Towards Accessible Telecommunications for People with Disabilities

When the Tide Comes In: Towards Accessible Telecommunications for People with Disabilities in Australia

 

A discussion paper commissioned by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission

 

William Jolley, Chief Consultant

Jolley William & Associates

wjolley@bigpond.com

 

June 2003

2. Network Development and Technology

2.1 Introduction

2.2 Telephone Network Evolution

2.2.1 Mainstream Technology Developments

2.2.2 Customer Access Alternatives

2.2.3 Implications for People with Disabilities

2.3 Wireless Communications

2.3.1 Mainstream Developments in Mobile Telecommunications

2.3.2 Implications for People with Disabilities

2.4 Development of the Internet

2.4.1 Mainstream Internet Development

2.4.2 World Wide Web

2.4.3 Media Streaming

2.4.4 Customer Access to the Internet

2.4.5 Implications for People with Disabilities

2.5 Next Generation Networks and Convergence

2.6 Telstra and Optus Initiatives

2.6.1 Telstra

2.6.2 Optus

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2.1 Introduction

This Section describes the development of three separate communications networks, and their convergence into a multi-facetted, digitally-based, flexible, telecommunications network: the telephone network, the mobile network and the Internet. The telephone and mobile networks originated as analogue networks, but are progressively being digitised, whereas the Internet has always been digital. It is the power and flexibility of digital techniques that enable the networks to be integrated and the traditional information types - voice, data, image and video - to merge as multimedia.

From its beginning until the mid 1980s, the Australian telecommunications network was characterised as a government owned monopoly providing basic access and voice telephony services to a steadily growing proportion of the population. But recently there has been a shift at every level of Australian telecommunications. The underlying network technology was transformed with the shift from analogue to digital, from mechanics to electronics and increasingly to optics. This has provided the technical capacity for the network to meet the requirements of new services, and a huge increase in consumer and business demand. These changes were facilitated by the transition from a monopolistic to a competitive industry structure, and a regulatory environment which has encouraged competition, facilitated capital injection and ensured consumer protection.

Telstra (2002) describes the Australian telecommunications network as being composed of at least 27 independent but interlinked networks of different sizes and purposes, used by 83 licensed carriage service providers and hundreds of Internet Service Providers (ISPs). The regulatory regime requires 'any-to-any connectivity', ensuring telephony and data traffic can pass smoothly across the networks, including through the Telstra network. Competing network operators are generally also customers of Telstra Wholesale. These parties are guaranteed network access in relation to declared services with pricing, and other terms and conditions, determined under the Government's regulatory regime.

The Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) was originally designed for basic telephony. Since 1990 it has been extensively upgraded into an intelligent and seamless network carrying a variety of products and types of communications traffic, which enter the network via different access pathways. These include basic fixed telephony, mobile services and data services. Mobile and data services are not separate networks, but simply different access technologies for the core inter-exchange network. For residential consumers and small business, the predominant data service is access to the Internet, whereas industrial data services include financial transactions (ATM and EFTPOS), computer network traffic, and broadcasting.

What follows is necessarily a simplistic overview of the separate development of the fixed line telephone network, the mobile telephone network and the Internet. The purpose of this Section is to provide a solid background for later discussion of telecommunications accessibility by persons with disabilities. Under the digital paradigm the networks are blended, the services are integrated and industries are convergent. Modern telecommunications networks allow flexibility in their internal operation and the terminals that connect to them. Indeed, a national telecommunications network is to some extent a network of networks.

It may be helpful to start off thinking of a network represented in two-dimensional space as a set of points and lines connecting them. In network terminology the points are referred to as nodes, and the lines are referred to as links. There are two classes of nodes: terminals and hosts. In the context of the classical telephone network terminal nodes are the telephone handsets, and the host nodes are the telephone exchanges. Each terminal node connects to just one host node. Each host node is connected to some number of other host nodes and terminal nodes. In the context of computer networks the host nodes are referred to as servers or switches, and the terminal nodes are referred to as terminals or workstations. With the classical telephone network, the mobile telephone network and the broadband Internet we can loosely think of three distinct customer access networks superimposed on the constantly evolving multimedia, digital, inter-exchange network.

2.2 Telephone Network Evolution

2.2.1 Mainstream Technology Developments

Advances in telecommunications have occurred progressively, since the invention of the telephone in 1876 and the construction of simple networks which followed. Despite some early scepticism, voice telephony grew rapidly in popularity and revolutionised real-time communication for those who could afford it, provided they could hear. The traditional telecommunications network is the analogue-based telephone network, described below.

In broad terms a traditional telephone network consists of lines, exchanges, links and distribution points. It is useful to think of a telephone network in this way, since as the network is modified the replacement of the lines, exchanges, links and distribution points are generally handled differently.

• The telephone, with which we are all familiar, is one example of what is technically called a terminal, or customer equipment.
• The telephone line connects your telephone to your local telephone exchange. It is traditionally made from copper wire.
• The telephone exchange is where telephone lines are grouped together. Also connected to the telephone exchange are links to other exchanges. Some exchanges are internal to the network, with links to other exchanges but no lines to telephone customers. A telephone exchange is sometimes called a switch because calls are switched or routed through the network.
• A link is a collection of lines (often called circuits or channels) connecting two exchanges. Links were traditionally made from copper wire, but these days they are commonly made from optical fibre.
• Telephone lines often lead from the telephone exchange towards customer premises in bunches. The point where the lines split, adjacent to the end of a street, a housing estate or an office block, is called a distribution point.
• The collection of exchanges and links is called the Inter-exchange Network. It is a partially meshed network. That is, some exchange pairs are joined directly by links, whereas other exchange pairs are connected via other exchanges. Usually there are multiple paths through the network connecting individual exchange pairs. The Inter-Exchange Network is the heart of a telecommunications network, and understandably it was the first network element to be digitised.
• The collection of lines and distribution points is called the Customer Access Network. Although telephone lines are normally made from copper wire, they may be coaxial cable (such as Optus provides in association with its Pay-TV and Internet broadband network), or wireless (such as Telstra's Wireless Local Loop used in remote areas).
• The Inter-exchange Network and the Customer Access Network together make up the telephone network. The boundary of the telephone network is deemed to be the wall socket into which the customer's telephone handset is plugged.

The purpose of a telephone network is to connect customers, so that they can talk to one another. Their speech is transformed into electrical pulses and carried over the lines and links from one telephone to another, being switched through the telephone exchanges. Thus the bulk of the information carried on a traditional telephone network is the conversations between customers. Telephone networks were originally designed for carrying voice information via analogue transmission. The telephone contains a microphone and a speaker. These make a transformation between sound and electrical impulses. In this way, the impulses (like a variable voltage) can mirror the sounds, and vice versa. The analogue network was geared for carrying voice information, so it was not really very good for carrying other information such as data for computers and fax machines. However, by clever transmission and interpretation of specific sounds, engineers have enabled the telephone network to carry textual information represented as digital data for fax machines, computer modems and TTY's.

Digital transmission represents speech as a series of two-state pulses. These can be viewed, for example, as 0/1, high/low, on/off. A key advantage of digital transmission is that it is equally well suited to the carriage of voice, data, video or image. The work is in the conversion at each end of the connection, where the raw data (such as a telephone conversation, financial transaction, email message, video clip, song or photograph) is represented in digital form and reconstituted at the other end. Another outstanding feature of digital transmission is that it is relatively easy to carry many communications over the one link. In the case of an optical fibre link, tens of thousands of communications, such as voice calls or personal financial transactions, can be carried simultaneously. The application of digital transmission and data representation techniques has enabled the physical telecommunications infrastructure which was developed for the analogue-based telephone service to grow and evolve into a powerful digital telecommunications network carrying voice, data, video and image.

• A bit is the building block of digital information. A bit commonly represents a single zero or a single one.
• A byte is made up of eight consecutive bits. A byte makes a good representation of a printed character (letter, number, punctuation mark, special sign or blank space).
• Bytes are often formed into so-called packets.
• Line speed, otherwise known as bandwidth or link capacity is measured in bits per second (bit/s). The following notation is used:
  • k denotes kilo meaning one thousand - kbit/s;
  • M denotes mega meaning one million - Mbit/s; and
  • G denotes giga meaning one thousand million - Gbit/s.
• The length of data files is measured in bytes. A byte corresponds to an eight-bit character for text files.

There are two forms of switching in digital telecommunications: circuit switching and packet switching. A connection between two telephone users consists of their lines and a chain of links joining their pair of local exchanges.

