect of the internet is especially stronger in Australia that posted a higher level of improved contact with both friends and families in comparison to other countries the world (Ewing &Thomas, 2010). Electronic mail (email) is considered to be the most popular means of communicating with the online platform and its overall usage has increased in the last five years. At least 8 out of every 10 Australians check their email once per day. Secondly, it is noted that the internet clearly changes overall media usage. Presently, it is ranked as the most crucial source of information with three-quarters of Australians agreeing so. It is established that 7 out of every 10 users in Australia will likely make numerous visits to online news services for urgent news (Clarke, 2004). Television watching is a media-related activity that has been affected by internet adoption. The number of people now watching television has continued to decrease since the availability of online sources is made easier and affordable (Ewing &Thomas, 2010). Consequently, the internet has achieved in enabling lots of creativity. The degree of users that engaged in the posting of pictures improved tremendously to 46% in the period between 2007 and 2009. During this period, users have been engaged in creative work and, also sharing their imminent works. Another benefit of the internet rests with the fact that it forms a major source of entertainment. The medium has successfully challenged the television as Australian most crucial entertainment medium. It fosters possible downloading or even listening of music within different online portals. On the other hand, though, the internet has been seen to be source of loss of jobs for different professionals and especially journalists. Now than ever, most of the journalists working with major newspaper companies have been subjected to retrenchment to pave way of modern ways of sharing news like blogging and social medial news coverage. Subsequently, since the adoption of the internet, Australians have been perceived to emulate foreign culture thereby eroding their own cultural experiences and embracing the westernised form (Clarke, 2004). In this regards, most of the important information has not been preserved for future austerity and references (Ewing &Thomas, 2010). The internet has further resulted to low-levels of productivity amongst workers. This is especially attributed to more time being spent in browsing social media platforms as opposed to using it for gainful purposes. References List Clarke, R., 2004. Origins and Nature of the Internet in Australia. Emergence, 4, pp.1990-1994. Ewing, S. &Thomas, J., 2010. The Internet in Australia. ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation. Goggin, G. ed., 2004. Virtual nation: The internet in Australia. UNSW Press. Kurnia, S., Smith, S.P. & Lee, H., 2006. Consumers’ perception of mobile internet in Australia. E-Business Review, 5(1), pp.19-32 Vromen, A., 2008. Political change and the internet in Australia: introducing GetUp. Networking/networking: Citizen initiated internet politics, pp.103-126. Read More