Australia - Broadband Market - Overview, Statistics and Forecasts - 2012

(http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/nf2r64/australia_broadb) has announced the addition of the "Australia - Broadband Market - Overview, Statistics and Forecasts" report to their offering.

In this report we provide an overview and analysis of the fixed and mobile broadband market including infrastructure statistics, major internet service provider statistics and information on the key providers. BuddeComm's 2012 Australia Broadband Market - Overview and Statistics annual publication profiles key sectors in Australia's broadband market.

This report also provides a statistical overview of the broadband market in Australia and includes an overview of the major network operators, wholesalers and retail service providers. The report also examines the developments in HFC networks, while the statistical sections of the report provide historical data as well as forecasts relating to fixed and mobile broadband usage, internet service providers and the business broadband market/sector.

Market highlights:

- The internet-connected home is nearly ubiquitous across Australia, with over 80% penetration rate predicted by end-2012;
- Total value of the broadband markets is now more than $4 billion;
- Cloud-based usage by business increasing as backups and shared data come from faster connections;
- Online businesses are sustaining higher financial returns into 2012;
- Data usage by users increases by 80% year-on-year in 2011 and is set to double as more broadband-enabled devices are used;
- Connected or smartTVs will see a very rapid uptake over the 2013-2015 period;
- An overview of new trends and existing technologies is provided;
- Penetration rate of HFC broadband subscribers is under 10% of the total broadband market in Australia;
- Key usage trends for the fixed broadband market.
 
Key Topics Covered:

1. Statistical Overview
2. The National Broadband Network (brief overview)
3. Business Market Statistics
4. Residential Market Statistics
5. DSL Market, Overview, Statistics and Providers
6. HFC Cable Networks
7. Mobile Broadband - Statistical Overview and Forecasts
8. Market Forecasts

For more information visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/nf2r64/australia_broadb

 

Read more at http://www.virtual-strategy.com/2012/07/23/research-and-markets-australia-broadband-market-overview-statistics-and-forecasts-2012#a1ypdAv9u40lv7gH.99

Anonymous Steals 40GB User Data From ISP in Australia

Notorious hacker group Anonymous has claimed to have stolen 40GB worth of user data from an Australian internet service provider and is threatening to publish it online.

The group hacking into the systems of AAPT, comes as the second stage of a campaign, protesting against proposed changes to privacy laws that would force ISPs (internet service providers) to store user data and make it available to intelligence agencies for up to two years.


Anonymous Australia claimed the attacks aimed to show how we should not trust ISPs to store personal information.

"You want to trust these ISPs with your data? When they can't even keep it secured?! If I were you, I wouldn't trust anyone but myself with my data," News.com.au quoted the Anonymous, as saying.
Anonymous claimed that it plans to release a sample of the data later today, but will deliberately censor private details, because "the people were not their target".

"We don't want to publish personal innocent personal details like some of the other Anons have in other operations which have lost the public's support. Our target is the (Federal) Government who think they can get away with doing something like this," the hackers said.

The threat comes just days after Australian arm of the group claimed responsibility for bringing down 10 government websites and warned that it will continue the attacks on ".gov.au" sites until plans to force ISPs to store user data and make it further available to security services are shelved.
AAPT remained unavailable for comment.

Movie Studios Fail in Appeal Against Internet Service Providers

In a recent unanimous decision,(1) the High Court ruled that an internet service provider (ISP), iiNet, was not liable for authorising the copyright infringements committed by users who downloaded movies on its network. The ruling brings to a conclusion the copyright battle commenced by the movie studios in 2008.


Facts

The important legal issue in these proceedings was whether iiNet had authorised the infringing acts of its customers who had downloaded unauthorised copies of movies using iiNet's network. The movie studios had argued that iiNet authorised its customers' infringements under Section 101(1) of the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth) through:

• its provision of unfettered internet access to customers;
• its knowledge that some customers were infringing copyright (as a result of infringement notices being issued on behalf of the movie studios); and
• its refusal to warn infringing customers or terminate their accounts.

Decision

In a relatively brief decision, the High Court found that iiNet's conduct did not amount to authorisation. The court noted that Section 101(1A) of the act specifies three criteria that had to be taken into account when determining whether iiNet had authorised the infringing acts:

• the extent of iiNet's power to prevent customers from committing the primary infringements of copyright;
• the nature of the relationship between iiNet and its customers; and
• whether iiNet took any other reasonable steps to prevent customers from committing the infringing acts.