• For a circuit switched connection, a circuit in each link of the inter-exchange chain is occupied during the whole conversation.
• Packet switching works quite differently. The data stream constituting the digital representation of a message is broken up into fixed-length packets and augmented with address information. Each inter-exchange link carries data packets from unrelated streams simultaneously.
• For an end-to-end virtual-circuit, packet switched connection, a circuit in each link of the inter-exchange chain is reserved during call setup, however it is occupied only when information is being transferred. During silent periods, the circuit can be used to carry other messages; thus different traffic streams are multiplexed onto each link of the so-called virtual circuit.
• For data networks packet switching protocols generally do not use virtual circuits, and the individual packets may take a wide variety of paths through the network.

Analogue networks use circuit switching. Digital networks can use either circuit switching or packet switching, or a combination of both. For voice communications, speech in one direction occurs for an average of 40% of the time. Therefore, the use of packet switching with digital transmission gives a potential increase in network capacity.

The network used in Australia for telephone connections is known as the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN). Its development was based on analogue transmission along copper wires. The PSTN was optimised for voice, and it was recognised that it could not meet the increasing need of non-voice services: for improved performance, increased flexibility and greater reliability. Thus differently designed and optimised packet and circuit switched data networks were developed to support the evolution of a variety of computer networks.

Meanwhile the PSTN has been progressively digitised over the last two decades, except that analogue transmission is still used in the customer access network, and may continue to be for many years to come. The Inter-Exchange Network is made from optical fibre high capacity links composed of 64kbit/s channels. It is known as the Integrated Digital Network. With the widespread deployment of computerised telephone exchanges there is now much greater scope for flexibility in the Inter-Exchange Network, and next generation networks will complete the integration of voice and data networks on a common high-speed digital platform.

2.2.2 Customer Access Alternatives

Broadly speaking there are three different means of customer access to the Australian telecommunications network. These are:

• Copper wire lines comprising Telstra's traditional analogue-based customer access network;
• Wireless access, mostly the cellular telephone networks, but also wireless local loop (WLL) or satellite; and
• Cable, in association with the Pay-TV networks.

The most common form of customer access is traditional, via copper lines. WLL is used in remote areas, where the use of copper wires is uneconomic. Similarly, satellite telephony is used mainly in remote areas where terrestrial mobile services are unavailable.

Cable is used by Optus. Optus customers who use cable for Pay-TV or broadband Internet services, may get telephone access via the coaxial cable.

There are many makes and models of telephones which connect to the telephone network. Mostly these are analogue devices which connect directly to the Customer Access Network via the wall-mounted socket in the customer's premises. One variant is the cordless telephone. It consists of a portable handset and a base station. The base station is the interface between the handset and the network, simply plugging into the wall socket. The base station communicates with the handset by very low powered radio, with a range of several hundred metres. Traditionally, conversations over cordless telephones are not private, so persons in the vicinity with radio scanners can listen to other people's conversations. However, newer models of cordless phones use very high frequencies, and rapid frequency hopping, which provides security and ensures privacy.

Most business customers connect to the network via multiple lines. The interface between the incoming lines and the telephone handsets is a switchboard. These systems vary greatly in size and complexity. Increasingly these days, the switchboard is also an analogue-digital interface. That is, communication with the network is analogue, whereas communication with the handsets is digital. Of course large systems are fully digital; that is, they have digital links to their nearest telephone exchange. These systems, with digital signaling to the handsets, use a wide variety of proprietary standards.

2.2.3 Implications for People with Disabilities

The analogue-based network of copper wires forms the basis of the Customer Access Network, and we can expect this situation to continue for many years to come. The present system works very well for voice telephony and the infrastructure would be expensive to replace. Therefore, we can anticipate that voice telephony over copper wires will remain ubiquitous. The intense activity in the telephone network, taking advantage of new technology, is the development of fibre-based digital inter-exchange networks. This change from analogue to digital does not have a direct effect on the telephone customer, so its impact on people with disabilities is indirect.

For people with disabilities their major problems centre around the inaccessibility of the telephone terminals. For people who are deaf, or who have severe hearing or speech impairments, they cannot participate independently in two-way speech to speech conversations; they need one or both of the speech paths to be substituted for by text or video. The analogue technology of the telephone network does not support video communication, so it does not become practical until digital connectivity is commonly available and the data transfer rates are sufficient.

Many people with physical and sensory disabilities simply need inclusive design of, or elementary modifications to, regular telephone terminals. Of course there are always exceptional cases where the specific nature of one's severe disability, or the compounding effects of multiple disabilities, requires substantial terminal adaptation; but much can be achieved from inclusive design and simple modifications.

Accordingly, three major issues have emerged, which require ongoing and urgent attention. These are:

• Disability equipment programs (refer to Section 4.3);
• Any-to-any text connectivity (refer to Section 4.5); and
• Telecommunications disability standards (refer to Section 4.6).

Telstra, as Australia's traditional telephone service provider and now as the Universal Service Provider, has a well developed set of activities aimed at addressing the specific needs of customers with disabilities. Telstra has recently launched its third DDA Action Plan, has a comprehensive disability equipment program, and provides targeted information and telephone bills in accessible formats including Braille. Optus also has a DDA Action Plan, has a new equipment program and provides information and bills in accessible formats. The activities of Telstra and Optus are discussed in more detail in Section 2.6.

Estens (2002), reviewing regional telecommunications services, was satisfied that Telstra has worked hard to meet the needs of people with disabilities. The Inquiry found that the arrangements Telstra has in place to provide customer premises equipment to people with disabilities in regional areas are generally adequate. However, there are some policy and operational issues which the Government and/or Telstra need to examine, based on meaningful consultation with people with disabilities. The Inquiry recommended (R2.1) that Telstra should continue to work with representatives of people with disabilities to resolve any service concerns, and consider their practical suggestions for service improvements; and that the Government should consider any national policy issues raised with the Inquiry, relating to access to telecommunications for people with disabilities.

The regulatory framework for telecommunications in Australia requires that people with disabilities are provided with necessary equipment for them to access the Standard Telephone Service. Whilst the competitive environment encourages informed customer choice and mobility, people with disabilities are often limited in exercising choice because of the inaccessibility of customer equipment. Therefore, consumer advocates are calling for a reformed and consolidated disability equipment program as discussed in Section 4.3.

In 1995 the Commonwealth Government established the National Relay Service to facilitate telecommunications between people using text telephones who are Deaf or hearing/speech impaired and the rest of the community. Overall the National Relay Service has worked effectively, as discussed in Section 4.4.

Following the Scott v. Telstra DDA complaint in 1993, TTY text telephones have become widely available for Deaf people and people with severe hearing/speech impairments in Australia, and they have been able to communicate effectively over the fixed line telephone network. TTY's also worked quite well over the analogue mobile phone network. The National Relay Service has under-pinned communication by Deaf people beyond the TTY community. However, over the past ten years telecommunications technologies have changed, meaning that the usability of the TTY is becoming limited. In particular, TTY's in Australia cannot operate over the GSM and CDMA mobile networks, and they cannot operate smoothly from terminals attached to digital switchboard and private networks which are commonly used by businesses (both large and small) these days. Therefore, the problem emerges that TTY users are falling behind in their telecommunication options. This does not mean that the TTY will become redundant and has to be replaced, since it is optimised for the analogue-based telephone network which is likely to be the mainstay of residential fixed line telephony for many years to come. But it does mean that text-reliant users need flexibility in the interfaces of their text telephones, to enable them to have analogue or digital connectivity from fixed or mobile locations. This is a matter requiring urgent and immediate attention (refer to Section 4.5).

The need for many adaptations of telephone handsets could be overcome by good design. The principles of inclusive design are well established, and it is well known that inclusive design is much cheaper than retrospective modification. A disability standard under Section 380 of the Telecommunications Act 1997 was agreed by ACIF in 1999 and finally ratified by the ACA in 2002. However the content of the standard was very narrow, and both the ACA and consumer advocates agreed that the telecommunications industry could, and should, do much better. There is further discussion of a Telecommunications Disability Standard in Section 4.6.

2.3 Wireless Communications

2.3.1 Mainstream Developments in Mobile Telecommunications

There are two common forms of mobile telecommunications: terrestrial and satellite. The following discussion concentrates on terrestrial networks, where the second generation GSM and CDMA cellular networks are currently used. Whilst the terrestrial networks reach 98% of Australia's population, they leave large tracts of land inaccessible. Satellite access to the telephone network is the more economical in these remote areas, and the government has recently moved to subsidise the cost of satellite transceivers where terrestrial access is not available.

