NATIONAL COMMUNICATIONS FUND
Evaluation of the appropriateness, effectiveness
and efficiency of the program
Research, Statistics and Technology Branch
Department of Communications, Information Technology
and the Arts
(November 2006)
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The evaluation team gratefully acknowledges the assistance of the following groups
and individuals in conducting this evaluation:
staff of the National Communications Fund administrative team;
project staff, project participants and community members who participated in
field investigations; and
staff and representatives of state and territory governments consulted in the course
of the evaluation.
Research, Statistics and Technology Branch
Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts
TABLE OF CONTENTS
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ........................................................................................... 1
INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................... 6
The National Communications Fund program .......................................................... 6
This evaluation ......................................................................................................... 12
APPROPRIATENESS ................................................................................................. 13
Consistency with Australian Government priorities ................................................ 13
Needs assessment ..................................................................................................... 16
Managing the potential for overlaps in funding ....................................................... 17
Conclusions .............................................................................................................. 20
EFFECTIVENESS ....................................................................................................... 22
Program outputs ....................................................................................................... 22
Program performance............................................................................................... 22
Conclusions .............................................................................................................. 60
EFFICIENCY .............................................................................................................. 62
Management of funds .............................................................................................. 62
Review of administrative processes ......................................................................... 66
Conclusions .............................................................................................................. 74
FEEDBACK FROM CLIENTS AND LESSONS LEARNT ...................................... 76
Feedback from clients and stakeholders .................................................................. 76
Lessons learnt........................................................................................................... 83
APPENDIX 1—ABBREVIATIONS AND GLOSSARY ........................................... 87
REFERENCES ............................................................................................................ 91
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The National Communications Fund program
In March 2000, the then Minister for Communications, Information Technology and
the Arts, Senator Richard Alston, established the Telecommunications Service Inquiry
(TSI)—also known as the Besley inquiry—to assess the adequacy of
telecommunications services in Australia.
One issue identified in the TSI report (2000) was reliable access to the Internet and
adequate data speeds. Recommendation 8 of the report suggested:
“…that the Government establish a national communications fund to assist significant
communications projects by key users such as education or health. A core criterion
for funding such projects should be the extent to which they will improve
communications services generally available to surrounding regional, rural and
remote communities.”
In May 2001, the Government announced the creation of the National
Communications Fund (NCF) as a competitive grants program allocating
$52.2 million (including $2.2 million for administration) over four years from
July 2001 to June 2005. It was one part of a package of programs that responded to
the TSI report.
As set out in the NCF program guidelines (2001):
The NCF‟s objective is to achieve significant improvements in service delivery in
education and health sectors through funding large-scale telecommunications
projects in regional areas. Priority will be given to projects that improve
telecommunications services generally in regional communities, as well as improving
the delivery of education and health services.
The program supported eight projects with funding ranging from $3 million to
$8 million. Six projects were completed by June 2005 as planned; however, two
projects required one extra year and were completed by June 2006. The projects
installed networks covering some regions of each state and the Northern Territory
(NT). State/territory government health and/or education service delivery agencies
were involved in each project. The funding recipients contributed cash and in-kind
resources in the order of $120 million.
The evaluation
In early 2005, the Research, Statistics and Technology Branch (RS&T) of the
Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts (DCITA), was
commissioned to undertake this independent final evaluation of the NCF program.
The evaluation covers the program from its announcement in 2001 until the final
projects were completed in June 2006. The terms of reference address the then current
Department of Finance and Administration (DFA) generic terms for the evaluation of
programs (DFA, 2004). The main findings of the evaluation are described below.
1.
Appropriateness
Consistency with Australian Government priorities
The NCF is consistent with Australian Government priorities. It was established by an
explicit Government decision that was part of a broader package of measures
developed in response to the Besley inquiry to improve telecommunications
infrastructure and services in regional, rural and remote Australia. It is clear from the
Government’s decision in August 2005 to create the $2 billion Communications Fund
as well as the $1.2 billion Connect Australia package that supporting new
communications services for rural Australia will remain an Australian Government
priority for the foreseeable future.
Level of continuing need
There is a continuing need for a program of similar scope to the NCF. The NCF was a
focused program which funded a small number of large projects. It was specifically
targeted to meet a selected number of regional broadband needs for health and
education, and was not intended to be comprehensive and meet all such needs across
the country.
Given the limited geographic and sectoral coverage of the NCF program, there are
networks, applications and services in the health/education sectors and generally
across regional Australia that have not yet been sufficiently upgraded. Follow-on
programs such as the Coordinated Communications Infrastructure Fund and Clever
Networks are addressing these needs, among others.
Managing the potential for overlaps in funding
The potential for overlaps in funding certainly existed, given that the states and
territories have lead responsibility for the deployment of basic health and education
services within their jurisdictions. However, the NCF program was designed to
leverage and use state/territory involvement to pursue the Australian Government
objective of improving telecommunications service levels in regional, rural and
remote Australia. Thus, the potential for overlap was effectively managed and, indeed,
minimised through these NCF project relationships.
Effectiveness
Improvements in service delivery in health and education sectors
The NCF program has been effective in supporting the development and deployment
of health and education services via eight large, well-designed and robust networks.
These networks service more than 1350 health and education facilities and their users
across regional, rural and remote Australia.
A diverse and interesting range of health and education services is being delivered
over the new broadband networks funded by the NCF. These services range from
school, Technical and Further Education (TAFE) and university online classes for
students dispersed over very wide distances to sophisticated online medical clinics.
2.
Videoconferencing and reliable access to information and research material by both
students and professionals have been among the more immediate uses made of the
networks. Administrative and information technology support services are also
commonly accessed or delivered over the new networks.
The relatively large size of the NCF funded projects, especially when combined with
cash and in-kind resources contributed by the funding recipients, enhanced
effectiveness in several interesting ways:
the projects were sufficiently large and attractive that innovators within education
and health administrations Australia-wide were mobilised to ‘break the frame’ in
terms of developing ambitious projects with wide geographical coverage in
regional, rural and remote areas;
these innovators were able to garner the support of senior administrators for these
ambitious projects, which in turn assisted in raising the matching resources
required by NCF and in smoothing the way for cross-agency collaboration; and
the size of the projects stimulated several carriers to compete vigorously for the
supply of carrier services for these regional projects.
The NCF has also shown that co-operation across very different government service
delivery agencies can be achieved and can deliver cost-effective levels of service.
NCF effectively operated as an experimental or demonstration program supporting
major projects in each state and the NT to show what could be achieved. However, as
a one-off program with a mid-sized allocation, this program alone could not address
all health and education online service delivery needs in regional, rural and remote
Australia.
In order to fully realise the potential of the investment in any new networks, NCF-like
projects ought to include time and resources for the design, trial and implementation
of online services and their associated work practices. This is especially so for the
more ambitious and complex new services. This evaluation suggests that, while a
reliable telecommunications network may be necessary, it is not sufficient in itself to
achieve the delivery of new complex online health and education services to patients
and students.
Improving telecommunications generally in regional communities
The NCF has demonstrated that connecting broadband to education and health
facilities in rural and regional towns can also make broadband widely available within
those towns. It is estimated that collectively the projects have led to around 450
regional and rural towns having their telecommunications infrastructure upgraded to
support some level of broadband capacity. The NCF project that upgraded services to
families with children attending the School of the Air (SOTA) also demonstrated the
potential of satellite to deliver an effective broadband service to any isolated family,
community or business.
Although other market and technological factors over the course of the NCF program
most certainly assisted the development of communications infrastructure in regional
3.
areas, the evidence gathered during the course of this evaluation suggests that without
the NCF program, the new broadband networks, associated service delivery and
broadband coverage of NCF-serviced towns would not have progressed anywhere
near as quickly as they did.
Efficiency
Management of funds and timeliness
Program funds were well managed over the course of the full five years of the NCF
program, with all funds in the original budget allocation expended. Annual
expenditures over the life of the program were re-profiled on several occasions, due to
delays in the negotiation of funding agreements and the slow early progress of some
projects, and in particular the two projects that required an extra year to complete.
These variations to the annual funding profiles are understandable given the complex
and innovative projects supported by the NCF.
The projects collectively have contributed about $120 million in cash and in-kind.
Together with the NCF program funds, this created a total pool of resources of about
$170 million. Substantial leverage was achieved.
The amount of funds allocated to the branch administering the NCF was decided on a
year-to-year basis according to need. The cost of administering the NCF is estimated
to approach, but not exceed, the $2.2 million originally provided. If the $2.2 million
figure is taken as a high estimate, the ratio of administration costs to programs funds
would be 4.4 per cent, which is at the low end of the accepted range for an efficiently
administered program.
Setting up the program
The program was established in a most time-efficient manner especially given the
complex nature of the NCF objectives which required extensive consultation among
Australian Government departments as well as with state and territory agencies in
both the education and health sectors. The nation-wide and public consultations about
the design and operation of the program helped to improve and fine tune the design of
the NCF.
An evaluation plan was not prepared for the NCF. However, both mid-term and final
evaluations were conducted. The NCF was also reviewed as part of a performance
audit of the TSI programs by the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO, 2006),
which considered that the NCF effectively achieved its stated objectives.
A risk analysis was prepared for the early phases of the program and a considerable
number of risk management features are built into the DCITA funding agreements
and the processes used to administer the agreements. In addition, the ANAO
recommended in the above audit report, and DCITA has agreed, to require recipients
funded for complex or high risk projects to report regularly on the management of the
higher priority risks.
4.
Selection and administrative processes
The project selection process was sound, with officials working with technical
consultants to develop a short list of 15 applications from a pool of 59 received in
response to a nationally advertised open call for applications. The short-listed
applications were then assessed by an expert panel. The then Minister for
Communications, Information Technology and the Arts made the final decision on
projects and funding allocations. A probity adviser was involved in the process.
From the date of announcement of the successful projects, the funding agreements
took between four and 15 months to finalise. This was too long, especially for a
program such as the NCF which planned for the projects to run for a limited three
year period.
The DCITA funding agreement and the schedules used by the NCF provide a sound
basis for setting out the relative responsibilities of both the funding recipients and
DCITA, and for tracking the progress of projects. The schedules could be improved
further if they set out requirements for more performance information at both project
and program levels. This would help establish clearer links between individual project
performance, the program’s performance indicators and the program objectives.
The NCF was soundly managed throughout the life of the program. The NCF team
developed a procedures manual to guide project officers in administering the funding
agreements. It contained a wealth of useful information for the managers and project
officers.
Virtually all funding recipients and project managers commented favourably on the
helpfulness, responsiveness and flexibility of DCITA staff administering the NCF.
5.
INTRODUCTION
This chapter provides information about the origins of the National Communications
Fund (NCF) and describes its objectives, its design and key aspects of its operation. It
also outlines the scope and terms of reference for this evaluation.
The National Communications Fund program
Policy context and background
In March 2000, the then Minister for Communications, Information Technology and
the Arts, Senator the Hon Richard Alston, established the Telecommunications
Service inquiry (TSI)—the Besley inquiry—to assess the adequacy of
telecommunications services in Australia. This assessment found ‘…that while the
majority of Australians enjoy adequate [telecommunications] services, there are some
people in parts of rural and remote Australia for whom key service aspects are not
adequate,’ (DCITA, 2000).
The inquiry made a number of recommendations to provide a framework to address
the areas of concern identified in the report and ensure that the telecommunications
sector would continue to improve the services available to Australians.
One issue identified in the TSI report was reliable access to the Internet and adequate
data speeds. Recommendation 8 of the report suggested “…that the Government
establish a national communications fund to assist significant communications
projects by key users such as education or health. A core criterion for funding such
projects should be the extent to which they will improve communications services
generally available to surrounding regional, rural and remote communities.”
A core criterion for funding such projects should be the extent to which they will
improve communications services generally available to surrounding regional, rural
and remote communities.’
Establishment and objectives
In May 2001, and as part of a package of measures to address the TSI report
recommendations, the Government announced the creation of the National
Communication Fund (NCF) program as a competitive grants program allocating
$52.2 million over four years (including $2.2 million for administration).
As set out in the program’s guidelines (DCITA, 2001):
The NCF‟s objective is to achieve significant improvements in service delivery in
education and health sectors through funding large-scale telecommunications
projects in regional areas. Priority will be given to projects that improve
telecommunications services generally in regional communities, as well as improving
the delivery of education and health services.
6.
Program design and operations
The NCF was designed as a competitive grants program. The program guidelines
were approved by the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the
Arts in October 2001. This followed a period of public consultation and the advice of
a reference panel that included officers from state and Australian Government
departments. Key guidelines included a minimum project size of $3 million and a
requirement for any state or territory government applying for funding to contribute
matching funding.
Applications were called for in October 2001 and due in February 2002. Fifty-nine
applications were received. Initial assessment was undertaken by DCITA officers with
the support from technical consultants and officers from the Australian Government
departments of Health and Education. The resulting short list was then assessed by an
advisory panel appointed by the Minister. The Minister approved the final list of
successful applications.