The High Court held that iiNet's power to prevent infringements was limited. The court held that iiNet had limited technical ability to prevent infringements, for the following reasons:

• It did not host infringing content.
• It had no involvement with or control over the BitTorrent peer-to-peer file sharing system used by its customers.
• It did not assist users in finding infringing content.
• It could not actually remove infringing content from customers' computers.

Furthermore, it was noted that even if it could take such actions, iiNet could not prevent customers from using another ISP's services. This left iiNet with only the power to terminate the contractual relationship with its customers, which the court considered an indirect and limited power.

When considering whether iiNet had taken reasonable steps to prevent infringing acts, the court held that the information provided in the infringement notices on behalf of the movie studios did not give iiNet a reasonable basis on which to warn alleged infringing customers or, if necessary, to suspend or terminate their accounts if the infringements continued.

The court noted that the notices provided limited evidence of the infringements. Furthermore, it was impractical and costly for iiNet to verify the allegations contained in the infringement notices without it infringing the movie studios' copyright itself. Finally, the court considered that iiNet's unwillingness to act on the notices was based simply on its assessment of the risks of taking action on such limited information. The High Court concluded that iiNet's failure to act on the infringement notices did not amount to authorisation of copyright infringement by its customers.

Comment

This case deals a severe blow to movie studios in their attempts to hold an ISP liable for authorising the infringing acts of its customers. Importantly, this decision goes further than the 2011 decision of the Full Federal Court. In that case, the court had held that iiNet had not authorised the infringements due to the fact that the infringement notices were inadequate.

Nonetheless, it had hinted that had the infringement notices provided "unequivocal and cogent evidence" of infringement and had the movie studios provided contractual protection to the ISP against costs and liabilities to customers for wrongful termination of accounts, iiNet's failure to act might have been unreasonable and therefore amounted to authorisation.

In this decision, the High Court also referred to the lack of information provided in the infringement notices. However, the High Court also found that iiNet had only an indirect contractual power to prevent the infringing activities of its customers.

The High Court noted that even if iiNet had terminated a customer's account, this did not ensure prevention of the infringing activity. The emphasis of the High Court on iiNet's limited indirect power means that it will not be enough for movie studios simply to address the inadequacies in notices provided to ISPs.

On a final note, three of the High Court judges expressly noted that:

"the concept and the principles of the statutory tort of authorisation of copyright infringement are not readily suited to enforcing the rights of copyright owners in respect of widespread infringements occasioned by peer-to-peer file sharing."

This is a signal that other alternative approaches (eg, a voluntary industry code) will be needed by movie studios and other copyright owners when dealing with widespread copyright infringements through peer-to-peer file sharing. The outcome of this case has likely increased the bargaining power of ISPs generally in Australia in any negotiations towards an industry code.

The one hope for copyright owners may be found in the High Court's analysis of the degree of control held by ISPs over copyright infringements. On this sort of analysis, other intermediaries - such as social networking platforms or search engines - may be held to have a greater degree of power to control and prevent the infringement of copyright using their services. Accordingly, claims against those intermediaries for authorisation of infringing activities using their services may find greater success.

Roxon Questions Plan To Track Users Web History

''THE case has yet to be made'' for a controversial plan to force internet providers to store the web history of all Australians for up to two years, according to Attorney-General Nicola Roxon, who has acknowledged the financial and privacy costs of such a scheme.

Ms Roxon expressed her reservations in an interview with Fairfax Media, publisher of this article, in what may be a sign the government does not have the appetite for forcing through Parliament the most controversial proposal among a package of more than 40 national security measures.

The proposals, if passed, would be the most significant expansion of the Australian national security community's powers since the Howard-era reforms of the early 2000s.

Regarding data retention, Ms Roxon said she had some sympathy for the view of the national security community but said: ''I am not yet convinced that the cost and the return - the cost both to industry and the [civil liberties] cost to individuals - that we've made the case for what it is that people use in a way that benefits our national security. I think there is a genuine question to be tested, which is why it's such a big part of the proposal.''

That is a view that will be greeted with some apprehension by one of the main advocates for such a regime - Neil Gaughan, who heads the federal police's High Tech Crime Centre.

''If we don't have a data-retention regime in place [in the future], we will not be able to commence an investigation in the first place,'' he said. ''And it's already getting increasingly difficult.''

Opposition to such laws in Germany - the government has declared them invasions of privacy and forbidden them - had left German federal police agency the Bundeskriminalamt (BKA) a laughing stock, Assistant Commissioner Gaughan said. ''No one can work with them internationally; if I go to Germany with an inquiry about who called who, when and why, they can't tell us,'' he said.