Cellular mobile telecommunications have grown rapidly since the introduction of the analogue-based AMPS (Advanced Mobile Phone Service) in Australia in 1987. The initial focus was car phones, and it was several years before the handset technology was sufficiently powerful and miniaturised to support the popularisation of handheld mobile phones. The take-up of mobile telephony was so rapid during the 1990s that the carriers were under constant pressure to grow the network and increase its traffic handling efficiency. This rapid growth hastened the introduction of digital networks because they had a higher traffic carrying capacity per unit of radio spectrum.

Mobile telephony was the first frontier of competition in Australia's telecommunications marketplace, with three GSM digital service providers licensed following the passing of the Telecommunications Act 1991. Digital cellular telephony was introduced around 1993, the year the number of mobile subscribers reached one million. By June 2002 there were 12.67 million mobile telephone subscribers, a 13% increase from the previous year. There were 11.7 million GSM and 900 thousand CDMA subscribers. There were four carriers (Telstra, Optus, Vodafone and Hutchison) operating five networks with two technologies (GSM and CDMA), and there were thirteen carriage service providers. The growth rate of 13% was about half that of the previous year, possibly due in part to reduced subsidies for handsets. ACA (2002a) provides further information. Australia's mobile phone penetration was 64%, fourth in the Asia Pacific behind Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong, but ahead of New Zealand, South Korea and Japan. Taiwan's penetration of just over 100% indicates that there is still plenty of growth potential left in the Australian market.

We can think of the wireless cellular mobile telephone network as an alternative to the traditional fixed-line, copper-based, customer access network. Integral to cellular mobile telecommunications is a network of base stations. These are the interface between customers and telephone exchanges. They are connected to the telephone exchanges by physical links, and communication between the base stations and the customers is by radio.

• The term 'cellular' is adopted because the radio-based coverage area of each base station is typically in the physical shape of a hexagonal cell.
• The base stations communicate with the mobile phones via high frequency radio (typically 800MHz, 900MHz and 1800MHZ bands). Third generation wireless communications will use much higher frequency bands, enabling them to offer broadband packet-switched services compared with the narrowband circuit-switched services of today.
• The base station receiving the strongest signal from the mobile phone manages the call, including setup and cleardown; and communication transfers to a neighbouring base station when signal strength falls below a predetermined threshold. This handover capability is what distinguishes mobile telephony from traditional radio telephony (such as we know from taxi radios).

Telecommunications practitioners refer to three generations of cellular mobile communications.

• First generation systems were analogue. The AMPS system was developed in the United States and was used in some other countries including Australia. Japan and Europe had different systems. The AMPS implementation in Australia was more advanced than the system in the United States, where AMPS originated, through the National Roaming feature.
• The second generation technologies include GSM and CDMA. These are discussed below.
• Third generation technologies are the future, but when they will be fully deployed and widely used, and what services they will support, is still a matter of conjecture. More details are given below.

The two standards currently used in Australia, second-generation technologies, are GSM and CDMA.

• GSM denotes Global System for Mobiles. GSM originally stood for Groupe Spécial Mobile, named after the European consortium which developed the specification in the late 1980s, before its formal adoption by ETSI (European Telecommunications Standards Institute). GSM supports circuit-switched communications: voice telephony, data communication at 9.6kbit/s, and SMS (Short Messaging Service).
• CDMA denotes Code Division Multiple Access, named after the mathematical technique used to combine/separate individual data streams for multiplexed transfer across a common radio channel. CDMA supports circuit-switched communications: voice telephony, data communication at 14.4kbit/s, and SMS.

A feature of cellular telephony in Australia, from its inception, has been national roaming. That is, a subscriber connected to the fixed or cellular network anywhere in Australia could call another subscriber connected to the fixed or cellular network, irrespective of their location in Australia and their particular cellular network. Furthermore, with the GSM system optimised for pan-European communication, Australian subscribers on the GSM network have access to international roaming on close to 200 networks in more than 100 countries. The main exceptions for international roaming continue to be North America and Japan, since they use incompatible digital systems, although some companies in North America now use GSM on the 1900MHz band and international roaming is supported.

Both the GSM and CDMA specifications include SMS (Short Messaging Service) capability. In Australia, SMS did not really take off until connectivity was achieved between the different cellular networks. Over the past 2-3 years SMS has grown in popularity, spreading from the original take-up by young people to become popular across most significant market segments.

Most current cell phones have SMS capability. Messages of up to 160 characters can be exchanged for the cost equivalent to a local call. Currently 300 million SMS messages are sent each month in Australia, approaching almost one message per cell phone subscriber per day, and generating around one billion dollars of revenue annually.

All telecommunications networks require an in-built or associated signalling network to handle the setup, cleardown and routing of voice, data or video calls through the primary communications network. SMS uses excess capacity on the signalling channels of the GSM and CDMA networks.

SMS is not a formal telecommunications service. It is not regulated and there are no service guarantees. SMS is a store and forward system, not a near-real-time text connectivity service. The sender has no confirmation that a message is received, and has no control over the transmission time. Whilst the transfer time is normally a few minutes, it is reported anecdotally to be sometimes a few hours and occasionally a few days. SMS started as a gimmick for consumers, but is rapidly becoming an integral part of people's telecommunications inventory. For Deaf people, SMS has been a great development (refer to Section 4.7.2).

In 2.5G and 3G networks SMS is evolving into MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) which will be a feature of the services available over these networks.

The transition from the second to the third generation of mobile communication technologies will not happen overnight. It will be gradual as new networks are opened up, new data-rate capacity is realised by content providers and consumers, new content services are developed, new terminals are released, and consumer interest increases. As a start we can anticipate the deployment of 3G networks in the centres of large cities, with the promotion of services targeted to business customers or to young people playing games and sharing music/image files.

A starting point towards 3G is the so-called 2.5G technology known as GPRS. GPRS denotes General Packet Radio Service and is based on the GSM technology. GPRS is a packet-switched technology, consistent with Internet protocols. Thus a GPRS terminal can run Internet applications enabling users to access Internet services - email, streaming, browsing, etc. GPRS will deliver the first multimedia connectivity, integrating voice, video and data, over mobile communications networks.

The theoretical bandwidth for GPRS is 172.8kbit/s, but this is unlikely to be realised in practice. It requires access to the total of eight TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access) slots which comprise each GSM channel, and it is not anticipated that terminals with greater than 4-slot simultaneous access will emerge for some time. Thus bandwidth of the order of 56kbit/s is more likely to be realised in practice.

Qualcomm, the developer of the CDMA technology describes the evolution to 3G mobile communications at http://www.cdmatech.com/about_cdma/faq/3g.html. Both the CDMA and the GSM evolutionary paths to 3G wireless communications will end up using CDMA technology.

The Third Generation of mobile communications (3G) is a concept outlined in a set of proposals called International Mobile Telecommunications-2000 (IMT2000). This specification was written by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) to define an 'anywhere, any time' standard for the future of universal personal communications. The goal is to make available all kinds of services - voice, high-speed data, audio/video, etc. in a common system.

The framers of IMT2000 envision seamless service across the globe, that blends the wire-line network, the various approaches to wireless, satellite communications, the Internet and the cordless phone. They'd like to see multi-function mobile terminals, worldwide roaming, and even a personal phone number or Universal Personal Telecommunications (UPT) number to allow you to receive any kind of communication, on any terminal, anywhere.

The high-speed data aspect of 3G is where much development is presently occurring. The major players in this effort are the CDMA and the GSM communities.

The CDMA path to 3G is through to CDMA2000, starting with 1X, then on to 1xEV, and ultimately to 3x. Since CDMA already uses a wide (1.25MHz) carrier, the task becomes making the most efficient use out of what's already there. Moving from CDMAOne, to improved and backward-compatible CDMA2000 technology, data rates increase from 115Kbps to over 2Mbps. CDMA phones are already capable of handling packet data, and CDMA networks use standard Internet protocol (IP)-based equipment. The next step, 1xEV, introduces High Data Rate ( HDR), which initially devotes one entire carrier (1.25MHz) to high-speed packet data, so multiple users can still share the same frequency). Voice is handled on another carrier. Phase 2 of 1xEV combines packet data and voice on the same carrier. HDR increases data rates to as much as 2.4 Mbps.