In July 2002 the Prime Minister announced the successful projects:
Network Western Australia—$8 million;
The Grampians Rural Health Alliance Network (Victoria)—$8 million;
Health and Education Information Access for Rural and Regional New South
Wales (NSW)—$3.5 million;
Northwest and New England (NSW) Broadband Telecommunications Network—
$5.5 million;
NSW and NT Interactive eLearning —$8 million;
Outbacknet@qld—$8 million;
Regional Network Delivering Education Services (South Australia)—$6 million;
and
Tasmanian Health and Education Communications Consortium—$3 million.
All available NCF funding was allocated to these projects in this single funding
round. The funding recipients also contributed cash and in-kind support of around
$120 million.
These projects were planned to be completed within the remaining three years
projected for the NCF program. Collectively they planned to achieve improvements in
service delivery in the health and/or education sectors in a range of regional areas in
all states and the NT. The Effectiveness chapter contains detailed tables of the
reported achievements for each project.
Detailed funding agreements were negotiated with each successful applicant. The first
was signed in November 2002 and the last in October 2003. The delivery of each
project was managed by the applicant organisation.
Six of the eight projects were completed by end June 2005, the original scheduled end
date for the program. The other two projects, based in Queensland (QLD) and South
7.
Australia (SA), had largely completed the roll out of their telecommunications
infrastructure by this date and were fully completed by June 2006.
During the life of the program, the DCITA administration team organised one-day
roundtable seminars for project managers to share their ideas, plans and experiences
as well as to build informal people networks across the projects. Three roundtables
were held with the last held in August 2005.
Some of the program’s key dates and activities are listed in table 1.
8.
TABLE 1
National Communications Fund—key dates and activities
Key dates Activities
30 September 2000 TSI Report presented recommendation 8 for ‘a national
communications fund to assist significant communications projects by
key users such as education or health’.
15 May 2001 The Australian Government announced NCF as part of the
$163.1 million response to the TSI Report.
July/August 2001 DCITA consulted with over 50 organisations to discuss NCF
guidelines.
22 August 2001 Reference panel convened to advise on program guidelines.
5 September 2001 Second meeting of the Reference Panel.
10 September 2001 Release of program draft guidelines for public comment.
26 September 2001 Comments on draft guidelines closed.
2 October 2001 Minister approved final guidelines.
5 October 2001 Applications called.
28 February 2002 Applications closed. 59 applications received.
26 March 2002 Selection Advisory Panel appointed by Minister.
18 July 2002 Prime Minister announced the eight funded projects.
4 November 2002 Funding agreement signed for the ‘NSW and NT Interactive e-
Learning Initiative’ project.
16 December 2002 Funding agreement signed for the ‘Northwest and New England
Broadband Telecommunications Network’ project.
20 December 2002 Funding agreement signed for the ‘Health and Education Information
Access for Rural and Regional NSW’ project.
15 January 2003 Funding agreement signed for the ‘Broadband for Rural Tasmania’
project.
February 2003 NCF procedures manual completed.
3 June 2003 Funding agreement signed for the ‘Outbacknet@qld’ project.
4 June 2003 Funding agreement signed for the ‘Grampians Rural Health Alliance’
project.
18 June 2003 Funding agreement signed for the ‘Network WA’ project.
October 2003 Update of NCF procedures manual completed.
14 October 2003 Funding agreement signed for the ‘Regional Network Delivering
Education Services’ project.
1 April 2004 First NCF Roundtable held in Canberra.
May–December 2004 Mid-term review conducted by NCF administration team.
25 November 2004 Second NCF Roundtable held. Managers of the first round of projects
funded by the follow-on CCIF also attended.
16 June 2005 Minister released Mid-term review.
30 June 2005 Planned end date for program. Of the eight projects, six were
completed.
1 July 2005 Final evaluation commenced by Research, Statistics and Technology
Branch.
4 August 2005 Third NCF Roundtable held jointly with CCIF.
June 2006 Remaining two projects completed.
Source: NCF files
9.
Mid-term review
The NCF administration team conducted a review of the program during the second
half of 2004. This was published on the DCITA website (DCITA, 2004). At the time
of this review, all eight projects were underway. However, only some were delivering
services and it was, therefore, not feasible for that review to fully assess the success of
the program. The review made the following points;
NCF has supported the development of high bandwidth services in regional
communities. New infrastructure is being rolled out across significant areas of
regional Australia with connectivity ranging from 128Kbps to 20Mbps.
NCF has brought forward progress towards equity of service delivery between
metropolitan and regional areas.
About half of the projects have exceeded the number of sites and towns initially
proposed in their funding applications and funding deeds by a considerable
margin.
Benefits from the projects were already being gained, including:
- schools in several jurisdictions enjoying for the first time high-speed Internet
access and a viable online teaching format;
- various health services making significant cost savings through shared
administrative applications and processes;
- SOTA students in remote NSW and across the NT having significantly
improved class sessions conducted via broadband satellite;
- access to TAFE courses increasing, because it was now feasible to aggregate
students to offer a wider range of courses in small centres and training
packages could be delivered closer to the workplace in subjects such as
agriculture and aquaculture; and education, health and other professionals
taking advantage of better electronic communications with their peers for
professional support and development.
Feedback from project managers and technicians implementing the projects,
education and health practitioners using the new services, and end users of the
services was overwhelmingly positive.
Negative comments to the review usually related to minor implementation issues
such as setting up the equipment, getting used to new systems or wanting more
money to extend the activity further.
Several of the projects have used NCF funding as a catalyst for bigger projects or
are integrating the NCF component into a state-wide communications strategy.
A catalytic effect of the program has been the bringing together of different state
agencies which have not previously collaborated closely on major projects.
An unanticipated outcome of the program has been the development by Telstra of
two new products: Government Wideband Internet Protocol (or GWIP) and
Business DSL (BDSL).
In addition to the competitive tender processes conducted by almost all projects,
several projects have introduced alternative carriers resulting in increased
competitive pressures on all market participants.
10.
Several projects experienced delays in the first year of the program, which set
back their progress in achieving milestones within agreed timeframes. Two
projects still had substantial infrastructure roll-out to complete.
Sustainability is being built into all of the projects. In the majority of projects, on-
going operating costs are being met from the state governments’ recurrent funding
of their education and health agencies. As this funding is an on-going part of state
government budgets for core service delivery, the sustainability of the services is
secure.
All projects are consistent with a broad range of national and state/territory
education and health service delivery initiatives and telecommunications
standards.
All eight projects have the direct participation of government education and health
agencies and will receive more than $120 million in cash and in-kind
contributions.
DCITA’s administrative expenditure to date is running slightly below the
allocation provided for the program.
The review also reported the following lessons learnt;
The large scale of the NCF grants has enabled the projects to bring about some
significant changes in regional telecommunications, to catalyse large co-
investments, and has been the incentive for carriers to offer new and better
services.
Implementation can take a long time to start—there has been an unexpected length
of time taken for many of the projects to reach the stage of network roll out.
However, in general, once carriers have been engaged, the pace of network roll
out and the connection of user sites have been relatively rapid.
The applications that are being used are not always the ones that might have been
expected, e.g. health administration rather than tele-health services.
The type of technology chosen can determine the spread of broader community
benefits.
Advances in technology have delivered better and cheaper services. One project
manager commented that what had been achieved in practice ‘just was not
possible at the time of the application’. These advances have been reflected in
some significant increases in the scope of some projects within their original
budget.
For some projects, the involvement of one of the major telecommunications
carriers has allowed the project management team to focus on service delivery
rather than network development. However, several projects have also provided
opportunities for the involvement of smaller carriers and other suppliers.
Program administrators need to be flexible when managing projects that deal with
new technology.
Education and health services have different requirements.
11.
Despite the wide coverage of the NCF and CCIF, large areas of regional Australia
are still without access to broadband communications1.
The eight projects are demonstrating different approaches to similar issues.
This evaluation
Scope of the evaluation
In early 2005, the then Information and Communications Technology division of
DCITA commissioned the Research, Statistics and Technology Branch to undertake
this final evaluation of the NCF program. The evaluation covers the program from its
announcement in 2001 to when the last of the projects was completed in June 2006.
Terms of reference
The evaluation addresses the then current DFA generic terms of reference for the
evaluation of programs (DFA, 2004). It covers the appropriateness, effectiveness and
efficiency of the NCF program and teases out lessons learnt. The terms of reference
also draw upon advice from the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) on
program evaluation as set out in its latest better practice guide for the administration
of grants (ANAO, 2002). Note that the NCF program was established and designed
prior to the publication of these guidance documents.
Summary of evaluation methods
The evaluation used a combination of desk-top analysis and fieldwork. The desk-top
analysis included:
quantitative and qualitative analysis of administrative data;
review of project reports, files and records;
compilations of program performance data; and
analysis and benchmarking of program administrative costs.
The fieldwork included visits to each of the eight funded projects. More than 40
interviews were conducted involving more than 120 individuals. The interviews with
funding recipients and project managers were structured. However, sessions with
users of the new networks and other stakeholders were typically shorter and less
formal. Separate from the interviews, the evaluation team observed about 10
demonstrations of the new network capabilities, such as broadband-enabled classes
and health-related consultations.
1
As discussed more fully in the Effectiveness chapter, follow-up programs such as Clever Networks
are continuing to address the broadband needs of health and education organisations in other regional
areas across Australia.
12.
APPROPRIATENESS
This chapter describes the needs that the program addresses and the objectives agreed
by the Australian Government. It also discusses:
the extent to which the program is consistent with Australian Government
priorities;
the nature and extent of any continuing needs;
alternative strategies and the likely consequences of not addressing the needs.
It also identifies related state/territory government activities and discusses:
the extent to which the identified need is addressed by other government
activities;
the degree of any overlap between Australian Government and state/territory
government activities; and
the potential for integrating or aligning Australian Government and state/territory
government activities.
Consistency with Australian Government priorities
When the program was announced
The NCF is one of the many Australian Government initiatives designed to enhance
telecommunications services in regional, rural and remote Australia. When the NCF
was established it was part of a broader package of measures to improve
telecommunications infrastructure and services in regional Australia. It therefore
addressed and was consistent with clear Australian Government priorities.
As noted in the previous chapter, the specific proposal for a national communications
fund was one of many recommendations put forward by the Besley inquiry (DCITA,
2000).
The inquiry’s overall conclusion included the view that:
…Australians generally have adequate access to a range of high quality, basic and
advanced telecommunications services comparable to the leading information
economies of the world. The Inquiry research indicates Australians who live in
metropolitan and regional centres enjoy good telecommunication services and are
generally satisfied with them. However, a significant proportion of those who live and
work in rural and remote Australia have concerns regarding key aspects of services
which, at this stage, are not adequate.
In the lead up to its recommendation for a national communications fund, the inquiry
reported that:
It is clear that telecommunications is becoming integral as a delivery mechanism for a
range of service sectors, most notably health, education, government services and
finance. Both Commonwealth and State/Territory governments have a number of
13.
initiatives in place which are important drivers for new competition and improved
regional infrastructure.
The Inquiry does not consider supply side mechanisms, such as the USO or other
service obligations, to be the most effective means of addressing the needs of key
users such as health and education. Not only are the needs of these sectors complex
and different from any „universal‟ requirement, but they are very significant
purchasers with a capacity to have their needs commercially met.
Further, the role of telecommunications in their broader activities should be
determined by those sectors. …
However, the Inquiry found some concern in rural and remote areas that state or
nationwide service arrangements for these key sectors can substantially limit the
potential to develop regionally-based demand aggregation projects. This is
particularly the case where government telecommunications demand represents a
significant proportion of total telecommunications demand in a region. There appears
to be an inherent tension between sectorally-driven and regionally-driven
telecommunications strategies. Consideration should be given to mechanisms which
can reduce or eliminate the impact of these sectoral or government-wide purchasing
models on regional strategies.
In summary, the Besley inquiry advised that:
supply side mechanisms are not effective for key telecommunications users in the
regions such as health and education service providers;
the needs of the health and education sectors are not only complex but also
different from requirements delivered by standard telecommunications services in
regional areas; and
typically large health and education user organisations have the potential to drive
regionally based demand aggregation projects if not limited in doing so by sector-
specific and state-wide telecommunications strategies.
Based on these views, the inquiry recommended:
That the Government establish a national communications fund to assist significant
communications projects by key users such as education or health. A core criterion
for funding for such projects should be the extent to which they will also improve
communications services generally available to surrounding regional, rural and
remote communities.
The Besley report was considered by ministers in the lead-up to the 2001–02 budget.
On 15 May 2001, and as part of a broader package of measures developed in response
to the Besley inquiry report, the Australian Government announced (Alston, 2001) the
establishment of the NCF.
In his media release, the then Minister explained that
The Government has allocated a total of $52.2 million, over four years, to establish
the National Communications Fund to assist significant telecommunications projects
in the education and health services sectors for regional communities.
14.
The Government recognises how important these service sectors are to communities
in regional Australia, and these projects will go a long way to improving the delivery
of services, as well as reducing the cost of advanced telecommunications services by
making them more accessible.
One of the core criteria for funding health and education projects will be the extent to
which these projects not only deliver real benefits for these sectors, but how they also
improve communications services generally in surrounding communities.
Later in 2001, the then Minister approved the NCF program’s objective:
… to achieve significant improvements in service delivery in education and health
sectors through funding large-scale telecommunications projects in regional areas.
Priority will be given to projects that improve telecommunications services generally
in regional communities, as well as improving the delivery of education and health
services.