''It's causing the BKA all sorts of problems.'' However, Andrew Lewman, the executive director of Tor, which makes software that disguises a person's location when surfing the web, said data retention actually impeded the effectiveness of law enforcement.

''It sounds good and something sexy that politicians should get behind,'' he said.

''However, it doesn't stop crime, it builds a massive dossier on everyone at millisecond resolution and creates more work and challenges for law enforcement to catch actual criminals.

''The problem isn't too little data, the problem is there is already too much data.''

He said while its collection may be innocent today, it could cause problems in the future.

''It will also help future witch-hunts for people doing acceptable things today but at some point in the future these activities might seem suspect,'' he said.

The debate about the proposed legislative changes is already shaping up to be significant, with political activist outfit GetUp! and online rights group Electronic Frontiers Australia joining forces to start an online campaign to petition Ms Roxon about the proposals.

The committee with the job of inquiring into the proposals has already reacted to comments that the four weeks offered to the public to provide submissions was not long enough, yesterday announcing it was extending the deadline by a fortnight.

Buy Australian: Online Orders Surge As Retailers Lag - Online Shopping Australia

The number of online orders to Australian businesses increased by almost a third during the 2010-11 financial year.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics research released on Tuesday showed that local businesses received online orders worth $189 billion in the 12 months to June 30, 2011, an increase of $46 billion, or 32 per cent, on the previous corresponding period.

However, the data also showed that only 28 per cent of business said they had received orders via the internet, a mere 13 per cent increase on the previous year.

In contrast, more than half of businesses in Australia, 51 per cent, reported placing orders for goods and services on the internet in last financial year, up nine per cent in the previous year, ABS data showed.

In another troubling sign, just below 40 per cent of business reported ‘‘some form of innovative activity’’ in 2010-11, the ABS said, with 66 per cent of large businesses reporting activities to boost efficiency and lower costs. Only 30 per cent of companies with four employees or less reported the same, the ABS said.

The gap between businesses receiving orders online and those placing them highlighted the demand for changes by local industries and the constraints that many businesses in Australia work under. The slow pace of innovation in Australia has held back the nation’s overall productivity, an area of concern for the central bank and economists.

RBA forecasts of economic growth routinely factor in improvements in productivity to achieve the expansion, yet productivity in Australia has lagged in recent years.

RBA governor Glenn Stevens recently urged politicians to follow the suggestions of the productivity commission in order to boost the the efficiencies and lower the cost in the economy.

Australia’s economy, while expanding by 1.3 per cent in the first quarter, has been riven by disparities in performance between mining and non-mining states and industries.

Macquarie senior economist Brian Radican said that internet usage in Australia is lower than in the comparable economies of the US or UK.

Yet, the distances in Australia suggest that the internet usage for commerce could have a larger benefit locally.

“A deeper embrace of its use by Australian business could arguably have a bigger benefit here than it would in other regions,” he said.

Across all sectors 40 to 43 per cent of businesses had a website.
But while 97 per cent of large business had a website, only a third of small businesses reported having one.

“If firms can drive some of the costs out of businesses, they can produce more for less,” he said.
However, Mr Radican cautioned that Australia’s weaker productivity was also driven by industrial relations challenges and other factors.

Google: Government Requests to Censor Content 'Alarming'

Google has received more than 1000 requests from authorities to take down content from its search results or YouTube video in the last six months of 2011, the company said on Monday, denouncing what it said was an alarming trend.

In its twice-yearly Transparency Report, the world's largest web search engine said the requests were aimed at having some 12,000 items overall removed, about a quarter more than during the first half of last year.

"Unfortunately, what we've seen over the past couple years has been troubling, and today is no different," Dorothy Chou, the search engine's senior policy analyst, said in a blogpost. "We hoped this was an aberration. But now we know it's not."

Many of those requests targeted political speech, keeping up a trend Google said it has noticed since it started releasing its Transparency Report in 2010.

"It's alarming not only because free expression is at risk, but because some of these requests come from countries you might not suspect — Western democracies not typically associated with censorship," said Chou. (http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/more-transparency-into-government.html)

In the second half of last year, Google complied with around 65 per cent of court orders and 47 per cent of informal requests to remove content, it said.

The censorship report offers an overview of which officials have asked Google to delete content and why.

In one case, Spanish regulators asked Google to remove 270 links to blogs and newspaper articles criticising public figures, including mayors and public prosecutors.

So far Google has not complied. In March, Spain's highest court asked the European Court of Justice to examine whether requests by citizens to have content removed were lawful.

In some countries, Google says it has no choice but to submit to these requests, because certain types of political speech are unlawful.

In Germany, the company removes videos from YouTube with Nazi references because these are banned.

