Connecting the nation : an historical institutionalist explanation for divergent communications technology outcomes in Canada and Australia

Abstract

Australia's slow rate of progress in rolling out broadband technologies became a major election issue in 2007, resulting in the National Broadband Network (NBN), the largest public infrastructure investment in Australia's history. Numerous international comparative reports reveal that Australia's lag in the deployment of broadband technologies in relation to Canada, another geographically large, sparsely populated federal system, is significant. Nevertheless, Australia's poor broadband performance is no different than the sluggish adoption of many other forms of electromagnetic communications technologies since the time of the telegraph. This thesis adopts an historical institutionalist approach to explain why Australia trails behind Canada in the take-up of communications technologies. The thesis identifies the different approaches to enabling, coordinating and regulating communications technologies in each country. Importantly, different federal powers for communications technologies have resulted in longstanding differences in the deployment of communications technologies. The Australian government's exclusive powers to legislate for communications technologies resulted in a series of centralised, top-down, single national solutions. Conversely, Canada's decentralised, bottom-up, provincial and municipal solutions approach stems from the provinces' powers to legislate for communications technologies within the provinces. Constitutionally, the Canadian government's powers are for the most part restricted to issues of interconnection between the provinces. Australian policy-makers favour standardised national systems designed to provide equality of service provision which invariably takes longer to deliver services to citizens. While Canada's approach leads to different standards of service provision, the approach is faster in delivering communications technology services to citizens. In explaining why a decentralised approach to deploying communications technologies results in faster take-up of new communications technologies, the concept of varieties of particularism is developed. The term 'varieties of particularism' refers to the unique social, political, economic, technological and geographical peculiarities that exist at the nexus of government, business and communications technologies. These various characteristics differ for each region, jurisdiction, provider and user and present a complex series of challenges for the deployment of new communications technologies. In the broadband era, the traditional monolithic telecommunications carrier model is increasingly obsolete. The research finds that single national solutions designed to meet citizens' communications technology requirements (such as those adopted by Australian policy makers) do not adequately address the varieties of particularism and therefore are slow to be deployed and to be taken-up by citizens. Further, the centralisation of political power in the communication industries prevents many citizens from participating in policy development - a 'build it and they will come' scenario - which neglects the human element of the 'network society'. Consequently, the centralised approach results in policy focused on particular technologies or devices predetermined by government, rather than user functionality which can be delivered by a mix of available technologies. The research finds that Australia's centralised approach discourages innovative uses of available technologies, whereas the Canadian decentralised approach enables citizens to be active policy and network participants where political issues are resolved at the regional or local level. In light of the NBN, the comparison with Canada demonstrates that Australia's centralised approach has important ramifications for future communications technology deployment.