Subsequent and current priorities
Improving telecommunications infrastructure and services in regional, rural and
remote Australia has continued to be a priority for the Australian Government. In this
regard, little has changed since the establishment of the NCF.
In September 2002, the Australian Government commissioned another inquiry—
commonly referred to as the Estens inquiry—to further assess the adequacy of
telecommunications services to regional, rural and remote Australia. Its report,
Connecting Regional Australia (DCITA, 2002), was presented to Minister Alston in
November 2002.
The NCF projects successful in receiving funding were announced in July 2002—a
few months prior to the set up of the Estens inquiry. Little actual project work was
underway in the second half of 2002. However, it was clearly the view of the
independent Estens inquiry that the selected NCF projects were designed and
structured to respond well to the Government’s stated priorities and that the NCF
remained an appropriate vehicle to further those priorities.
In particular, finding 5.4 of the Estens report noted that:
The National Communications Fund has stimulated the development of services to
meet the higher bandwidth needs of the education and health sectors, and has been
successful in promoting collaboration and partnerships, both across the sectors and
with telecommunications service providers.
Acknowledging the limited life of the NCF (which was due to be completed by June
2005), the Estens inquiry recommended the establishment of a further program with
similar objectives to the NCF—the Coordinated Communications Infrastructure Fund
(CCIF). This was announced in June 2003 with $23.7 million being made available to
further accelerate the roll-out of broadband into regional Australia.
More recently, in August 2005, the Australian Government announced (Coonan,
2005) a plan to future-proof telecommunications which, among other measures,
included a $113 million Clever Networks program to improve the delivery of health,
education and other essential services. Clever Networks could be said to follow on
15.
from the NCF and CCIF as it continues much of the focus of the earlier programs. It is
evident from this that the NCF continued throughout its life to be an appropriate
program to further the Australian Government’s objectives.
It is also clear from the Australian Government’s 2005 decision to create the
$2 billion Communications Fund that supporting new communications services for
rural Australia will remain an Australian Government priority for the foreseeable
future.
Needs assessment
When the program was established
The needs assessment for the NCF was essentially provided by the research and
consultations of the Besley inquiry, which recommended its creation.
In announcing the creation of the NCF program in May 2001, in response to the
Besley inquiry, the Australian Government outlined its basic design parameters
(Alston, 2001). It was to be a competitive grants program aimed at supporting
significant telecommunications projects in the education and health sectors in regional
Australia. Priority was to be given to projects that not only improved the delivery of
education and health services but also improved communications services generally in
regional communities.
Once the NCF was announced, DCITA consulted widely about the more detailed
design features of the program. This included efforts to gain a better understanding of
the precise needs of potential funding recipients in the health and education sectors, as
well as seeking practical advice on such issues as the appropriate minimum size of
projects.
Level of continuing need
The NCF was a focused program offering to fund a small number of large projects. It
was specifically targeted to meet a selected number of regional broadband needs for
health and education, and was not intended to be comprehensive and meet all such
needs across the country.
Some projects only ever focused on one sector—health or education. All projects
were limited to a particular region but even where the region was a whole state, there
were typically still some practical limits on how far the NCF projects could extend
broadband to the outer ‘fingers’ of the telecommunications network. There were also
limits on the extent to which districts surrounding towns upgraded with DSL could
also be serviced.
The mid-term review found that, Despite the wide coverage of the NCF and CCIF,
large areas of regional Australia are still without access to broadband
communications.
Given the limited geographic and sectoral coverage of the NCF program, it follows
that there remain networks, applications and services in the health/education sectors
16.
and generally across Australia which have not yet been sufficiently upgraded. Follow-
on programs such as CCIF and Clever Networks are addressing these needs, among
others.
Alternative strategies
The NCF is one of the many Australian Government initiatives to enhance
telecommunications services in regional, rural and remote Australia. It is evident from
the announcement of the Connect Australia initiative (Coonan, 2005) that a large
number of regulatory and funding strategies are being used to pursue this goal.
Other approaches to stimulate better telecommunications services in the regions are
also available. One example is initiating negotiations among health and education
officials at Australian Government and state/territory levels to coordinate new state-
wide communications investments. Another is engaging with other large regional
telecommunications users such as local government bodies and some widely
dispersed commercial businesses.
A range of Australian Government initiatives, such as the Demand Aggregation
Broker program, are being pursued toward these ends. However, it is clear that, for
some time, there will be an on-going need for programs which offer financial
inducements to create better infrastructure.
Consequences of not addressing the needs
During the fieldwork interviews for this evaluation, many examples of ‘slow and
clunky’ networks in regional Australia were reported as hampering service
development and delivery prior to the deployment of the NCF-backed projects.
Examples included professionals not being able to access central information sources
and patient/student records, patients, medical professionals and IT support personnel
having to travel hundreds of kilometres for relatively short consultations. Also
reported were talented students not being able to access higher level classes from their
small remote schools and remote farm workers unable to access basic safety training
from TAFE.
The improvement of telecommunications services in regional, rural and remote
Australia is a stated aim of the Australian Government. Improving such services in
towns and communities, as well as for health and educational service delivery, is core
to the goal of achieving social and economic equity for rural and remote Australia.
Many recent reports, such as those from the Besley and Estens inquiries, have
documented the challenges and discussed the consequences of not addressing these
needs.
Managing the potential for overlaps in funding
The potential for overlaps in funding certainly existed, given that the states and
territories have lead responsibility for the deployment of basic health and education
services within their jurisdictions. However, the NCF program was designed to
17.
leverage and use state/territory involvement to pursue the Australian Government
objective of improving telecommunications service levels in regional, rural and
remote Australia. Thus, the potential for overlap was effectively managed and, indeed,
minimised through these NCF project relationships.
There are a wide range of both national and state/territory broadband initiatives in the
health and education sectors. No cases were identified in either the fieldwork or in the
final project reports where NCF funded projects acted contrary to these government or
sector-wide initiatives. Indeed, the SA RegNet project was held back until it could be
integrated with the EduCONNECT state-wide initiative. There are other examples,
such as the SOTA project in NSW, where the NCF project, in effect, served as a pilot
for a state-wide service initiative.
This evaluation found many examples of strong cooperation within state and territory
governments. Moreover, the agencies involved in the NCF projects were typically
well informed about, and interacting appropriately with, relevant Australian
Government initiatives.
Australian Government programs
Subsequent to the creation of the NCF, further Australian Government initiatives and
programs have been announced. Each address different aspects of the challenge
presented by the Australian Government’s goal of improving telecommunications
services in regional, rural and remote Australia.
The National Broadband Strategy, announced June 2003 (Alston et al, 2003):
Coordinated Communications Infrastructure Fund (CCIF), designed to accelerate
the rollout of broadband into regional Australia;
Higher Bandwidth Incentive Scheme (HiBIS)—to provide a financial incentive to
service providers to offer broadband services in regional areas at prices reasonably
comparable with those available in urban areas; and
Demand aggregation initiative—to fund ‘demand aggregation brokers’ to
coordinate demand at a regional level and generate a viable business case for
rolling out infrastructure to areas that would not otherwise receive broadband
services.
Connect Australia, announced August 2005 (Coonan, 2005):
Broadband Connect—to provide all Australians with affordable broadband
services;
Clever Networks—to roll out innovative broadband networks for new applications
to improve the delivery of health, education and other essential services; and
Backing Indigenous Ability—among other things, to deliver Internet and
videoconferencing services in remote Indigenous communities.
The NCF administration team has been attentive to the need to cooperate with these
new generations of programs. They ensure that ‘lessons learnt’ are shared and that any
linkages between NCF projects and any new projects are beneficial and do not result
18.
in overlap. QLD Health, for example, is receiving CCIF funding to expand the scope
of its NCF-funded network to a completely new region—remote towns in North QLD.
The NCF team has also invited the CCIF project managers to NCF roundtable
meetings designed to share ‘how to’ information among the project managers.
Similarly, a small number of QLD exchanges originally scheduled for upgrade with
NCF funds were upgraded by Telstra using HiBIS subsidies. The NCF project was
subsequently extended to upgrade additional towns that did not qualify for HiBIS
support, with the available funds.
DCITA has ensured that there is no overlap with initiatives in other Australian
Government agencies; especially those agencies responsible for health and education.
For example, in the health sector a number of network initiatives were underway that
could have interacted with NCF projects.
These included:
Broadband for Health—to provide broadband Internet access to general
practitioners, pharmacies and Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services
across Australia;
HealthConnect—the electronic collection, storage and exchange of consumer
health information via a secure network and within strict privacy safeguards.
Work on a staged national implementation of HealthConnect has begun in
coordination with the states and territories and in full consultation with consumer
and health care provider groups; and
MediConnect—a secure national electronic system to help improve quality and
safety in the way medicines are managed.
Both Australian and State Government officials in the health and education sectors
were consulted about the design of the NCF program. As noted in the previous
section, the chosen design for the NCF aimed to leverage and use state/territory
involvement and thus link in with both state and nationwide initiatives. Moreover,
Australian Government health and education officials participated in the selection
process for NCF projects.
Subsequently, links among Australian Government communications, health and
education officials have been strengthened by all three participating in the National
Broadband Strategy Implementation Group.
State/territory initiatives
The conditions of the NCF funding required the projects to be designed in a way that
was consistent with other regional telecommunications initiatives. The fieldwork
interviews with the project managers indicated that they were well aware and, as
necessary, integrated into relevant broadband initiatives at both state and Australian
Government levels. No evidence of duplication of state/territory programs has been
found.
19.
The NCF team worked with state/territory officials in education and/or health during
all projects. Most of the state/territory health and education agencies associated with
NCF projects were already planning for the expansion of broadband to their
regionally based operations, but the timescales being considered were much longer.
Funds from the NCF accelerated these initiatives. The fact that many health and
education authorities already had professional groups thinking about ways to extend
broadband networks into regional areas enabled the NCF to quickly attract a large set
of ambitious and high-quality applications.
Conclusions
Consistency with Australian Government priorities
The NCF is consistent with Australian Government priorities. It was established by an
explicit Australian Government decision that was part of a broader package of
measures developed in response to the Besley inquiry to improve telecommunications
infrastructure and services in regional, rural and remote Australia. It is clear from the
Australian Government’s decision in August 2005 to create the $2 billion
Communications Fund and the $1.2 billion Connect Australia package, that
supporting new communications services for rural Australia will remain an Australian
Government priority for the foreseeable future.
Level of continuing need
There is a continuing need for a program of similar scope to the NCF. The NCF was a
focused program which funded a small number of large projects. It was specifically
targeted to meet a selected number of regional broadband needs for health and
education, and was not intended to be comprehensive and meet all such needs across
the country.
Some projects only focused on one sector—health or education. All projects were
limited to a particular region. However, even where the region was a whole state,
there were typically still some practical limits on how far the NCF projects could
extend broadband to the outer ‘fingers’ of the telecommunications network. There
were also technical limits on the extent to which districts surrounding most towns
upgraded to broadband could also be serviced.
Given the limited geographic and sectoral coverage of the NCF program, there are
networks, applications and services in the health/education sectors and generally
across regional Australia which have not yet been sufficiently upgraded. Follow-on
programs such as CCIF and Clever Networks are addressing these needs, among
others.
Managing the potential for overlaps in funding
The potential for overlaps in funding certainly existed, given that the states and
territories have a lead responsibility for the deployment of basic health and education
services within their jurisdictions. However, the NCF program was designed to
leverage and use state/territory involvement to pursue the Australian Government
objective of improving telecommunications service levels in regional, rural and
20.
remote Australia. Thus the potential for overlap was effectively managed, and indeed
minimised, through these NCF project relationships.
21.
EFFECTIVENESS
This chapter examines:
the program’s achievements against the performance indicators;
the extent to which the program achieved outcomes and desired impacts and the
extent of any unintended consequences;
linkages between the program and other programs; and
the adequacy of the performance indicators relating to the effectiveness of the
program.
Program outputs
The outputs from the NCF program are the eight funded projects as announced by the
Prime Minister in July 2002. As noted earlier, these are:
Network Western Australia—$8 million;
The Grampians Rural Health Alliance Network (Victoria)—$8 million;
Health and Education Information Access for Rural and Regional NSW—
$3.5 million;
Northwest and New England (NSW) Broadband Telecommunications Network—
$5.5 million;
NSW and NT Interactive eLearning—$8 million;
Outbacknet@qld—$8 million;
Regional Network Delivering Education Services (SA)—$6 million; and
Tasmanian Health and Education Communications Consortium—$3 million.
Program performance
Before the NCF began, it was recognised that there was a very low level of broadband
availability in regional Australia. As a result only few broadband-based health and
education services were available in the regions. This was confirmed by the
applications. That being said, no baseline performance information or data was
formally gathered prior to the NCF projects commencing.
The NCF administration team developed a set of key performance indicators (KPIs)
as part of their mid-term review in 2004.
22.
The NCF KPIs as developed for the mid-term review
1. The contribution of the program to improved service delivery in the
education and health sectors in regional Australia, including:
a) the establishment of backbone network capacity and last mile connectivity;
b) the extent of delivery of services relevant to the education and health needs in the
regional areas addressed by the projects;
c) the development of related education and health applications and content;
d) community benefits, including number of users of the services, number of
locations where the services are delivered and quality standards of the services; and
e) consistency with national and state/territory education and health service delivery
initiatives and with service and information standards established and/or adopted
under these initiatives.