The GSM path to 3G is through GPRS, then to EDGE, and ultimately to wideband CDMA ( WCDMA). The first step is from 9.6kbit/ps circuit-switched (non-packet) data to an interim solution called General Packet Radio Service (GPRS). This step introduces packet data and requires Mobile IP. Real-world data rate increases to approximately 86Kbps maximum. The next step, Enhanced Data rates for Global Evolution ( EDGE), is a further improvement to GSM/ TDMA and provides data rates up to 384 kbit/s. Both GPRS and Edge continue to use GSM's narrow 2G 200KHz carrier and TDMA technology. The ultimate goal of GSM is to switch over to WCDMA. This is a large leap, moving from its TDMA roots over to CDMA, and from a 200KHz carrier to a 5MHz carrier. New frequency allocations, infrastructure, and handsets are required for this step, which will provide data rates of up to 2Mbit/s.

The IMT2000 specification defines three different standards that can be regarded as full 3G solutions: WCDMA, CDMA2000 and TD-SCDMA.

• WCDMA is the 3G implementation in Europe, known as UMTS, evolving from the GSM technology.
• CDMA2000 is the 3G implementation in North America and parts of East Asia, being developed by the 3GPP, based on the CDMA technology.
• TD-SCDMA is the 3G specification approved for use in China.

In March 2001 the ACA auctioned off a portion of 2 GHz spectrum, with the needs of 3G investors/suppliers in mind, and raised $1.17 billion.

• Telstra, $302. 02 million;
• Vodafone Pacific, $253.55 million;
• Cable & Wireless, $248.87 million;
• Hutchison, $196.10 million;
• Qualcomm, $159 million; and
• ArrayComm, $9.45 million.

Hutchison Telecommunications Australia has commenced operation of a 3G WCDMA network, intending to launch commercial services across 70 per cent of the Australian population during 2003. Nationally, 2G fallback services are provided by roaming arrangements for customers on the new WCDMA network who travel out of the 3G WCDMA coverage area. That is, as subscribers move out of 3G coverage, there service drops back to 2G. Whilst this should retain voice contact, it would quickly reduce data transfer rates and should facilitate orderly call termination rather than sudden dropouts. Meanwhile, Telstra has just launched Telstra Mobile Loop aimed at gamers and other young people with discretionary funds, promising bandwidth of 50-80kbit/s as a response to Hutchison's 3G product and Vodafone live! These new products have generated significant press speculation, not so much about the extended service horizon, but more about the viability of the underlying business models. Up to date news on 3G developments in Australia is available by following links from http://www.3gaustralia.com/index.html.

It is not clear what data transfer rates users can expect from 3G services. There is generally a big difference (often a factor of two or three) between theoretic transfer speeds and those which are achieved in practice. End to end data throughput is a function of the bandwidth of the networks and the contention (competing data streams) for individual links. Digital communications over a cellular network are complicated by customer mobility. As an example, we might anticipate 3G data rates being:

• 1152kbit/s for customers who are stationary;
• 384kbit/s for mobile pedestrians; and
• 128kbit/s for mobile customers on the move in private cars or public conveyances.

However, these rates might only be achieved during off peak periods; or only under ideal weather and low traffic conditions.

2.3.2 Implications for People with Disabilities

Australia has been a world leader in the take-up of mobile phones, and its system of competing and interoperable mobile networks has given rise to a sophisticated and efficient, nation-wide mobile communications system. On the one hand mobile telephony has been a great liberation and given security to people with disabilities, but on the other hand many of them have been left behind in the rush to ubiquitous telecommunications.

A great benefit of mobile phones is the added security for vulnerable people, that they can connect with home, a friend, a medical or an emergency service with greater immediacy than ever before. Teenagers, older people and people with disabilities have all enjoyed this greater connectivity. Nonetheless people with disabilities have faced some specific barriers for mobile communications which have denied communication or made it less convenient.

The first problem faced by many people with disabilities was lack of affordability. Like most new services, mobile phones were initially expensive. This was despite the bundling of subscription and handset, which offset the cost of the mobile phone through a fixed-term contract based on minimum monthly payments. The cost of these contracts initially locked out many people with disabilities who are disproportionately represented among people with low incomes in Australia.

When the three Australian GSM licences were issued in 1992 the government was keen to introduce competition in telecommunications and make the rules as fair as possible, but Telstra was the only analogue-based mobile telephone service provider, and therefore had a head start on any new competitors. When the government licensed Telstra, Optus and Vodafone to establish digital GSM mobile telephone services it committed itself to the closure of the AMPS network by the year 2000. The reason for this decision was to level the playing field for Optus and Vodafone, in comparison with Telstra. However, its urgency was heightened by the rapid growth in mobile subscribers and the more efficient traffic carrying capacity of the digital networks. For quite different reasons, closure of the analogue network was a blow for people who were Deaf or hearing impaired.

For Deaf people, and for some people with hearing/speech impairments, the closure of the analogue network denied them mobile text connectivity. The TTY's used in Australia could operate over the AMPS network, but not over the digital networks. For people who were hearing impaired, they found that the GSM signals caused major interference with many commonly used hearing aids. Regrettably, neither of these concerns was taken into account when GSM was introduced or when AMPS was closed down. A retrospective solution has been constructed for the GSM/hearing aid incompatibility problem (refer to Section 4.7.1), but Deaf people still do not have real time mobile text connectivity (refer to section 4.5).

On the positive side, SMS has been a boon for people who are deaf. Notwithstanding that SMS is a very basic and unregulated communications service, it has proved attractive for customers generally and has become extremely popular with Deaf people particularly. For Deaf people, SMS is a liberation: it is their only means of communication out of sight and on the move. But SMS comes with no guarantee of service quality, and is expensive compared with voice calls when the maximum text length of 160 characters is taken into account.

People who are blind have enjoyed the liberation of mobile telephony, but they cannot access the added-value services of mobile telephony. Mobile phones are very helpful to blind people on the move: as an added security for personal safety and against getting lost, for meeting people in unfamiliar environments, for overcoming the problem of being unable to locate payphones. However, blind people cannot access the variety of value-added services which have come with digital mobile telephony (except for voice mail): mobile phone menus, personal directories and text messaging. There are no prospects for these access barriers to be removed for basic 2G mobile telephony terminals.

Some progress has been reported with high-end mobile phones, in particular those using the Symbian operating system. Starting points are the recently announced TALX and Mobile Accessibility software products for some Nokia models which give the blind user access to the phone's variety of features through synthetic speech.

In developing strategies to spread the benefits of mobile telephony throughout Australia the government has focused on geographical access, and has not explicitly addressed affordability for people on low incomes and accessibility for people with disabilities. The main emphasis of the government's Networking The Nation program and the social bonus dividend from the part sale of Telstra has been on geographic coverage. DCITA (2000b) states that "… the vast majority of Australian consumers, almost 97%, have access to a terrestrial mobile service (or services) that are of high quality and relatively affordable by world standards. The remaining three percent have access to a satellite mobile service that is of high standard, but still relatively expensive. These consumers are therefore disadvantaged in comparison to the rest of the community, more so given the increasingly vital role played by mobile services in the social and business life of communities."

DCITA (2000b) identified the strategic options available to Government as:

• Continue to promote competition and the commercial roll-out of services, through the regulatory environment;
• Stimulate the extension of services through providing opportunities under a competitive USO framework;
• Leverage government demand for mobile services to extend service delivery to unserved areas;
• Continue to stimulate the extension of terrestrial services through targeted support for capital infrastructure; and
• Support the growth of satellite services through subsidising the cost of handsets for a limited period.

In communicating with this author, DCITA stated that the document referred to as 'DCITA (2000b)' is out of date. DCITA advised that terrestrial mobile coverage has increased to 98%, and that the recently established Satellite Handset Subsidy Program improves affordability of satellite mobile phone services for the remaining 2% of the population. Nonetheless, DCITA (2000b) remains downloadable from the DCITA website, without annotation that some of the information it contains is out of date. One presumes that DCITA's acknowledgement of "the increasingly vital role played by mobile services in the social and business life of communities" is not similarly out of date. Whilst some of the options quoted above may now be out-dated, as DCITA points out, the fact remains that universal access to mobile telecommunications, across the whole Australian population including people with disabilities who need text connectivity, is not explicitly addressed.

Two inferences may be drawn from this statement of commonwealth Government policy:

• The government, through a mix of terrestrial and satellite delivery technologies, is committed to 100% geographic coverage and greater affordability of mobile telephony in Australia, recognising the social benefits that result; and
• The needs of people with disabilities are not explicitly recognised nor accommodated in the Government's strategies to spread the benefits of mobile telephony throughout Australia.