Chou said that in Thailand videos featuring the monarch with a seat over his head have been removed for insulting the monarchy. The country has some of the world's toughest "lese- majeste" laws.

In Canada, Google was asked by officials to get rid of a YouTube video showing a citizen urinating on his passport and flushing it down the toilet. But in that instance the company refused.

Google and many other online providers maintain that they cannot lawfully remove any content for which they are merely the host and not the producer, a principle enshrined in EU law on eCommerce since 2000.

In January 2012 the European Union's executive Commission announced it would introduce clearer guidelines on handling such requests, outlining under which circumstances it would be legal to have content removed from the Web and when it would curb free speech and fundamental rights.

The Commission has launched a public consultation called "a clean and open internet" and has asked companies how many requests they get to take down content, from whom and for what reason.

Among examples of material that should be taken down EU regulators cite racist content, child abuse or spam. The rules are expected to be announced before the end of the year.

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Australia Bans Chinese Company from Web Network

Australia has banned Chinese technology giant Huawei from bidding to help build a nationwide high-speed Internet network due to concern about cyber attacks traced to China.

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard said Monday the move was among "prudent decisions" to ensure the planned network functions properly.

The ban highlights concern about Beijing's cyber warfare efforts, a spate of hacking attempts aimed at Western companies and the role of Chinese equipment providers, which are expanding abroad.

Huawei Technologies Ltd. is one of the world's biggest producers of switching equipment that forms the heart of phone and data networks. The company rejected suggestions it might be a security risk and said it has won the trust of global telecoms carriers.

Beijing's relations with Western governments have been strained by complaints about hacking traced to China and aimed at oil, technology and other companies. A U.S. congressional panel has said it will investigate whether allowing Huawei and other Chinese makers of telecoms gear to expand in the United States might aid Chinese spying.

The Australian attorney general's office told Huawei late last year it would be barred from bidding for work on the 36 billion Australian dollar ($38 billion) network, according to The Australian Financial Review newspaper. It said that decision was prompted by Australian intelligence officials who cited hacking attacks traced to China.

A spokesman for the attorney general's office said it could not comment on individual companies but a Huawei official confirmed the newspaper's account. He spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to disclose conversations between Huawei and the government.
Huawei expressed disappointment about the decision. It has operated in Australia since 2004 and said it already works with the country's major telecoms carriers.

"Huawei will continue to be open and transparent and work to find ways of providing assurance around the security of our technology," said a company statement.

 China is Australia's biggest trading partner and Chinese demand for iron ore and other minerals has driven an Australian economic boom. But Canberra is uneasy about Beijing's rising military spending and growing assertiveness in Asia.

The United States and Australia announced plans in September to include cyber security in their 61-year-old defense alliance, the first time Washington has done that with a partner outside NATO.

President Barack Obama announced plans in November to send U.S. military aircraft and up to 2,500 Marines to Australia's north for a training hub to help allies and protect American interests across Asia.
Plans approved by Australian lawmakers in 2010 call for building a fiber-optic network to provide high-speed Internet access to 90 percent of the country's homes.

Huawei said it is building similar networks in Britain, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia and other countries.
"You don't get to that level of success unless you have customers that trust your company, your staff and your technology," the statement said.

Gillard, who was at a security conference in Seoul, said the planned Australian network is a crucial national project.

"You would expect, as a government, we would make all of the prudent decisions to make sure that that infrastructure project does what we want it to do, and we've taken one of those decisions," she said, when asked about Huawei.

Gillard gave no details of the reason for the decision.

Huawei was founded in 1987 by a former Chinese military engineer but says it has no connection to the military. The company says it is employee-owned but has released few details about who controls it, which has fueled questions abroad.

Huawei had been endorsed as a bidder on the Australian project by the technical department of the government-owned National Broadband Network Co., the Financial Review said. It said the attorney general blocked that after intelligence officials objected.

Huawei, based in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, near Hong Kong, reported revenues for the first half of last year of 98.3 billion yuan ($15.8 billion) and says its equipment is used in 140 countries.

In 2010, it was blocked from taking part in upgrading a U.S. phone carrier's network and last year was forced to unwind its acquisition of an American computer company after a security panel rejected the deal.
The U.S. House of Representatives intelligence committee said in November it would investigate whether allowing Chinese companies to expand in the United States might aid Chinese electronic spying.

It cited Huawei and rival ZTE Corp., another telecom equipment supplier, as being among the companies to be examined.

The panel said it will look into the role Chinese companies play in supplying components for U.S. telecoms systems and whether access to those systems might allow foreign governments to gather information.