2. The contribution of the program to the development of high bandwidth
services in regional communities, including:
a) delivery of services of a nature, range and quality relevant to community needs;
b) consistency with telecommunications developments generally in regional areas;
c) impact on telecommunications within the targeted communities including
improvements in sustainable competition; and
d) regional development benefits.
3. The degree to which each project has achieved or is likely to achieve the
outcomes outlined in the initial application for funding and as set out in the
relevant funding deed, including:
a) implementation of network rollout and delivery of services;
b) being within budget; and
c) being on time.
4. Progress towards sustainability of the services after the cessation of NCF
funding, including on-going development and upgrading.
5. The nature and level of involvement of other organisations, including:
a) the financial and/or in-kind contributions from other organisations supplementing
the Australian Government’s investment;
b) state and territory government involvement and contributions;
c) participation by education and health service providers, telecommunications
carriers, other service providers, community organisations and local governments;
and
d) participation by Australian information and communication technology (ICT)
businesses and the contribution to the development of Australian ICT capabilities
to deliver education and/or health products, services and information.
Source: NCF Mid-term Review(DCITA, 2005)
23.
The NCF team used quarterly reports to monitor the progress of the individual
projects and to ensure that the funding recipients delivered on what they had
undertaken to do. These reports were not designed to provide performance
information for the program as a whole. Most of the project recipients did, however,
report against the mid-term KPIs in their final reports and, thus, provided what
relevant information and data was available from their projects.
This evaluation has drawn on the final project reports and fieldwork observations to
compile in the box below comments on performance against each of the five top-level
KPIs.
24.
Performance against the KPIs adopted for the mid-term review
1. The contribution of the program to improved service delivery in the education and
health sectors in regional Australia.
As a direct result of the NCF projects 1037 education and 320 health sites are
estimated to now have access to broadband. No systematic data or information has
been compiled on the services enabled by the projects. However, a range of health
and education services have been deployed and access has been gained to many
pre-existing services such as training, professional development and
administrative systems. The new networks have also created the potential for
many more new or improved services
Most of the resources for the development and deployment of services have been
provided by the funding recipients as part of their contributions to the projects
rather than coming from the NCF-sourced funds, which were mainly spent on
telecommunications infrastructure.
2. The contribution of the program to the development of high bandwidth services in
regional communities.
The NCF has been effective in stimulating the extension of broadband to regional
and rural towns within the geographic scope of six of the eight NCF projects. This
has typically occurred through the enabling of local exchanges with DSL
technology. These upgraded exchanges were able to not only serve the health and
education facilities in that town but all premises that were within range – typically
2km to 5km from the exchange.
A seventh project—Health and Education Information Access for Rural and
Regional NSW—has made broadband available to larger organisations, in
addition to the NCF project education and health users. However, it has not led to
broadband being generally available in the towns serviced.
Broadband access delivered by the eighth project (for SOTA students) also
allowed broadband access for other users at remote homesteads and communities.
Approximately 450 rural towns and 268 isolated homesteads and other remote
sites are now broadband-enabled as a direct result of the NCF projects Australia-
wide.
3. The degree to which each project has achieved or is likely to achieve the outcomes
outlined in the initial application for funding and as set out in the relevant funding deed.
Six of the eight projects were completed by the planned end date for the program,
30 June 2005. The remaining two projects were completed before 30 June 2006.
Notwithstanding changes to most projects, they have delivered on their
commitments. In most cases, projects have connected more sites than they
originally committed to and data transmission speeds have exceeded the original
commitments.
25.
4. Progress towards sustainability of the services after the cessation of NCF funding,
including on-going development and upgrading.
Project managers reported that they were confident about the sustainability of the
services now operating over the newly installed networks. They were also
confident about sustaining the new networks themselves, including provision for
incremental upgrades.
Some project managers were less certain about marshalling the resources
necessary for the next major upgrade in five to eight years time.
5. The nature and level of involvement of other organisations.
The project recipients and other stakeholders—mainly state government
agencies—have contributed resources in the order of $120 million.
Direct participation in the projects by local government was rare. Community
organisations were more involved, but this was still limited.
Optus was the only Australian ICT business to be a project consortium member.
Otherwise, ICT business involvement has been as contracted carriers and
suppliers. Prime amongst these was Telstra. The SA project was unique in that it
engaged multiple carriers and service providers.
Source: based on project reports and fieldwork interviews
Notwithstanding the fact that the information in the above box shows that the NCF
projects have been very productive, this evaluation considers that this set of KPIs does
not provide a good basis for measuring the overall effectiveness of the program
against its objective. Even though there are many items covered by these KPIs that are
well worthy of measurement and tracking, there are simply too many measures that do
not relate to the NCF program objective.
The evaluation also considers that there is some overlap between different KPIs and
some could have been better placed in a different group. For example, indicator 1(a)
about the ‘establishment of backbone network capacity’ and the ‘community benefits’
referred to in indicator 1(d), seem more related to the ‘development of high bandwidth
services in regional communities’ in indicator 2 than to ‘improved service delivery in
the education and health sectors’, the main focus of indicator 1. There is also some
ambiguity in the use of the word ‘service’. It is not always clear if it is being used to
describe a health or education service or a telecommunications network service that is
connected to a health or an education facility.
This evaluation takes a different approach based on measuring performance more
directly against the NCF objective. As reported in the previous chapter, this objective
is:
… to achieve significant improvements in service delivery in the education and health
sectors through funding large-scale telecommunications projects in regional areas.
Priority will be given to projects that improve telecommunications services generally
in regional communities, as well as improving the delivery of education and health
services.
This is a complex objective but in essence, it has three key elements:
26.
the purpose of the program—improving service delivery in the education and
health sectors;
the means by which to achieve the purpose—funding large-scale
telecommunications projects in regional Australia; and
the priority—projects that improve telecommunications services generally in
regional communities.
The next section attempts to measure the performance of the program by measuring
performance against these three key elements.
Before doing that, however, it is important to make some observations about the
ambitious nature of the NCF. Firstly, it is taking DCITA beyond its normal area of
telecommunication-related responsibilities to encompass health and education service
delivery outcomes. Secondly, the NCF was a new one-off program with a mid-sized
allocation that could not possibly be expected to fund sufficient activities to deliver on
the stated purpose of the program—improving service delivery in the education and
health sectors—across all of regional Australia.
It is therefore important to note and understand that the NCF operated as an
experimental or demonstration program irrespective of the fact that these descriptions
have never explicitly been used to describe its role. It was an innovative program that
had to cope with a high degree of uncertainty and build in ways to pass on what has
been learnt to subsequent programs and activities at both federal and state levels.
Thus the value of the NCF is not just what the eight funded projects have achieved,
but also what has been learnt by all parties in the attempt to select and run these large
projects. The following evaluation attempts to draw out these learnings as well as to
report on specific achievements.
Performance against the program’s objective
This section examines the extent to which the NCF has performed against each of the
three key elements of the objective and attempts to draw out critical factors or
learnings from the experiences of the projects.
The purpose—improving service delivery in education and health
Information about improvements in education and health service delivery is
summarised in the following set of boxes – one for each project. This information has
been drawn from each of the final project reports, some of the later quarterly reports
and the fieldwork interviews. These boxes not only include information about actual
health and education services deployed by the projects, but also any information
provided that indicates the scale of the services being offered and the main benefits
delivered.
The improvements and benefits delivered by the projects are shown in the boxes
below. This information has also been drawn from the final project reports, some of
the later quarterly reports and the fieldwork interviews.
27.
Network WA
Network WA connected broadband to 355 sites—241 state government education, 58
state health, 46 Catholic education, and five sites each for the Royal Flying Doctors
Service (RFDS) and Curtin University. Some new health and education services are
already operating over the network and many more are being investigated.
Tele-radiology services will benefit through the capacity of the network to carry
larger image files and through reducing the number of disconnections during the
transfer of large x-ray files and other medical images.
The network bandwidth will enable the transmission of multi-slice computerised
tomography (CT) pictures to country locations, and enhance the efficiency of
existing remote radiological reporting arrangements. The Picture Archiving and
Communications System (PACS) planned for the new Geraldton Hospital will
fully utilise the available bandwidth.
E-learning initiatives have been enabled including delivery of student education
content and curriculum management, and e-business services such as online
payments of excursion fees and access to online performance reporting for
parents.
The Department of Education and Training (DET) is developing the infrastructure
for online classes that will allow remote participation and interaction between the
presenter and participants. Trials will commence in 2006 with a full roll-out
planned for 2007.
DET is also developing learning content and portal services that provide general
information to prospective students including course information, online
enrolment and assessment information.
The main uses of the new network are email, videoconferencing, portal access and
Internet-based information searching by individual professionals and students:
Better access to the Department of Health’s Clinical Information Access Online
(CIAO), an Internet-based clinical information service that provides access to key
medical and health information databases. In a recent survey, 68 per cent of the
respondents said that CIAO affected their patient outcomes.
The RFDS is now using videoconferencing for its weekly meetings of medical
staff, instead of a radio-based communications system.
Teachers are increasing their use of the Internet in class as they become confident
that the network will allow students to complete activities within the allotted class
time.
The network has been used to improve existing services:
While videoconferencing has been in use in WA Health for more than five years,
about 60 sites will be able to videoconference using the new technology based on
Internet Protocol (IP). The improvement in picture and audio quality is marked. It
is being used in patient treatment such as with psychiatry consultations.
28.
Videoconferencing is being increasingly used for professional development and
training.
Administrators and IT staff are major users and are making significant cost and time
savings through:
easier and faster access to corporate data such as finance and human resource
systems as well as student and patient information;
access to online information support and training by DET, who are acting as the
ISP for schools. They are also providing a central fire-wall to ensure safe and
secure information services; and
access to central IT technical support and maintenance.
The project estimated that well over 100 000 people are currently able to access the
network. This includes:
80 000 in schools, colleges and education district offices (about 72 000 students,
6800 teachers and 2000 administrative staff);
30 000 in hospitals, other health facilities and administration;
15 000 in Catholic schools and colleges; and
140 in the RFDS.
29.
Interactive Distance Learning—School of the Air (NSW and NT)
Distance education services are the focus of this project, primarily for School of the
Air (SOTA) students, students attending remote schools and remotely located adult
TAFE students. In total, 268 isolated homesteads or remote communities and 283
school-related sites were equipped with the two-way satellite Interactive Distance
Learning (IDL) system in the NT and the Western Plains, Far West, Far North West,
North Coast and Riverina areas of NSW.
The system is being used to deliver primary, secondary and vocational courses,
including SOTA courses, TAFE, outreach programs and education courses for
Indigenous Australians, and community courses.
TAFE subjects range from basic computing to Indigenous studies to art to the more
traditional TAFE subjects such as farm engines, building maintenance and electrical
safety. This range of subjects exceeded what was thought to be possible. Even
practical subjects like ‘farm building maintenance’ were able to be adapted to this
online medium.
This project was designed to deliver specific educational services and thus attention
was given to the re-design of teaching methods, the adjustment of work practices and
other non-technology factors. Professional development for teachers and the update of
some teaching materials were built in to the project.
An external evaluation (Essential Equity, 2004) concluded that IDL significantly
improved access to quality of learning and teaching for SOTA and TAFE students in
regional and remote sites.
The evaluation found that::
the quality and variety of learning and teaching were not achievable through radio
and post;
SOTA students from a broader social and cultural base participate more often in
their lessons;
parents, families and remote school teachers feel less ‘remote’;
the transition from pre-school to school is reported by teachers and families as far
less traumatic;
83 per cent of students felt that compared to previous lessons, they are learning
better;
81 per cent of parents thought their child/children were learning better; and
95 per cent of teachers agreed that they enjoyed teaching via IDL.
One teaching organisation reported that the benefits of this project could be
summarised as better access, better engagement in learning, more collaboration, real-
time learning and capacity building within the teaching institution and its community.
One teacher reported that the most beneficial impact of regular IDL sessions has been
the increase in communication between the teachers and students.
30.
Other reported benefits included:
very high course completion rates (averaging over 90 per cent) for NSW TAFE
courses;
music and art classes appealing much more to students and home tutors;
increasing IT confidence apparent amongst students, parents and home tutors;
Charles Darwin University using the IDL system to deliver a childcare course to
four regional training centres in Katherine, Jabiru, Tennant Creek and Yulara;
outside of lessons, the IDL system is used by students to access the Internet and
otherwise to develop research, technology and presentation skills. Parents, and
perhaps other farm or community residents, also have this 24/7 Internet access;
guest appearances (e.g. by Shannon Noll, Melinda Gainsford-Taylor, the Western
Bulldogs AFL Team and Bell Shakespeare) are now quite common and can be
made available in real time to all SOTA students; and
whole-school assemblies are now feasible.
31.
Northwest and New England Broadband Network (NSW)
This network has 53 sites across northern NSW—13 within the University of New
England (UNE), 12 in TAFE and 33 in the New England Area Health Service
(NEAHS). In some of the smaller towns these facilities are co-located.
TAFE is developing videoconferencing to maximise the course diversity to all sites.