2.4 Development of the Internet

2.4.1 Mainstream Internet Development

The Internet is a loose collection of computer networks - a network of networks. It has its origins in the 1970s as connectivity was established within the military, academic and scientific research communities in the United States, Europe and other countries including Australia. The Internet did not start to spread beyond this research and academic community until development of the World Wide Web in the early 1990s, after which the Internet has gained popularity in schools, homes and businesses worldwide. Internet growth has been phenomenal, from 38 million customers in January 1994 to 580 million in May 2002. Refer to Griffith (1991), Chapter 5. Griffith gives a good account of the origins of the Internet and some of its principal applications.

The origins of the Internet go back to 1957 when the United States was shocked by the launch on October 4 of the Sputnik satellite by the USSR. The United States government immediately created the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) within the Ministry of Defence. Its mission was to apply state-of-the-art technology to US defence and ensure that the US regained and retained its status as the world's technology leader. ARPA initially focused on space, ballistic missiles and nuclear test monitoring; although advanced computing came to dominate its work and ARPA developed sophisticated links between its own computers and those of its subcontractors throughout the United States.

In its simplest form a computer network consists of a host computer connected by cables to terminals: keyboards for data input, video screens for displaying intermediate results and printers for outputting information. The next extension is to link several computers together, allowing users to access the computer of their choice. But since the computers and terminals may be different makes, and they be operated by different organisations, some protocols are needed to allow the connection of different computers and the transfer of data between them.

In a simple network it may be possible to connect two computers via a dedicated link which is always available. However, as the network grows and most computers are connected through external telecommunications networks, protocols are required for switching the traffic through the network. We may recall that circuit switching is used for voice-based telecommunications, and packet switching is used for data-based telecommunications. Among the various protocols that facilitate connectivity over the Internet, the most important and well known are referred to as TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol). A good description of Internet protocols, and the TCP/IP particularly, is given in Clark et al (1998).

The Internet consists of computers, commonly referred to as nodes, which send messages to each other. There are two kinds of nodes:

• Hosts which connect to other hosts and to client workstations at which useful functions are performed; and
• Routers and bridges which carry and switch traffic through the network.

Each client node is generally connected to just one host node, but many host nodes have multiple connections. The client is connected to its host via copper, cable, optical fibre or wireless lines. Hosts are commonly connected to each other by optical fibre links through public or private data networks. Any two client nodes can be connected by multiple paths, each of which is a chain of links through the network.

Each pair of nodes communicate through conformance to the so-called Internet Protocol Suite. This is known by the two most important protocols, TCP/IP, which are described in Ooi (1998). The protocols are implemented in software that runs on each node. Examples of client software that implement these protocols are Internet browsers, email programs and multimedia players. There are four layers of the Internet Protocol Suite, from highest to lowest: application layer, transport layer, network layer and link layer. The protocols of each layer assume that those of their lower layer are working properly. This general approach gives flexibility and autonomy which greatly simplifies the design of telecommunications systems. The four layers are described in Clark et al (1998), from which the following description is taken.

• The application layer protocols handle messages that are to be interchanged with other applications in nodes elsewhere on the Internet. They specify such details as the sequence and format of the data-items. The protocols include:
  • HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol), for providing World Wide Web services;
  • SMTP (Simple electronic Mail Transfer Protocol), for transferring mail;
  • POP3 (Post Office Protocol v3), for retrieving electronic mail messages from a message store;
  • FTP (File Transfer Protocol), for transferring files between hosts;
  • NNTP (Network News Transfer Protocol), for transferring news feeds between hosts; and
  • Telnet, for interfacing terminal devices and terminal-oriented processes.
• The transport layer protocols specify whether and how the receipt of complete and accurate messages is to be guaranteed. In addition, if the message is too large to be transmitted all at once, it specifies how the message is to be broken down into segments. There are two major transport layer protocols:
  • TCP (Transmission Control Protocol), which is the key protocol at this level, and provides a reliable message-transmission service; and
  • UDP (User Datagram Protocol), which provides a stateless, unreliable/best effort service.
• The network layer protocols specify how packets are moved around the network. This includes the important questions of how to address the node that is being sought, and how to route each packet to that node. The key protocol at this level is IP (Internet Protocol). Other protocols at this level, which are closely related to and dependent on IP, include:
  • ICMP (Internet Control Message Protocol), for reporting errors and obtaining information about the transmission of IP datagrams; and
  • IGMP (Internet Group Management Protocol), mostly used in multicasting (transmitting a single message intended for multiple recipients).
• The link layer protocols specify how the node interfaces with the communications channel. They convert the bits that make up packets into signals on channels. Through a physical 'port', socket or plug (e. g. a serial RS-232 or RJ-11 port, or a parallel port), they transmit a signal onto a channel provided by a medium such as twisted-pair copper wire, coaxial cable, optical fibre cable, or a digital cellular mobile phone network. Link-layer protocols are implemented in software that is commonly referred to as a device driver and may be embedded in a network interface card.

During the Internet's first phase of development, up until the time that the World Wide Web encouraged the popularity of the Net and spawned the development of new business models, the Internet operated over a variety of data networks with a minimum of regulation. There was no mechanism for content regulation, and connectivity was achieved by adherence to a basic set of communication protocols. In the mid 1990s a new business model developed, but took several years to achieve stability. It was driven by the need for companies to provide support for dialup users (increasingly residential and small business customers) requiring access to an Internet node. These companies are referred to as Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and their major functions are to connect customers to the Internet and to provide associated services such as email server and website hosting. Under the Telecommunications Act (1997) they are classified as Carriage Service Providers (CSP's). Telstra and Optus have become important players as both ISPs and telecommunications carriers.

The two most important applications of the Internet, certainly from the point of view of home computer users, are undoubtedly Electronic Mail (email) and the World Wide Web (Web or WWW). Email was developed by ARPA scientists in 1972, and the Web was unveiled by Tim Berners-Lee in 1991. The Web has grown enormously as individuals and organisations have established websites with a variety of information; web browsers have improved; and customers have flocked to the Net for work, education, leisure and titillation. Other important Internet applications have been:

• News Groups, the forerunner to email discussion lists;
• FTP, the File Transfer Protocol for exchanging files;
• IRC, Internet Relay Chat for near-real-time text-based communications;
• Telnet, for terminal access to remotely-located host computers;
• Streaming, for multicasting by content providers and audio/video-on-demand by consumers;
• Search engines, such as Archie, Infoseek and Google; and
• Internet telephony for voice and video chat and conferencing.

We shall see later that for technical reasons, Internet telephony is still a relatively immature application, although its growth is rapid.

This is a description of packet switching as implemented over the Internet. It is useful to think in terms of a file transfer from a server to a client's computer.

• The file is broken up into chunks at the server.
• Each chunk is augmented with labelling information such as the size of the chunk, its final destination, the number of chunks in the file and its immediate destination.
• These augmented chunks are known as packets, and are sent on their way through the network.
• One can imagine, at any particular time, these millions of chunks of data, comprising thousands of files, moving through the network from their particular origins to their particular immediate and final destinations. It is the essence of packet switching that particular data streams are mixed in with everything else as they travel along particular links connecting a pair of nodes in the communications network.
• Sometimes packets are too big for the physical capabilities of particular links, so they must be further decomposed into smaller chunks, labelled, dispatched, and reassembled at their final destination.
• At the final destination the packets are reassembled, the headers and trailers are stripped, and the original file is recomposed. If packets are missing they must be retransmitted from the original source. This recomposition is handled by the client's web browser.

This system, without any guarantee of service quality, with its chaotic appearance of packets belonging to one file being mixed in with packets from other files, may seem rather inefficient and haphazard. But it really works quite well, extremely efficiently in fact, for data files. It does not work so well for two-way, real-time audio or video communication. Automatic downloading is also not commonly used for long audio or video files such as live broadcasts, where streaming is the preferred technology.

So to the problems of the TCP/IP for audio or video chat or conferencing. Essentially the problem is that for real-time audio and video communication delay and jitter must be minimised.

• Delay refers to the average propagation time from source to destination of the data.
• Jitter refers to the variance of the propagation time.

Future enhancements of the TCP/IP protocol may allow for additional QoS (Quality of Service) protocols for real-time audio/video communication, presumably at a higher tariff for users, but this will require a significant enhancement of the currently used suite of Internet protocols.