These networked services also allow students in the smaller campuses to receive
similar facilities as those attending the larger campuses.
As yet, NEAHS has few health services being delivered using the network. So far:
the pathology department has ordered digital camera systems that will soon allow
remote viewing of pathology slides. This will increase the available time for
diagnostic viewing of exposures as the pathologists will substantially reduce the
need to travel between sites;
an increasing demand for remote medical diagnosis using video has been reported.
However, testing had not yet met medico-legal requirements; and
the potential for remote video visitation between patients and their families has
also been identified as a possible new service.
A new mobile data connection allows suitably equipped laptops to access the health
network through the Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) telephone network.
This is expected to allow clinicians to access and record data in real-time when away
from the health facility, such as when visiting patients at home.
UNE is expanding the use of video for the delivery of educational services like remote
one-on-one tutorials, remote attendance at lectures, inter-university seminars and
student information sharing sessions. Students in all centres can now access the
Internet at high speed for research and general inquiries. The internal Internet Protocol
(IP) telephony capability allows students and staff to communicate without charge
between remote and central campuses.
Administrators and IT staff, especially in TAFE and NEAHS, are among the
prominent users. They are delivering efficiency benefits and savings through such IT
systems as remote backup, data replication applications and synchronised data
storages in separate locations. Similarly, the much quicker access to a variety of
newly networked services has improved the efficiency and working conditions for
professionals, administrative staff and students alike.
32.
Health and Education Information Access for Rural and Regional NSW
This project provided broadband to 83 sites in regional and rural towns across NSW.
The take-up of services was reported to be the responsibility of the NSW departments
of Health and of Education and Training and, therefore, outside the scope of the
project.
The services now reported as being delivered by Health include:
Patient Administration System;
Unique Patient Identifier;
Community Health Information Management Environment;
telehealth and telemedicine;
shared services roll-out; and
inter-site connections via the new Health virtual private network.
The services reported as being delivered by Education include:
online curriculum;
distance learning;
online learning;
collaborative learning; and
enhanced security services.
33.
Broadband for Rural Tasmania
Broadband for Rural Tasmania (BRT) has connected broadband to 19 health and 73
education sites.
Beyond being used by rural health professionals for some specialist consultations, few
new health services are, as yet, being delivered by the BRT network. It has improved
the utility of previously installed videoconferencing facilities to and from nine
regional sites. The network is also supporting a variety of professional development
and administrative uses including better access to client and clinical data.
A number of online state-wide information services are now available including
Monthly Index of Medical Specialties (MIMS) which is a set of repositories of
clinical data that assist medical professionals with independent drug information. A
Community Client Health Profile project that supports nurses is also operational.
HealthConnect (trialled in Tasmania) is a new national network that will allow the
electronic exchange of clinical information between health care providers. Access to
this will be provided via BRT.
BRT has delivered broadband to 56 Department of Education (DoE) primary and
secondary schools located in 48 rural and regional communities across the state. More
than 18 600 students are enrolled at these schools and, together with their teachers,
now have access to an improved research capability in the classroom. The DoE has
developed a Learning Architectures project as a content repository providing access to
content developed from multiple sources.
The Learning Federation, jointly funded by the Australian and Tasmanian
governments, has been a significant contributor to the repository’s content by
providing:
portals for teachers and students;
a tool to help plan and manage lessons;
an assessment and reporting system;
integrated email for students including a range of collaboration tools; and
digital portfolios for student reports.
BRT has delivered broadband to three TAFE regional institutions that cater for more
than 4900 students and teachers. Services and benefits include:
improved e-learning delivery from major campuses at Burnie and Hobart to
Queenstown and Smithton. This has enabled higher level certificate courses to be
delivered, particularly for IT subjects;
national training packages delivered closer to the target work sites, for example,
with the West Coast mining industry;
higher capacity to integrate ICT into teaching activities including the deployment
of new ICT technologies like web-cameras to support remote learning;
improved research facilities through more reliable and faster Internet access; and
34.
enhanced communications and collaboration with TAFE’s 20 other campuses
across Tasmania.
The 10 University of Tasmania Rural Health Teaching sites are now connected via a
broadband link to the main teaching campus. This enables students in rural
placements to continue to have good access to necessary learning materials and to
access videoconferences with teaching and other staff as required. This broadband
access has encouraged health students to gain rural experiences and interact with rural
communities thus creating educational and social benefits for the students, the local
professionals and the communities.
The much improved broadband and Internet access is also seen as part of a package of
inducements to attract and retain General Practitioners (GPs) in rural areas. The
remote health videoconferencing facilities have also been made available for other
government and community uses such as court hearings.
35.
Grampians Rural Health Alliance Network (Victoria)
A total of 101 health facilities were connected to broadband. Few new health services
are, as yet, using the network. Most immediate uses are either support, administrative
or IT services. For example, Grampians Rural Health Alliance Network (GRHANet)
is able to provide broadband access to all Health Service campuses in the region as
well as to those towns having a Bush Nursing Centre.
This supports the delivery of a number of services including:
Referral Information and Management System—a service being used in all
subacute wards at Ballarat Health Service and other hospitals in the Grampians
region. The service is being used to replace paper-based referrals within and
between all agencies.
The Birthing Outcome System (BOS)—five agencies are using wireless tablets for
data entry within the low technical impact birthing units. This process eliminates
the need to complete manual forms thus allowing electronic transfer of data to the
Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages.
Patient Management System (PMS) is managed and linked via agency-based
servers. BOS is interfaced to the PMS. Outpatient and admission attendances can
be linked via patients Unit Record numbers.
A point of presence (POP) in Ballarat is offering disk and tape mass storage
facilities to assist with data backup and disaster recovery for all health service
agencies that wish to participate.
GRHANet has developed the regional infrastructure for both IP and IP telephony. By
using videoconferencing for a proportion of routine meetings (both clinical and
administrative), agencies are saving on travel time and cost. There are also
occupational health and safety considerations in reducing the amount of travel
undertaken by staff.
With IP telephony, any calls from any health service to another campus or health
service are at no charge. It is the same as calling between extensions on the same
PABX. It also means that calls outside of the health system that were previously STD
calls are now either local calls or routed to the nearest call ‘hop-off’ points at
Melbourne, Ballarat or Horsham. This enables calls to travel within the network and
hop off at the most cost-effective point or be delivered, via the Melbourne POP, to
any of the other Victorian health area facilities.
36.
Outbacknet (QLD)
Outbacknet is providing broadband to a total of 144 sites across the southern and
south western areas of QLD. Terrestrial connections have been provided to 103 sites
(55 health and 48 education). A satellite connection has also been provided to 41
remote schools.
QLD Health has developed a number of new health services based on the broadband
networks. For example, Toowoomba Base Hospital provides pre-admission clinics via
videoconferencing to 13 rural communities. While based on videoconferencing, these
clinics also required the design and trial of new work practices to make the distance
consultations work effectively. In the Toowoomba example, nursing staff have been
hired for the remote site to take and transmit medical observations such as blood
pressure and otherwise facilitate the video consultation for both the medical
practitioner in Toowoomba and the local patient. Typically, the additional staff cost is
more than offset by travel cost and time savings.
Other broadband-based consultation systems are being developed. For example, post-
operative orthopaedic clinics have been developed and a distance ophthalmology
consultation service to fourteen rural communities has been trialled from Longreach
hospital.
Digital radiography systems are also being installed so that images can be sent
electronically to convenient locations (often city-based) for review and diagnosis by a
radiologist.
Schools are using the new network capabilities to better access central teaching
resources, to enable online classes and to enable students to access a greater range of
subjects (including some TAFE classes) and classes appropriate to their ability levels.
37.
RegNet (SA)
RegNet is providing broadband to 241 educational sites (mainly schools but also
preschools and some TAFE centres) in regional and rural SA. This was built into the
state-wide eduCONNECT project that aimed to connect all SA schools to broadband.
The project will enable online teaching and learning. It will also make it feasible for
regional and rural teachers to draw on rich multimedia teaching resources.
Rural teachers will also be able to access online professional development
opportunities and, for the first time, have the same online access to centrally-held
curriculum material as suburban-based teachers.
Videoconferencing facilities and a special gateway to TAFE will enable high school
students to join TAFE classes for a range of subjects.
RegNet has also provided access to centralised network services and the corporate
network.
The above information shows that the NCF has been effective in supporting the
development and deployment of a substantial level of education and health services.
While this information does not lend itself to a definitive measurement of
performance for the program as a whole, a picture of the overall pattern of education
and health services delivery can be distilled.
Within the regional areas covered by the projects, a diverse and interesting
range of education services is being delivered. School students now have a
level of broadband access that enables productive lessons and supports
individual project and research work. At present, high schools make much
more use of the new networks than primary schools.
The development and trialling of new curriculum material is steadily gaining
pace. Some interesting developments are emerging. For example, some SA
trials of teaching the playing of a musical instrument via videoconferencing
have pleasantly surprised both teachers and students alike.
An interesting collection of one-off but very innovative uses of the networks is
also emerging. One example is the positive experience that one class of
kindergarten children had when they met with Santa Claus through a
videoconference link direct to the ‘North Pole’.
Where TAFE is involved in the projects, it is slowly but surely using the
networks to draw more isolated students—both immediately post-school
students and mature-age learners—into formal courses. TAFE is also
providing more online learning resources for all remote students.
The universities that are involved in the projects are providing broadband
access and learning support for students located away from their main
campuses.
Designing and implementing health services for delivery via the new networks is
typically complex. Thus health services delivery over the networks has been slower to
emerge than education services. More than one project manager referred to medico-
38.
legal issues as a significant barrier to rapid adoption of new online health services.
That being said, online medical consultations are starting to emerge for such services
as psychiatric consultations in remote areas and some pre- and post-operative
consultations.
The new networks are being well used for professional support activities. Professional
development, training and staff briefing events conducted via videoconference, are
now common. Both health and education professionals are accessing information
portals and other reference collections. The use of videoconferencing for professional
management meetings is also becoming common.
Support staff in both sectors are among the leading users of the new capabilities
primarily to access corporate systems such as finance, payroll and patient or student
databases. They are also regular users of email and videoconferencing for routine
communication. The IT and telephony service areas are using the new capabilities to
improve service levels, reliability, troubleshooting and remote software upgrades.
Table 2 (below) provides an estimate of the number of health and education sites
reported as having been connected to broadband by the NCF projects.
39.
TABLE 2
Estimated number of health and educations sites connected to broadband by NCF
projects
Projects Health sites Education sites(1)
(Number) (Number)
Network WA 63 292
NSW and NT Interactive eLearning Nil 283
* Also connected 268 isolated homesteads and other
remote sites(2)(3)
Northwest and New England (NSW) 33 25
Broadband Network(4)
Health and Education Information 49 34
Access for Rural and Regional
NSW(4)
Broadband for Rural Tasmania 19 73
Grampians Rural Health Alliance 101 Nil
Network (VIC) (5)
Outbacknet@qld 55 89
RegNet (SA) (6) Nil 241
Totals 320 1037
Source: Final project reports
Notes:
(1) For the purposes of this Table, education sites are school, TAFE or university campuses
though some will be quite small study centres or field stations and serve only a few students.
(2) The facilities at homesteads are connected when SOTA students are enrolled but are also
removed (or decommissioned) when the students are no longer enrolled. Families might move
from the homesteads or the children move to other schooling options such as boarding school.
There was a significant turnover of enrolments, and hence of homesteads connected, during
the three years that this project operated. The number of homesteads reported as ‘connected’
here is the number of homesteads connected as at the date of the final report (May 2005). As
at the reporting date, 62 homesteads had been decommissioned.
(3) Where two or more children from the same family are enrolled, two systems may be installed
in the one homestead. This figure does not include these duplicates.
(4) These projects cooperated in the roll-out of their networks with some sites for each project
actually being connected by the other project.
(5) This number was reported as including those sites actually connected as at 30 April 2005 (the
date of the final report) plus those ‘confirmed for installation and expected to be connected by
31 July 2005’.
(6) The SA RegNet project connected mainly primary and secondary schools but also preschools
and some TAFE centres.
Most projects focused on particular geographic regions within their state and while
most of the projects addressed both education and health services, three projects
addressed only one sector. Others were more focused in one sector than the other.
40.
It is also important to record that the managers and users for all projects are very
pleased to have access to vastly improved broadband networks. Some frustrations
remain over the slowness of deployment of health and education services that
professionals can actually use to teach and to heal. However, they most certainly see
the NCF as having delivered the potential for a big step forward in service delivery in
both sectors.
Factors that affected the development and delivery of services
‘Breaking the frame’
The NCF was successful in stimulating several new ways of thinking, by health and
education institutions, about regional telecommunications and broadband access. In
particular, the relatively large size of the funded projects, especially when combined
with cash and in-kind resources contributed by the funding recipients, enhanced
effectiveness in several interesting ways. For example:
The projects were sufficiently large and attractive that innovators within education
and health administrations Australia-wide were mobilised to ‘break the frame’ in
terms of developing ambitious projects with wide geographical coverage in
regional, rural and remote areas.
The innovators were able to garner the support of senior administrators for the
ambitious projects, which in turn assisted in raising the matching funds required
by NCF and in smoothing the way for cross-agency collaboration.