Wang (2001) gives a good summary of the development of QoS routing protocols on the Internet. For the traditional functions of the Internet - remote access, file transfer and email - the best effort and datagram implementations of packet switching worked well. However, with new applications - video conferencing, Internet telephony and media streaming - new protocols are needed to provide assured quality of service where necessary. In particular, for real-time voice and video communications, the mean and variance of the propagation time of data through the network must be kept within acceptable bounds. Two approaches have been defined and associated protocols are being developed. Under the integrated services architecture network resources are determined and reserved before the call is established. Under the differentiated services architecture packets are labelled with their assigned priority, and higher priority packets are transmitted first whilst lower priority ones must wait. From the users' point of view it boils down to this: the better the absolute or the relative QoS, the higher the cost.

Internet telephony refers to the use of the Internet to send or receive voice calls to or from the telephone network. Internet telephony is growing quickly, but still it is not a mature technology. As noted previously, the problem is that typical Internet delay and jitter do not support real-time two-way voice communication.

2.4.2 World Wide Web

The World Wide Web was invented by Tim Berners Lee in 1990. He describes the Web, and the environment which preceded it, in Berners Lee (2002), available from http://www.w3.org/2002/04/Japan/Lecture.html.

The concept of the Web integrated many disparate information systems, by forming an abstract imaginary space in which the differences between them did not exist. The Web had to include all information of any sort on any system. The only common idea needed to tie it all together was the Universal Resource Identifier(URI) identifying a document. From that cascaded a series of designs of protocols (such as HTTP) and data formats (such as HTML) which allowed computers to exchange information, mapping their own local formats into standards which provided global interoperability.

Back in 1989, before the World Wide Web, many different information systems existed. They ran on different sorts of computers, each running different operating systems, connected by different networks, and using quite different programs to give to the user very different ways of accessing information. Thus, while the information on two systems might be very relevant, the path between them was very long. And yet, in fact, each of the computer systems was very likely to be connected to some sort of network. And that network was very likely to be connected to another network, so that in fact there was a path from a bit of data on one computer through a series of networks to the other computer. So there was, finally, no fundamental reason why these barriers to communication should exist.

The Web is a huge conglomerate of databases and information repositories, commonly referred to as websites and web pages. In essence, a website is a collection of files maintained by a given organisation (server), some of which may be displayed as web pages. It is the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) that enables a client to move around in cyberspace from one Web page to another by following links. The links are simply URI document references embedded into text files in accordance with certain addressing and file naming protocols. The text files of the Internet adhere to the Extensible Markup Language (XML), which itself is a framework for specific markup languages such as XHTML (Extensible Hypertext Markup Language). XHTML is specified by the World Wide Web Consortium, and was preceded by HTML (hypertext markup language). HTML evolved without proper standardisation and needed cleaning up, especially to distinguish between the markup of content and presentation. HTML also needed augmentation to improve Web accessibility, especially for blind people using screenreaders and others using non-graphical browsers.

When a user through software such as Internet Explorer activates a link a copy of the file is transferred to the user's computer and is opened for display on the screen (except for streamed files). HTML files can be read by the browser directly, and for other files the browser calls up a specialist program such as Word, Excel, Acrobat or any one of a variety of media players. The file is not saved locally, unless the user chooses to save it. The communication is achieved through the TCP/IP protocols mentioned above, which together constitute a form of packet switching. When a user is viewing a file and clicks on a link, a new file is retrieved and is opened in the same or another window. In this way the user moves from file to file, from one virtual location to the next, around the World Wide Web of online databases.

2.4.3 Media Streaming

Media streaming is a technique for making audio and video information available in digital form. It allows the large amounts of data required for live concerts, sporting events and Internet radio to be stored and transmitted in an efficient manner. It is primarily a means of economising on transmission and storage resources. A good description of the technology and applications for media streaming, together with an analysis of the prognosis for its long-term importance is given in CTIN (2002). Streaming allows the recipient to gain access to long multimedia files before the whole file has been constituted and dispatched.

Streaming is a form of one-to-many communication; but it is not one-to-many simultaneously, and is not formally designated as a form of broadcasting in Australia. This has implications for the regulation of streamed content. Streaming is a media-on-demand application. Due to the propagation time for streamed content, of the order of ten to thirty seconds or more, streaming is not viable for fluent two-way communication.

In the current era of narrowband connections and relatively low storage capacity in receiving devices, streaming is a powerful and important technique. It provides access to low quality digital video or to FM quality audio data, allowing communications to be transmitted across the Internet. In the future, as broadband data transfer rates are massively increased, data compression is improved and data storage capacity is increased, media streaming may become less important, and mostly the conventional file transfer/download methods will be used for the transfer of long multimedia files. The idea of media streaming is that multimedia files, too long for the storage capacity of average home computer systems, can be heard/seen online as if they were a live or archived performance. The principal application of media streaming, currently, is Internet radio. Streaming has three major disadvantages for the consumer, by comparison with file downloads:

• The current media players do not allow for the recording of streamed files, although this can be achieved with third party media-recording software;
• The user cannot readily navigate through a media-streamed file, and particularly cannot skip or repeat internal chunks of the file; and
• The stability of the media stream is subject to demand for the streamed file and to congestion on intermediate links.

The purpose of media streaming is to allow a large set of data to be transferred from the origin, over the network at variable rate, and to be displayed at the destination at constant rate. Multimedia files can be very long - much longer than text files, commonly viewed images, or music tracks. These are some examples:

• The file of a 2.5 hour football game, audio-encoded at 43.2kbit/s Real Media, would be 48.6 Megabytes long;
• The file of a 90 minute concert, encoded at 192kbit/s MP3 audio with low grade video, would be 129.6 Megabytes long;
• The file of a 30-minute Auslan presentation, encoded at 384kbit/s (compressed video), would be 86.4 Megabytes long; and
• The file of a 15-hour talking book, encoded at 48kbit/s MP3, would be 324 Megabytes long.

Streaming uses buffering, which is akin to a digital reservoir. The data stream flows into the buffer at a variable rate, and once the release threshold has been reached the data is released from the buffer to the user at constant rate. If the data stream flows faster than the buffer is emptied, the flow will cease when the buffer is full until a refill threshold is reached in the buffer, whereupon the data stream will again begin to flow. If the buffer is emptied, because the input stream is blocked or because the input rate is below the output rate, the data stream to the user is stopped until the buffer is refilled. If the average data input is higher than the constant data output, and if the input jitter (variation of flow) is low, the user will receive an uninterrupted data flow. The input data flow can vary because some links are heavily utilised at intermediate stages of the network. Such congestion can also mean that the data packets do not arrive in their correct order, so there may be some delay whilst the received packets are correctly ordered and stray packets are retrieved. In this case the user will experience interrupted service.

From the user's perspective, live streaming is akin to receiving a broadcast, as the data is received in near real time. But it is not broadcasting, since an individual data stream is sent to each user. If there is heavy demand for the stream, the serving computer may not be able to keep up, or the first link to the Internet may not be broad enough, whereupon the quality of the stream will be degraded.

2.4.4 Customer Access to the Internet

Until recently residential and small business customers have used dialup access to the Internet. The user's computer terminal is connected with the Internet Service Provider's host computer over the telephone network, using a pair of modems. A modem (modulator demodulator) is the interface between a computer which sends and receives digital signals and the telephone network which carries analogue signals. The modem converts signals between digital bit streams which can be processed by a computer, and audible tones which can be carried across the telephone network. There is one modem at the user's computer, and one modem for each incoming line at the host computer. Over the past twenty years modem speeds have increased from 300bit/s to 56kbit/s. Modem speeds have now plateaued, and it seems that 56kbit/s is the upper limit for data transfer over the analogue telephone network.

The growth of the Internet and dialup access by residential customers has had a major impact on traffic patterns for the telephone network. Many residential subscribers have installed a second telephone line for Internet access, and the average holding time for local telephone calls has increased from the traditional 3 minutes to almost 10 minutes. This has undoubtedly had a huge impact on the provisioning of local exchanges: outgoing lines and switching capacity.

Over the past five years residential and small business subscribers have acquired broadband Internet connectivity. This is an always-on form of connection and gives much higher data rates by comparison with dialup connection. There are two dominant forms of broadband connectivity in Australia, which give equivalent service:

• Hybrid fibre coaxial (HFC) cable mostly uses the infrastructure rolled out by Telstra and Optus for pay television. Optical fibre extends from telephone exchanges to distribution points from which coaxial cable connects with individual customer premises. The maximum data rate for an individual customer is limited by the current usage of neighbouring subscribers, but is generally around 1Mbit/s.
• ADSL (Asynchronous Digital Subscriber Line) uses the infrastructure of the copper-based Customer Access Network. The customer needs to be within about 5km of the nearest telephone exchange, and the line to the exchange must be of good quality. Customers can receive data at the rate of 1Mbit/s, but the sending rate is significantly slower.