The size of the projects stimulated several carriers to compete vigorously for the
supply of carrier services for these regional projects. The carriers offered new
services and revised their pricing models. In particular, prices were adjusted well
down in return for up-front capital contributions (made possible by the NCF
project funding).
The NCF has also shown that co-operation across very different government service
delivery agencies can be achieved and deliver cost-effective levels of service.
Services already exist
As might be expected, the applications that were most quickly adopted tended to be
those where the application already existed but where regional access was previously
limited by poor Internet or other online access. The most common examples are the
central agency patient/student record databases and the various administrative and IT
applications.
The mid-term review made a similar observation, especially for the health sector:
…the first services to be implemented have often been administrative systems and
business services …
It would seem that simple access to a reliable broadband network has enabled
administration and IT staff to immediately access or implement these pre-existing
applications. However, the development and deployment of new health and education
services that assist patients and students typically takes much longer.
41.
It is arguable that administrative and IT services are not ‘significant improvements in
service delivery in education and health sectors’, as specified in the NCF program
objective. However, it is equally arguable that these services are enablers of actual
education and health services and this was the view taken by the NCF program
administrators from the beginning of the program.
Immediate cost or time savings
A major reason for early adoption was the ready availability of substantial cost or
staff time savings. IP telephony, for example, offered such a convincing business case
on cost alone that senior administrators and boards were readily convinced to back the
whole project. Remote IT help desk and maintenance capabilities are another example
where not only substantial cost savings and service benefits were immediately evident
but there are considerable savings in staff time. Far fewer physical trips to remote
sites need to be made for troubleshooting or for routine software upgrades. This also
is resulting in less ‘wear and tear’ on the staff as long periods of travel were reduced.
A champion or sponsor
Services among the first adopted included those where the professionals involved
identified a significant service benefit and went to some effort to make it happen.
Typically these services had already been trialled, did not require extensive trial or the
service could be designed and adopted with minimal fuss given the new technology.
Some straightforward videoconferencing applications in both the education and health
sectors fall into this category. Examples included a top level student in a small rural
high school being able to join an advanced class via a video link and psychiatry
consultations by videoconference in remote areas.
The SOTA project seemed to owe a large measure of its success to several passionate
champions among the professional teachers associated with that service.
Complexity and change
A range of new services yet to be commonly seen in operation was foreshadowed in
the NCF applications. These included various medical clinics and online classes to
school students in multiple locations. In the fieldwork interviews, a number of project
managers pointed out that implementing these more complex services required much
more than a good broadband network.
Developing a new service takes time, organisation and experimentation. Importantly,
the professional involved needs to be confident that the new technology is able to
support the delivery of a good quality service, whether in health or education. In
addition, the procedures for the new online service need to be captured in new work
practices, including who does what, where and when. Depending on the scale of the
changes, a comprehensive change management program may be necessary to help all
staff involved to be confident in delivering a fully professional service in this new
online delivery mode. At a minimum, some professional briefings and training will be
required.
An example of such a complex service might be the development of a post-operative
orthopaedic clinic serving a large regional area. The pre-existing routine of such
clinics involves patients attending in-person several times after an operation. Firstly,
so that the wound can be checked to ensure it is healing, and then that the limb is
42.
checked for other aspects of the recovery such as range of movement. These
consultations might only take 10 to 20 minutes but the patient may need two to three
days to travel to and attend the clinic, and then return from its regional city location.
In these circumstances, a videoconferencing consultation system would be of great
benefit to the patient..
However, to make a video-consultation service effective, medical staff members need
to first be comfortable with their capacity to make good medical judgements using
broadband technology. They have both legal and ethical responsibilities to meet. That
means that such things as the resolution of the video may need to be tested and
different resolution levels may need to be available for different purposes. During the
video consultation a trained nurse or other allied health professional will probably
need to be present at the patient end, in the rural health centre. Other practical steps
might be required such as locating the video equipment to be used by clinic staff in
the actual clinic rooms and not a 10 minute walk away at the other end of the
rambling hospital site.
This leads to the observation that the successful development and delivery of the more
ambitious and complex online services for patients and students will typically require
action on the following three levels:
a broadband network that is robust and reliable;
standard applications that run well on the new broadband network (e.g.
videoconferencing, email, access to the Internet); and
new work practices designed and tested to actually deliver the new online-based
service.
It follows that project like those funded by the NCF need to allocate time and
resources to all three levels and especially the third level.
The evaluation suggests that, while a reliable telecommunications network is
necessary for an online service to be offered, it is not sufficient in itself to achieve the
development and delivery of new complex services to patients and students.
Who benefits and who pays?
The issue as to who benefits and who pays is another factor that seems to have some
effect on the choice of what new services were developed and deployed. There are
situations, for example, where medical, education and IT professionals travel
regularly to the smaller towns or sites. In many of these cases, investments are being
made in videoconferencing and other facilities to reduce the need for so much costly
travel by these professionals. The health or education service involved can see an
immediate cost saving and thus can readily justify the investment.
On the other hand, there seemed to be fewer examples of new investments being made
where the patient is the main beneficiary and there is no tangible financial benefit to
the health system. This is not surprising as it will only be the hospital or education
system that will invest in the design of a new service and it must justify its budget and
investment projects.
43.
This factor suggests one reason why programs like the NCF can be so valuable. They
can provide enough external finance and the stimulus to bring the potential
beneficiaries together to research, design and trial a new service the investment for
which no one beneficiary alone could have justified. This also points to the value of
state government central agencies, as well as the health and education authorities,
looking systematically at the benefits on offer from this new technology for regional
communities as a whole and not just for their own organisations.
City-based professionals
Enthusiasm for using the new network capabilities offered by the NCF projects
typically resided with leaders within regional communities—the place where the main
benefits would accrue. City-based professionals, whether health or education based,
often have little to gain from any new regional services and thus can lack an incentive
to participate. However, the expertise and cooperation of these city-based
professionals is often critical to the success of a new regional service. Further
encouragement of city professionals to participate in new broadband-based service
delivery to the regions would be valued by many regional professionals.
In some cases, the city professionals may be the ones that need to catch up to their
regionally based colleagues. City professionals do not need videoconferencing
technology for the bulk of their work and hence can be unfamiliar with how to use the
technology. Especially, they can lack an understanding of the subtle conventions that
are now emerging about who speaks when and the like.
Moreover, the city-based institutions do not necessarily make it convenient for
professionals to regularly use videoconferencing. City institutions rarely lack a
videoconferencing facility but it is often the case that on a large sprawling city site
there is only one facility and it is in an ancillary service building well removed from
the areas in which the professionals normally work.
More facilities could perhaps be incorporated into professional work areas. They are
no longer expensive to purchase and operate. In addition, some encouragement to trial
the medium may also help city-based professionals become more comfortable with it
and hence more interested in supporting service delivery by regional colleagues.
One-off trials
An interesting category of early service delivery seemed to be associated with
professionals learning and trialling the new capabilities. There were several examples
of professionals setting up a new activity using the broadband network but at the same
time being careful not to suggest or imply to colleagues that this was more than a one-
off event. While the service may end up becoming a regular activity, no long-term
commitment to achieve this was being made.
Examples might help to illustrate. One teacher in a not-too-well endowed regional
primary school developed a ‘virtual’ school excursion for her class to a capital city
museum. The museum had an excellent website with a good amount of learning and
teaching material available. This individual teacher saw the possibility of using the
new network for an ‘excursion’ that would otherwise never happen in that school and
was in effect trailing the new capabilities to see if they could deliver. However, the
teacher wanted to keep control of her trial and limited the scope to her class and to
44.
this one ‘excursion’. Only once the teacher was confident that it worked well was she
prepared to contemplate sharing the idea with colleagues in the school and beyond. A
health example involved a one-off videoconference initiated by a regionally based
doctor seeking advice on a particularly complex case from a colleague and researcher
at a city-based teaching hospital.
This suggests that the rate of development of new services can be enhanced by first
allowing individual professionals to run trials where they themselves maintain control.
This will make it less risky for these individuals to learn about the new technology
and yet open up the possibility of many innovations. However, there would be merit
in having support systems available so that when the individual professional felt that
they had an innovation that worked well, they could access support to make it
generally available. This additional support might provide the resources typically
necessary to standardise or integrate the innovation into common practice.
The means to achieve the purpose - funding large-scale telecommunications
systems in regional areas
Information about the telecommunications systems and infrastructure that each project
has supported is summarised below. This information has also been drawn from the
final project reports, some of the later quarterly reports and the fieldwork interviews.
Network WA
Network WA connected broadband to a total of 355 sites with their own optic fibre
cable link. State education connected 241 sites; state health, 58 sites; Curtin
University and the RFDS, five sites each; and the WA Catholic Education Office, 46
sites. Following the project, a further 48 (mainly health) sites are expected to be
connected, with many being provided via private wireless links.
Most sites were connected with between 2 Mbps and 10 Mbps, with about 20 sites
having between 20 Mbps and 50 Mbps and one health site having access up to
200 Mbps.
The network has been delivered using Telstra’s government wideband internet
protocol (GWIP) service with major POPs installed in 10 regional towns (typically
with 155 Mbps links to Perth) and smaller POPs in 50 other regional towns with
bandwidth access between 2 Mbps and 60 Mbps.
The majority of the backbone network capacity was delivered on Telstra’s existing
network. Seven major infrastructure upgrades were required and these typically
involved the laying of new fibre optic cable. In addition, around 135 km of new optic
fibre cable was laid within towns so as to provide all sites with access.
45.
Interactive Distance Learning—School of the Air (NSW and NT)
The project has deployed a satellite broadband IP system to support IDL. Services are
being delivered to hundreds of small rural towns and isolated homesteads in regional
NSW and the NT.
The features of the system include:
teaching studios at Broken Hill (two), Dubbo, Port Macquarie, Darwin and Alice
Springs with a virtual studio in Katherine which operates via a link to the Darwin
studio;
studios linked to the Satellite Earth Station at Belrose (Sydney) via 2 Mbps links;
each user site provided with an Optus SatWeb 2 way VSAT system together with
the required computer equipment and software;
minimum satellite bandwidth of 3 Mbps outbound service and 1.2 Mbps inbound;
hub at Belrose configured to support a minimum of six concurrent lesson sessions
but with capacity for 10 concurrent sessions;
videoconference feeds enabled from Cobar, Hay, Tibooburra, Casino and Bourke,
linked to the relevant studios through the departmental wide area network; and
a secure network gateway between the NSW and NT for the sharing of lessons.
The project also:
provided an average of two user systems for each regional NSW school and two
user systems for each NT school;
deployed two mobile satellite trailers with associated user computers for use in
remote and Indigenous communities; and
enabled students in remote sites in the NT to access IDL through a satellite dish in
the community that then distributed the signal over wireless network to laptops.
46.
Northwest and New England Broadband Network (NSW)
This network provides services to 53 locations across northern NSW and a link to
Sydney. The University of New England (UNE) has 13 sites; TAFE, 12; and the
North East Area Health Service (NEAHS), 33. Several of the smaller sites share the
facilities among the different users and nine sites came online though joint
connectivity with the other NSW-based project (see below). TAFE has also completed
an extension of the network to include the Armidale Contemporary Music Centre.
The network has been provided on Telstra’s GWIP and included 22 MPLS switching
devices throughout the region. It is designed as three independent virtual private
networks (VPN) to provide the greatest security and independence for the NEAHS,
TAFE and UNE. Each organisation owns the equipment on its own site and maintains
the configuration, and hence the quality of service, for its own VPN. Most sites have
2 Mbps capacity with 10 Mbps in the major centres of Tamworth and Armidale. In
most cases this will be scalable to 1 Gbps. Five of the smaller health sites have ISDN
connections. Many of the health sites also have an ISDN service as a back-up.
TAFE and UNE both have integrated the new connections with existing WAN
network services including the AARNET network for the UNE and the greater
educational network run for TAFE by the NSW Department of Education. NEAHS
has retired its old network.
Health and Education Information Access for Rural and Regional NSW
The project provided 83 broadband services in 38 regional and rural towns across
NSW with data rates from 2 to 10 Mbps. Optical fibre loops have been installed in 16
regional towns. Country Energy owns the optical fibre and the fibre tails into the sites
with the telecommunications carrier, Soul, having access under commercial
arrangements. All fibre-based services are capable of scaling to higher data rates up to
100 Mbps. A feature of the carrier’s infrastructure for this project is that it does not
rely on Telstra infrastructure, except for two health sites in Tamworth.
Two levels of service are being provided. All services to health sites are to be
available for 99.95 per cent of the time on a 24 hours per day, 52 weeks per year
basis, whereas the education sites are guaranteed services only for normal
school/teaching hours.
47.
Broadband for Rural Tasmania
The project has connected broadband to 92 sites throughout regional Tasmania
including:
21 community health institutions (which include nine pre-existing
videoconferencing facilities);
56 schools from kindergarten to year 12;
3 TAFE campuses;
10 University of Tasmania rural campuses; and
2 community centres.
In general, these provide data speeds up to 2 Mbps with four sites having 4 Mbps
access. The minimum level of bandwidth currently provided to any school with more
than 100 students is 1.5 Mbps.
The backbone network utilises Telstra’s Service Delivery Network to provide
transmission between local exchanges and Networking Tasmania—the state’s ‘whole
of government’ network.
The two Telstra service types used for ‘last mile’ connectivity are:
Business DSL (BDSL), which delivers bandwidths up to 2 Mbps per line over
Telstra’s existing copper wire network; and
Wideband IP (WIP) service which uses optical fibre to deliver a higher bandwidth
service in the range of 2 Mbps to 200 Mbps.
Telstra upgraded its exchanges to enable these services and, where necessary,
upgraded its network to meet the required back-haul to the Networking Tasmania
core.
48.
Grampians Rural Health Alliance Network project (VIC)
Grampians Rural Health Alliance Network (GRHANet) adopted a combination of
GWIP, BDSL and ADSL to supply broadband for the Grampians Health Service
region. A total of 101 facilities were connected to broadband. The available
bandwidth varies from 512 Kbps to an average of 2 Mbps in most facilities but with
1 Gbps at Ballarat Hospital.
The project involved the upgrade of 77 exchanges in the region (12 GWIP, 38 BDSL
and 27 ADSL). The majority of the GRHANet network connections utilise GWIP
(using a fibre link to the customer site) or a BDSL connection.
All sites are linked back to a POP in Melbourne that also houses interconnecting
POPs for each of the other four Victorian Health Service regions. The POP provides
Internet access, data back-up, a link to payroll servers, linkage to the metropolitan
health network, a videoconference bridge and a gateway server for IP telephony. The
traffic from the neighbourhood sector of the network is aggregated at Ballarat Health
Services then flows out into the rest of the GRHANet through the GWIP connection.
Trials have been conducted on a secure remote access and perimeter defence
mechanism to provide intrusion detection and prevention, anti-virus, anti-spam and
web content at the Internet gateway.
Agreement was reached for Neighbourhood Cable to provide connectivity for
approximately 40 sites in Ballarat, including community health centres, disability
services, general practitioners and specialists.
A feature of GRHANet is that the individual needs of each organisation can be
catered for. This flexibility offers individual agencies the opportunity to tailor the
GRHANet service to their specific needs.
49.
OutbackNet (QLD)
The Outbacknet project is a combination of terrestrial (Telstra) and satellite (Optus)
networks. The terrestrial element is based around the upgrade of 62 exchanges with
GWIP and DSL (both ADSL2+ and BDSL) technology. This is supporting connection
speeds varying from 512 Kbps to 1.5 Mbps with the potential for expansion to
4 Mbps.
A satellite-based service provides for 41 isolated schools. This is supported by a
dedicated link between the earth station in Sydney and Education QLD facilities in
Brisbane.
In common with all of the other projects, OutbackNet was able to upgrade many more
exchanges than originally committed—indeed, almost double the number. However,
for five of the additional sites there were no upgrades or access to broadband achieved
for the health or education sites in those locations. This appears to have occurred
because five of the exchanges originally planned for upgrade with NCF funds, were
actually upgraded with funding from the HiBIS program. While the NCF funds were
re-allocated to upgrade an equal number of additional exchanges, no funds were
allocated during the project period to provide access to broadband for the education or
health sites in those new locations.
RegNet (SA)
RegNet implemented a ‘tiered’ model that provided greater bandwidth to larger
schools with 2 Mbps connection being provided to those schools with more than 800
students, 1 Mbps to schools with enrolments from 501 to 800 students and 512 Kbps
to smaller schools.
Thirty two RegNet sites in very remote areas shared a 4 Mbps/2 Mbps satellite
service.
This information shows that each of the eight NCF projects deployed large-scale
telecommunications systems, which typically created one or more virtual private
networks (VPNs) for the education and health service providers.
All but one of the projects stimulated their telecommunications carriers to upgrade
their network infrastructure or backbone. In most cases, the work involved upgrading
local exchange equipment to support DSL technology and so achieve broadband data
speeds. Some new network equipment was installed and new cable laid, often to
support higher capacity technologies such as GWIP and to connect broadband to
individual sites—the so called ‘last mile’ infrastructure. Some exchanges were
provided with access to additional back-haul capacity. Satellite technology was used
occasionally. Similarly, ISDN technology was sometimes used for links to sites in
more remote towns but only when there were no other cost-effective broadband
alternatives.
50.
The remaining project—NSW and NT Interactive eLearning—used the existing Optus
satellite capabilities but the project involved significant design work in tailoring the
service to the precise needs of SOTA in NSW and the NT.
All projects involved the installation of new or upgraded equipment at the user sites to
enable connections to the broadband network.
Typically, the new VPNs supported data speeds of between 128 Kbps and about
2 Mbps though higher speeds of up to 20 Mbps were installed in some higher demand
locations. Many of these connections were designed with the ability to be scaled so
that with modest additional upgrades and expense, higher speeds in the range of over
100 Mbps to about 1 Gbps could be achieved in future.
Moreover, as the projects were seeking to provide better broadband capacities for
clinical and teaching purposes as well as for the administration of quite sizeable
organisations, it was important for the installed networks to have a high level of
reliability and guaranteed levels of service. The project managers mentioned on
several occasions that many of the detailed elements of the network designs were
aimed squarely at reliability. This also led to certain choices of telecommunication
services. For example, projects often chose a business-grade DSL service (BDSL)
because they wanted a symmetrical service (i.e. equal broadband capacity for both
download and upload) and some minimum service guarantees as opposed to using the
standard ADSL (or asymmetrical DSL) service more commonly adopted by
households.
Factors that affected the deployment of the telecommunications networks
Decreasing cost and increasing coverage
A noticeable feature of each funded project was that the number of sites connected to
broadband increased steadily from what was proposed at the application stage to when
sites were actually connected. Indeed, there tended to be several stages at which
increases in proposed coverage were made relative to the original applications. These
stages typically included the negotiation of the funding agreement, when the tenders
were accepted and bound in supply contracts, and then when the new networks were
actually being installed and sites connected.
One reason for this was the gradual decline in the market price of telecommunications
services and equipment over the four years of the program. It also seems clear that
competition among the carriers pushed prices lower for what were quite large
projects. In particular, the carriers offered significantly better coverage based on new
pricing models that involved up-front payments.
It is likely that similar decreases in prices and associated increases in coverage can be
anticipated in most future multi-year programs where telecommunications services
and equipment are a large proportion of the total project cost. There may be merit in
trying to have applicants plan for and declare what additional coverage or quality
levels they will seek if price reductions do occur. Applicants could, for example, be
asked to specify in a separate attachment to an application what they would plan to do
should prices drop (or the potential area covered increase) over the project period by,
51.
say 10 or 20 per cent. Whether or not this is assessed as part of the application
process, this document would form the basis for any subsequent negotiations should
such price reductions be realised. This approach would also assist DCITA to more
actively manage the program.
IP telephony
IP telephony was deployed by many of the projects and was seen to be a particularly
beneficial aspect of the telecommunications upgrade. The cost savings seem to be
considerable.
Sustainability
The evaluation examined sustainability at two levels. The first looked at the
arrangements in place to maintain the newly installed network, system and services
with perhaps some provision for incremental upgrades. The second level considered
the likelihood that the organisations involved in the project could marshal the
resources necessary for the next major upgrade in five to eight years time.
All the project managers were confident that the installed broadband networks would
be sustainable. Maintenance resources (dollars and staff) had already been built into
recurrent annual budgets. Moreover, the implementation of the new networks had
typically reduced the per-unit costs within the IT development and support areas
given the use of IP telephony, the new capacity to provide remote helpdesk and
software maintenance among other efficiencies. A proportion of these savings were
being retained within the IT areas, thus providing the resources not only for
continuing maintenance but also incremental upgrades.
Incremental upgrades are already being implemented. As the mid-term review noted:
In the majority of the projects, services are upgradeable as demand for higher
bandwidth emerges. In some schools in Tasmania, services are already being
upgraded from the original 2Mbps BDSL service to 4Mbps capacity.
This evaluation noted similar minor upgrades being undertaken by most projects.
Sustainability at the second level (a major upgrade in five to eight years) is less clear
and more variable among the projects. Some projects seemed to have so demonstrated
their value to their organisations that holding back even major upgrades seems
unlikely. At the other extreme, at least one set of project managers seem to have
regarded the NCF funding as a windfall and consider that they will need a further
windfall to fund any future major upgrade.
Project time was limited
All project managers reported that the time allowed for the projects was very tight.
For projects as large as those in the NCF, most state/territory governments require the
projects to tender for carriage and equipment suppliers. The common view among
project managers is that such tenders take around 12 months. In most cases, the
projects were delivered on time because some individual members of staff and some
suppliers worked long hours at critical times to achieve installation milestones.
52.
For future programs, both the DCITA administrators and individual project recipients
need to be even more sensitive to the very tight timescales available in a four-year
program that involves large and complex projects like those funded by the NCF.
The priority—improving telecommunications generally in regional
communities
Information about the improvements made to regional telecommunications services is
summarised below. The information has been taken from NCF final project reports,
supplemented by some of the later quarterly reports and observations from the
fieldwork.
Network WA
Network WA has upgraded telecommunications services to the 58 regional towns that
hosted health or education sites.
Other government agencies, local government, business and community groups in
these towns can access this technology at the same prices negotiated with Telstra by
the Network WA consortium.
Network WA led Telstra to install new optical fibre links that are now part of its
network and available for general use. Additional optical fibre was also laid in such
towns as Kalgoorlie and Geraldton. In addition, over 135 km of new customer access
optic fibre cable was installed within towns to the serviced sites. These new cables
also provide numerous new fibre access points for other regional customers adjacent
to those cables.
Interactive Distance Learning—School of the Air (NSW and NT)
The satellite system and the education services developed for this project are capable
of reception in any location within NSW, the NT and, indeed, the rest of continental
Australia. Any other educational authority could develop and deploy a similar system.
Moreover, this project has demonstrated the capacity of satellite-based systems to
deliver a good level of broadband capacity and otherwise support small community
telecommunications requirements in any remote parts of Australia.
This IDL system has already been used by some community and government groups
such as Girl Guides, Questacon (National Science and Technology Centre) and the
RSPCA.
53.
Northwest and New England Broadband Network (NSW)
The project has improved the carrier infrastructure across northern NSW with
broadband now being enabled in 28 towns. Other new networks based on the new
GWIP technology have now been deployed elsewhere in NSW by some other Health
Area Services and at least one local council.
The upgrade of the telephone exchanges to accommodate these services has also
enabled the delivery of ADSL to most users in the towns that host an upgraded health
or education site. In addition, the implementation of ISDN in five small towns where
it was not previously available will also allow some form of high-speed Internet
access to these communities.
In some of the smaller centres such as Gwabegar—a community of about 100
people—NEAHS and TAFE have collaborated to equip a multi-user community
facility not only for HEAHS and TAFE services but also a government support
service, broadband community access to the Internet and a computer lab.
As a result of collaboration with the project immediately below, Moree and Armidale
now have the ability to choose between two high-capacity carrier networks that do not
use the same backbone infrastructure.
As a follow-on to this project, the potential to connect associated health providers
such as doctors and pharmacists through BDSL direct into the Health VPN was being
investigated.
Health and Education Information Access for Rural and Regional NSW
In the 38 towns covered by this project, the delivery of broadband to health and
education sites has established ‘anchor tenancies’ and thus underpinned the provision
of commercial services to other large government and commercial users. This is
particularly so in the 16 regional centres where optical fibre ‘last mile’ rings have
been installed. Enhanced competition is expected, and perhaps already being
experienced, especially as the carrier, Soul, is not reliant on Telstra infrastructure.
54.
Broadband for Rural Tasmania
The project managers for Broadband for Rural Tasmania (BRT) were not able to be
definitive as to the impact of this project on improving telecommunications services
in the regional communities that hosted health and education sites. There were
simultaneous developments that were commercially driven and some funded from
other programs such as HiBIS. However, for business customers in the 48 targeted
towns there is upgraded infrastructure and broadband services are generally available.
In 17 ‘BRT towns’, nine libraries and 13 Online Access Centres (co-located with
schools) have also been connected to a broadband service.
Despite their caution in ascribing specific developments to the NCF funded BRT
project, the project managers consider that NCF funding has been a catalyst. It has
allowed rural and regional towns to be provided with at least a similar broadband
service as offered in more populated areas.
Grampians Rural Health Alliance Network project
All 40 towns with a health service site in the Grampians Health Service Region have
either BDSL or ADSL broadband available. Moreover, where GWIP has been
enabled, all customers on that exchange can now have access to a similar high
bandwidth service if they already have, or arrange for, fibre to their premises.
Private ADSL connections in these towns are increasing steadily. In 25 of the smaller
towns with exchanges upgraded to ADSL, there were 729 new private ADSL
connections as at March 2005. This represents about five per cent of the total number
of basic telephone connections. The project managers also report that there has been
solid demand for BDSL and GWIP services.
The project managers consider that the project has led Telstra to invest heavily in
telecommunications infrastructure in the region. The region is now among those at the
forefront of telecommunications developments.
OutbackNet (QLD)
OutbackNet has resulted in broadband becoming available to the communities in 62
rural and regional towns in southern and central QLD where DSL services have been
installed.
This project also provided a significant number of satellite broadband services to
more remote communities but these services are not generally available to other non-
project users within these communities.
55.