Broadband Internet access is also available through ISDN connection and via one-way or two-way satellite connection. ISDN access is not commonly used by residential subscribers, and satellite access is mainly used in remote locations.

The charging model for dialup access is generally a monthly subscription based on a maximum number of connected hours per month, with a surcharge for extra hours used. This model does not work for an always-on broadband connection. For broadband services a monthly charge has been retained, but there are usually limits on the volume of data that can be downloaded. With some companies there is a surcharge if the monthly data volume is exceeded, and otherwise there may be a reduction in the maximum available data rate for the duration of the month.

Chapter 12 of ACA (2001a) states that according to an ABS survey in September 2001 72% of Australians aged over sixteen used the Internet, and the number continues to grow. At the end of the March 2002 quarter there were 571 ISPs, down from 665 in the past twelve months. Telstra and Ozemail are the two largest ISPs. The top 6% of ISP companies served 85% of Internet customers.

Most people use dialup connections, but the number of broadband connections doubled during the year. For residential subscribers broadband connections almost doubled, whereas for businesses they quadrupled. ADSL connections increased much faster than cable connections.66% of home-based Internet users accessed the Internet by dialup from their only telephone in the house, 29% used dialup access from a second line, and 5% had an always-on broadband connection. Broadband take-up remains relatively low in Australia, by comparison with other countries. It remains below the OECD average. ACA (2002a) states that the cost of Internet access in Australia is relatively low. Whilst this is true for dialup access, with all Australians now having local call access to the Internet and at equitable ISP charges, the cost of broadband Internet access remains a barrier to many people on low or middle incomes.

2.4.5 Implications for People with Disabilities

This discussion paper does not cover web page accessibility for people with disabilities. This is a very important and broad topic (worth a discussion paper on its own) with a great deal of current activity, and with many current and emerging problems yet to be solved. The Web Accessibility Initiative of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C/WAI) has developed specifications for Web Accessibility which are available at http://www.w3.org/wai/. Many organisations in Australia are recognising that Web accessibility is important, and good progress is being made; However, display technologies are constantly changing, and their multimedia capability often causes problems for the screenreaders used by people who are blind. Telstra's focus on Web accessibility, through work being carried out at the Telstra Research Laboratories, is a welcomed development.

There is a class of information service in Australia which has not yet used the Internet as a regular outlet. This is Radio for the Print Handicapped (RPH). RPH programming includes newspaper and magazine readings, along with various special interest features of particular interest to people with print disabilities. Australia's RPH services are unique in the worldwide context. They broadcast on the open AM and FM bands, underpinned by a blanket clearance under Section 47 of the Copyright Act 1968 as amended. However, they cannot stream their programs on the Internet. This is because Internet streaming in Australia is not classified as broadcasting, and therefore the Section 47 copyright exemption does not apply. The solution to this problem may be to make a simple amendment to the Copyright law in respect of licensed RPH services.

Recommendation 2: Broadening copyright exemption for RPH programming

That HREOC, with advice from the Australian Council for Radio for the Print Handicapped, should discuss with the Attorney General's Department and DCITA amendment of Section 47A of the Copyright Act 1968, to extend the blanket exemption for specially licensed RPH stations to include Internet streaming as an delivery medium in addition to regular AM/FM broadcasts.

People with disabilities have enjoyed the benefits of the Internet, especially email and the availability of information on the Web. This information is both general and disability-specific. Goggin and Newell (2002) give a good discussion of the use of the Internet made by people with disabilities. Internet usage by people with disabilities has lagged behind that of the community generally. Such people are often isolated, and often lack the means and know-how to use the Internet. For those who have conquered the Internet, many find that common-interest discussion lists and chat groups are very enjoyable and helpful. For the community generally, the Internet has been an important source of information and referral concerning a wide range of disabilities, and most large disability organisations now have a Web presence.

ACA (2002a) lists a series of government and industry initiatives to grow Internet broadband connectivity in Australia. None of these initiatives appears to provide any specific help for people with disabilities. The first barrier faced by people with disabilities for broadband Internet access is the cost. The first prerequisite is a home computer. For both cable and ADSL access there is usually a startup cost of more than $250, and a monthly charge of more than $50. For many broadband users there are stiff penalties for exceeding the monthly quota of downloaded data. This affects intensive users of audio or video streaming. Many people with disabilities have low incomes. Firstly, the computer, and secondly, the broadband access, are simply too expensive for many people with disabilities. Internet usage is correlated with education, income and employment - three metrics where people with disabilities score poorly. For example, as quoted in ACA (2001a) from a NOIE survey, in September 2001 37% of people with incomes below $25,000 were Internet users, whereas for people with incomes above $45,000 the Internet usage was 70%. Similarly, only 34% of unemployed people were Internet users, whereas for employed people the usage rate was more than 60%.

A national workshop was held in May 2001 to conclude the government's two-year AccessAbility grants program. It identified five major issues for online access confronting people with disabilities seeking to participate in the information economy. The need to:

• Increase access to computer equipment and appropriate assistive devices for accessing online services;
• Provide appropriate training and ongoing support;
• Reduce cost barriers to accessing the Internet;
• Monitor government information technology and telecommunications decisions to ensure disability issues are considered; and
• Fund future research in assistive technology for online access and promote product development in Australia.

The workshop made specific recommendations to address each of the major issues. They have since been ratified by the Internet Society of Australia (ISOC-AU (2001)) and were taken up in TEDICORE's 'Best Practice' report (Astbrink (2001).

2.5 Next Generation Networks and Convergence

Telecommunications technology trends are clear: digital network interior; fixed line and mobile wireless customer access changing from analogue to digital; and mixed voice, data and video traffic. This gives rise to the so-called next generation networks (NGN), but the precise look and feel of NGN is not clear. Summarising the conclusions of an ACIF forum, Darling (2003) states: "In the broadest terms, we felt that the 'Next Generation' was likely to combine packet-based digital access (fixed and mobile) with a core packet-based digital network able to support a wide range of services. The network would be able to pass information at rates ranging from single bits per second to Gigabits per second, with the main limiting factor the capability of the customer access. Whilst the network could be based solely on ATM technology, given the rapid growth of the Internet we felt 'the NGN' was most likely to be based on the Internet Protocols, enhanced to be able to support the reliability and quality of service (QoS) requirements needed for current and future services (for which we used the term 'Carrier Grade IP')."

The telecommunications network based on 64kbit/s circuit-switched channels has provided good service for predominantly voice-based traffic; but to accommodate the rapidly growing volume of data, Internet and video traffic change is needed. The drivers for change include:

• Flexibility: The modularity of 64kbit/s channels, up to a maximum of four is not very efficient. By comparison, packet-switched networks can flexibly support data speeds ranging from bit/s for applications such as text chat and ATM/EFTPOS transactions to Mbit/s for applications such as video conferencing and database mirroring/archiving.
• Open interfaces: The success of the internet has resulted from the use of open interfaces supporting independent applications and promoting interoperability.
• Economics: Packet-switched networks are now cheaper to build and maintain than circuit-switched networks.

Future networks will have to support the current services of voice telephony, data communications and Internet access, as well as new services such as real-time multimedia communication which is not widely supported today.

Whilst next generation networks will use some form of packet switching, it will not be the same as the Internet uses today. This is because TCP/IP does not have an in-built quality of service regime. Priority for some traffic streams will be needed to support services such as voiceconferencing and videotelephony where the mean and variance of the propagation time must be tightly controlled.

The NGN evolution is gradual. Networks will develop from the current networks built by telecommunications companies. There will not be just one network of the future. There will be heterogeneous network components with different architectures offering different services. This heterogeneity is fundamental to the Internet with its simple and effective interworking protocols, but it something foreign to the world of telephony. Therefore, as telephony and computing converge, offering a range of multimedia services over various networks, standards for internetwork communication and terminal interoperability will be required. This presents as a major task for telecommunications technologists.

From the users point of view there will be a convergence of terminals. In the analogue world the telephone, camera, television and other devices have been separate. In the digital world we can already see the development of flexible multimedia terminals: the pocket computer with digital camera and mobile phone; the printer that doubles as photocopier, fax machine and scanner; etc. If the development of these new multimedia terminals is based on inclusive design principles, people with disabilities stand to benefit along with the rest of the community. However, there is no expectation that accessibility will be assured, especially for people who cannot use the keyboard or who cannot read the screen.

2.6 Telstra and Optus Initiatives

2.6.1 Telstra

2.6.1.1 Overview

Telstra has actively developed and promoted products and services for people with disabilities for more than twenty years. Telstra is the current 'default' universal service provider, and 'services to all' is a key objective and ongoing challenge for Telstra. The purpose of Telstra's Disability Services Unit is to identify issues relevant to people with disabilities for integration into Telstra's business planning process. The unit seeks to eliminate discriminatory practices within Telstra, promote disability strategies, and advise on the resolution of disability-related issues.

Telstra maintains a comprehensive Disability Equipment Program (DEP) in its role as the Universal Service Provider under Part 2 of the Telecommunications Consumer Protection and Service Standards Act 1999. The DEP provides a range of rental equipment to enable people with disabilities to use the Standard Telephone Service. An online catalogue is available at http://www.telstra.com.au/disability/catalogue/index.htm. The DEP is administered through Telstra's Disability Enquiry Hotline, a dedicated customer service centre for telephone, TTY and email enquiries. The hotline provides specialist advice to customers with a disability about the Disability Equipment Program and other Telstra equipment that may provide solutions for their telecommunications needs.

Telstra has a company-wide staff training program in disability awareness. It is supported by a Disability Services intranet site which provides detailed information to assist staff in their interactions with people with disabilities. Telstra also has an online Disability Awareness Program. It is a self-paced course, the completion of which is mandatory for all Telstra staff, that raises awareness of disability issues and which gives advice on interactions with people with disabilities.

Telstra's TTY Payphones enable people who are deaf or have a communication impairment to stay in touch when out and about. More than 170 Telstra Payphones have now been modified to include a TTY facility. In a recent development Telstra provides a directory of TTY payphone locations on its website at http://www.telstra.com.au/disability/ttypayphones/index.htm. Telstra works with organisations representing Deaf, hearing and speech impaired people to identify appropriate new locations for TTY payphones, and to review existing locations to ensure that the placement of these payphones meets the requirements of the local community. Telstra payphones are being progressively upgraded with an in-built hearing aid coupling device, volume control, large visual display and improved wheelchair accessibility.

For customers who are blind or vision impaired Telstra provides telephone bills in Braille and large print. Telstra also provides a free directory assistance service to eligible customers. In 1996 Blind Citizens Australia carried out research on consumer information access, with funding support from Telstra. The project report (Astbrink (1996)) contained 50 recommendations, many of which were directed to Telstra. As a part of its first DDA Action Plan Telstra reviewed all relevant recommendations, and most of them have now been implemented. Telstra is carrying out research on Web accessibility, focusing on its own website as a starting point.

Telstra works proactively to consult with peak consumer groups which represent its customers with disabilities. The Telstra Disability Forum was established in 1999, replacing a previous consultation mechanism. The forum meets twice yearly, and is attended and co-chaired by Telstra senior managers on a rotational basis. More generally, the Telstra Consumer Consultative Council (TCCC) is a well-established interface between Telstra and representatives of residential consumers.

2.6.1.2 Disability Action Plan

Telstra's disability mission statement

Telstra's primary disability strategy is to make its telecommunications products and services more accessible to people with a disability and to ensure that as products and services are developed or changed, the needs of people with a disability are addressed.

Telstra is committed to identifying areas of potential discrimination in the provision of goods, services and facilities through the review of existing practices and the implementation of review programs.

Telstra was Australia's first corporation to develop a DDA Action Plan. The first plan covered the period 1996-98, and the third plan now covers 2002-04. DDA Action Plans are a strategy under the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 for organisations to develop and document strategies to reduce discrimination and follow best practices in the provision of goods, services and facilities. Telstra's third DDA Action Plan aims to:

• develop policies and procedures to incorporate compliance with the DDA into Business Unit planning processes;
• identify and where possible eliminate, in an appropriate and reasonable timeframe, any discriminatory practices;
• ensure all Telstra managers and staff understand the principles of DDA compliance;
• encourage compliance with DDA principles so that services are made accessible for the greatest possible number of people in a practical and cost-effective manner;
• ensure Telstra provides its customers with a disability with the same high level of service as other customers; and
  
  ensure ongoing consultation with representatives of the disability community on issues of concern to people with a disability.

Telstra's first three-year DDA Action Plan contained nine strategies and 46 action points, 91% of which were completed or in progress when the time expired. The second Plan contained eight strategies and 57 action points, all of which were completed or in progress when the time expired. Telstra's third Plan builds on the achievements of the first two Plans, recognises the changing telecommunications industry, and recognises the continuing growth of online services. The Plan is at http://www.telstra.com.au/disability/docs/dap0204.doc, and is based on eight major strategies.

1. Enhance disability awareness among Telstra management and staff.

2. Ensure ongoing community consultation.

3. Improve access to information for people with a disability.

4. Improve access to Telstra's products and services:

• Payphones;
• Directory Assistance;
• Mobiles;
• Telstra Shops;
• Billing; and
• Other Products and Services.

5. Improve access to Telstra's complaint management process for customers with a disability.

6. Improve access for the 'online' consumer with a disability.

7. Improve access to Telstra's facilities.

8. Maintain Telstra's commitment to the elimination of discrimination in the workplace in accordance with EEO policy.

2.6.2 Optus

2.6.2.1 Overview

Optus is Australia's second largest telephone company. Growing rapidly since its establishment in 1992, Optus was one of the three original digital mobile phone service licensees, and now provides a range of integrated voice and data, fixed and mobile, wired and wireless, terrestrial and satellite telecommunications services. Optus aims to be a single provider, offering the complete range of telecommunications services to its customers. Optus believes that future services will enhance opportunities for people with disabilities, and through service to people with disabilities Optus believes that it will enhance service for all.

Optus provides a range of telecommunications services:

• Mobile telephony over a GSM digital network;
• Cable delivery of pay television programming;
• HFC cable-based broadband connectivity to the Internet;
• Optus Direct telephone service from the HFC cable network;
• Local, interstate and overseas telephone services by wholesale arrangement with Telstra; and
• Satellite-based broadcast and telephony services.

Optus recognises that people with disabilities face barriers in their access to telecommunications services and equipment. Whilst people who are deaf, or who have speech/hearing impairments, face the greatest problems, many people with other disabilities also face access barriers. Examples are:

• being able to lift and hold a receiver;
• being able to hear the phone ring and adjust the volume of the phone according to the tone and volume of the other person's voice;
• being able to see the non standard enhanced call handling features on a telephone handset;
• accessing a retail outlet to purchase a service or pay a bill;
• accessing advertising information in the media or by mail; and
• being able to contact the customer service section of the telecommunications company.

Optus has established a Disability Equipment Program (DEP). The Optus DEP provides a TTY for people who are deaf or hearing/speech impaired, but the range of other equipment remains small by comparison with the Telstra DEP.

Optus provides copies of bills in Braille for blind people, and other company information in accessible formats by request. Optus also provides a freecall number for directory assistance to people with print disabilities.

Optus has a Consumer Liaison Forum, which meets regularly with the representatives of consumers of Optus services and which includes disability advocates, but Optus does not maintain a specific mechanism to liaise with representatives of consumers with disabilities.

2.6.2.2 DDA Action Plan

The Optus DDA Action Plan aims to remove barriers to access for present and future customers, and for employees. In developing and implementing the Plan, Optus confirmed its commitment to minimising discrimination in relation to: its provision of products and services, its employment practices and its dealings with the community. The Plan is supported by these guiding principles:

• In implementing the Plan, Optus will focus on achieving accessibility.
• In implementing the Plan's strategies, Optus will strive to achieve integration of the needs of people with disabilities with current Optus employment and business objectives.
• In implementing and reviewing the Plan, Optus will commit to a process of ongoing consultation.
• Where the retrofitting of current practices/products is inefficient, Optus will adopt a future focus.

The Plan covers the five-year period 2000-2004, and includes mechanisms for monitoring and evaluation. The success of the Plan will be determined in relation to three main performance indicators:

1. Low percentage of customer complaints/staff grievances relating to disability matters.

2. Increased number of customers with a disability.

3. Continued positive feedback from disability stakeholders with regards to Optus' initiatives for people with disabilities.

The Plan has five major objectives, with various strategies for their attainment. These are the objectives.

1. Corporate Culture: To achieve a responsive anti-discriminatory culture.

2. Accessible Communications: To improve accessibility to information about Optus' products and services.

3. Confidentiality: To ensure that privacy and confidentiality is maintained in the handling of customer and employee personal information.

4. Physical Environment: To ensure that Optus' physical environment is as free as possible from impediments or barriers which unduly constrain the access of people with disabilities.

5. Products and Services: To enhance access to Optus products and services.

Next part: Part 3