RegNet (SA)
About 180 rural and regional towns serviced by terrestrial telecommunications have
hosted RegNet sites. Most of these towns have had their exchanges upgraded as part
of the NCF project and hence now have general access to broadband within the town.
This project also used satellite technology for some remote communities.
It is clear from the above information that connecting broadband to education and
health facilities in rural and regional towns can also make broadband widely available
within those towns. All eight projects delivered improvements in telecommunications
services in the regional communities served by the projects.
Six of the eight NCF projects led directly to broadband services being made available
within (at least) parts of the towns and communities in which broadband had been
connected to the education and/or health facilities. Where the GWIP service was
enabled, other users with fibre to the premises could also access similarly higher
capacity broadband services. DSL-enabled exchanges were capable of providing
broadband to large sections of most towns via the existing copper cables. This
broadband capability has allowed families, community organisations, businesses and
other government agencies to access broadband services. This access simply would
not be available today in many of these communities in the absence of the NCF
program.
One limitation of DSL technology is that it is only available to sites within 2 km to
5 km of the exchange (depending on the quality of the existing copper cables). Thus,
not all sites in all NCF towns could be connected to broadband and it obviously
follows that DSL could not serve very much of the surrounding farmland.
Several multi-user community centres have been connected. In some cases, this was
driven by the fact that a medical professional visited the facility for a clinic, perhaps
for half a day a fortnight, or because it was also used as a study centre for local TAFE
students. Once installed, the facilities were often made available for use by other
community groups and services, though sometimes with a small charge to cover the
marginal costs.
In a similar vein, a number of public and community libraries have also been
connected to broadband through these projects. Many of the projects have also made
provision for access by other state agencies such as justice, prisons, police and
emergency services subject to the necessary security and privacy safeguards.
The seventh project—Health and Education Information Access for Rural and
Regional NSW—has made broadband available to larger users in addition to the
education and health users. However, it has not led to broadband being generally
available in the towns serviced.
The eighth project—NSW and NT Interactive eLearning—used a satellite solution.
This served the individual sites connected by the project well, but it is a technology
solution that only provides upgraded services to other users if they are in some way
connected into the project. This was the case for a number of small communities,
especially in the NT.
56.
In one form or another, most projects reported the numbers of towns hosting sites, but
some were less definite about whether the telecommunications carriers needed to
upgrade each and every local exchange to provide the contracted broadband services.
From the final reports and the fieldwork, however, it seems that almost all of these
towns did have their telecommunications exchanges upgraded as part of the NCF
projects.
Table 3 lists the number of regional and rural towns that now host educational or
health sites that have been connected by a terrestrial (i.e. non-satellite) technology.
This provides a close estimate of the number of regional and rural towns that have had
their telecommunications infrastructure upgraded to support some level of broadband
capacity generally within those towns.
TABLE 3
Estimated number of regional and rural towns with upgraded broadband capacity as a
result of NCF projects
Project Estimated number
of towns upgraded
for broadband
Network WA 58
Northwest and New England (NSW) Broadband Network(1) 28
Health and Education Information Access for Rural and 38
Regional NSW(1)(2)
NSW and NT Interactive eLearning nil
Broadband for Rural Tasmania 48
Grampians Rural Health Alliance Network (VIC) 40
Outbacknet@qld 62
RegNet (SA) 180
Estimated total(1) 451
Source: Final project reports supplemented by fieldwork discussions.
Notes:
(1) These two projects collaborated in the provision of broadband services to three towns in
northern NSW. To remove this duplication, the total number of towns has been reduced by
three in the figure for the ‘estimated total’.
(2) This project has made broadband available to the larger users in the towns serviced but not
generally for all town users.
Other market and technological factors over the course of the NCF program most
certainly assisted the development of communications infrastructure in regional areas.
However, the evidence gathered during the course of this evaluation suggests that,
without the NCF program, the new broadband networks, associated service delivery
and broadband coverage of NCF-serviced towns would not have progressed anywhere
near as quickly as they did.
57.
Factors affecting the ability of the new networks to improve
telecommunications services in regional communities
Technology choices
The type of telecommunications technology chosen by projects to access the health
and education sites has largely determined whether towns have been enabled for
broadband. In essence, where the technology solution involved upgrading the existing
telephone exchange equipment to support DSL, access was automatically made
possible to all sites within the 2 km to 5 km reach of DSL. (These sites, of course, still
needed to purchase that access from an ISP.)
A similar point was made in the mid-term review:
In Queensland, satellite technology could have been used satisfactorily to deliver
health services but would not enable shared connectivity with the whole community.
The Grampians project switched from what would have been an essentially closed
microwave system to Telstra BDSL delivering an easier pathway for broader
community access.
The virtue of satellite technology was that it could serve any site, no matter how
remote. Indeed, the NCF project that served the SOTA project was an excellent
demonstration of the quality of telecommunications and broadband that can now be
delivered to the most remote and otherwise inaccessible places in Australia. It can
service an isolated family, a small community or a business operation. However,
satellite technology only connects to the individual site and there are technical issues
associated with latency that limit applications such as videoconferencing relying on
close to instantaneous two-way communications.
Competition
There was significant competition among the carriers for several, but not all, of the
projects. Most of the NCF projects selected their telecommunications carrier from a
competitive tender process. Telstra was successful in tendering for five of the eight
projects. Optus and Soul provided services to one project each. The SA project used
multiple carriers; Telstra and Soul among them.
This competition for NCF carrier services did lower prices and, as a result, expanded
the number of sites that the NCF projects could connect for the available dollars.
As just noted, the NCF projects have also shown that the telecommunications carriers
can ‘break the frame’ when put under some competitive and technical challenge.
Unintended consequences were positive
All project managers and the NCF team were pleasantly surprised by reducing prices
and the availability of better telecommunications technology that occurred over the
four year period of the NCF program. This enabled far more to be achieved with the
available funds than was expected when the original applications were submitted.
Perhaps the best example of this was Telstra’s new GWIP service.
The evaluation has not detected any negative unintended consequences associated
with the eight projects.
58.
One issue to note, however, is that the NCF projects have raised expectations. People
with access to the new networks and services are looking to develop these further.
Many townsfolk and people in the surrounding communities that are not able to
access broadband have had their eyes opened to what a broadband service might be
able to do for their farms, businesses or families. Health and education facilities in
areas not served by the NCF projects are becoming aware of what has been achieved
through the NCF-funded projects. The follow-on CCIF and Clever Networks
programs are addressing some of these heightened expectations.
Linkages with other programs
The interaction between programs like NCF and other Australian Government and
state/territory level initiatives is significant. Cooperation across Australian
Government agencies and among Australian, state and territory government agencies
is important in achieving successful deployment of suitable services and systems. This
issue was discussed in more detail in the previous chapter (see page 17).
Improving performance monitoring
As indicated at the beginning of this chapter, there has been no systematic collection
of performance data against any performance indicators during the NCF program.
This evaluation has had to examine project final reports to assess actual performance
outcomes.
There are several straightforward ways that managers of programs like the NCF could
improve the monitoring of program performance.
The first approach is to develop a practical monitoring system at an early stage as part
of a program’s design. Thus, from early on, the managers would have agreed what
factors make for a successful program and, broadly speaking, how much of each
factor or indicator would be required to regard the program as successful. This would
then be followed by efforts to establish baseline levels for each of the indicators. This
would help to identify data sources for the indicators and help to decide what data will
be required from funding recipients and how this will be worked into the funding
agreements. Data requirements should be simple and not onerous.
As the program progresses, performance data can be progressively gathered, collated
and analysed as necessary. Regular reports will then give program managers the
opportunity to judge how the program is tracking and whether success is being
achieved. This regular performance information also gives managers the basic
information with which to assess the need to make or recommend adjustments to the
program design or operations.
59.
Conclusions
The purpose—improvements in service delivery in health and
education sectors
The NCF program has been effective in supporting the development and deployment
of health and education services via eight large, well-designed and robust networks
serving an estimated 320 health and 1037 education sites and their users across
regional, rural and remote Australia. In addition, 268 isolated families were connected
to the SOTA through satellite broadband.
A diverse and interesting range of health and education services is being delivered
over the new broadband networks funded by the NCF. These services range from
school, Technical and Further Education and university online classes for students
dispersed over very wide distances to sophisticated online medical clinics.
Videoconferencing and reliable access to information and research material by both
students and professionals have been among the more immediate uses made of the
networks. Administrative and information technology support services are also
commonly accessed or delivered over the new networks.
The relatively large size of the NCF funded projects, especially when combined with
cash and in-kind resources contributed by the funding recipients, enhanced
effectiveness in the following ways:
the projects were sufficiently large and attractive that innovators within education
and health administrations Australia-wide were mobilised to ‘break the frame’ in
terms of developing ambitious projects with wide geographical coverage in
regional, rural and remote areas;
these innovators were able to garner the support of senior administrators for these
ambitious projects, which in turn assisted in raising the matching resources
required by NCF and in smoothing the way for cross-agency collaboration; and
the size of the projects stimulated several carriers to compete vigorously for the
supply of carrier services for these regional projects.
The NCF has also shown that cooperation across very different government service
delivery agencies can be achieved and can deliver cost-effective levels of service.
NCF effectively operated as an experimental or demonstration program supporting
major projects in each state and the NT to show what could be achieved. However, as
a one-off program with a mid-sized allocation, this program alone could not address
all health and education online service delivery needs in regional, rural and remote
Australia.
In order to fully realise the potential of the investment in any new networks, NCF-like
projects ought to include time and resources for the design, trial and implementation
of online services and their associated work practices. This is especially so for the
more ambitious and complex new services. This evaluation suggests that while a
reliable telecommunications network may be necessary, it is not sufficient in itself to
achieve the delivery of new complex online health and education services to patients
and students.
60.
The means—large-scale telecommunications projects
Each of the projects has successfully deployed large-scale telecommunications
systems which typically created one or more virtual private networks for the
education and health service providers.
The priority—improving telecommunications generally in regional
communities
The NCF has demonstrated that connecting broadband to education and health
facilities in rural and regional towns can also make broadband widely available within
those towns. It is estimated that collectively the projects have led to around 450
regional and rural towns having their telecommunications infrastructure upgraded to
support some level of broadband capacity. The NCF project that upgraded services to
families with children attending the SOTA also demonstrated the potential of satellite
to deliver an effective broadband service to any isolated family, community or
business.
Other market and technological factors over the course of the NCF program most
certainly assisted the development of communications infrastructure in regional areas.
However, the evidence gathered during the course of this evaluation suggests that,
without the NCF program, the new broadband networks, associated service delivery
and broadband coverage of NCF-serviced towns would not have progressed anywhere
near as quickly as they did.
61.
EFFICIENCY
This chapter examines the efficiency of the program and in particular:
the extent to which administrative and program inputs have been minimised, or
outputs maximised, in achieving the program’s intended outcomes;
the impact of the program on costs borne by applicants, other stakeholders and
governments;
the ratio of administrative to program costs; and
delays in implementation of the program.
Management of funds
Management of program funds
Program funds were well managed over the course of the full five years of the NCF.
The design of the $50 million NCF program had a number of features that were aimed
at maximising the benefits of its investment. These included:
focusing on projects that had substantial scale by specifying minimum funding of
$3 million and by encouraging collaboration among health and education service
providers, technology providers and community organisations;
requiring project participants to commit financial and/or in-kind resources to the
project;
requiring any state or territory government agencies involved in applications to at
least match the level of NCF funding;
stimulating a measure of competition among applicants to offer additional
resources by specifying that the nature and level of contributions would be
competitively assessed during selection;
requiring that projects complement and not overlap existing Australian, state and
territory government programs; and
requiring applicants to show that the funded project will be sustainable once NCF
funding has been exhausted.
Only eight projects were funded. They ranged in size from $3 million to $8 million,
with the average being $6.25 million. Four of the eight projects received $8 million
with only one receiving the minimum of $3 million.
The administration of the funding agreements was also guided in-part by the objective
of maximising the outputs. For example, many variations to funding agreements were
negotiated that saw significant increases in the number of towns and facilities
serviced. This is well illustrated by the OutbackNet project in QLD, which originally
committed to upgrade broadband infrastructure in 32 regional and rural towns but
ultimately was able to upgrade 62 towns. As discussed in the previous chapter (see
page 50), this capacity to extend the scope of the projects arose largely from the
62.
steadily lowering cost of technology inputs and the common use of competitive
tenders.
Delays in implementation and expenditure of funds
The original profile for the $50 million of the NCF program is as set out in table 4.
TABLE 4
Original profile for NCF funds (2001–02 to 2004–05)
2001–02 2002–03 2003–04 2004–05
($ million) ($ million) ($ million) ($ million)
Nil 22.5 17.5 10.0
Source: Information provided by Regional Communications Initiatives Branch of DCITA, October
2005.
Several changes to this profile have been made. These are listed in table 5 below
together with a short explanation for each change and its timing.
TABLE 5
Changes to the funding profile for the NCF
2002–03 2003–04 2004–05 2005–06 Date of Reasons for
($ million) ($ million) ($ million ($ million) variation variations
)
22.5 17.5 10.0 Original profile (1)
11.3 27.0 11.7 Budget, This profile aligned
May 2003 with signed funding
agreements. It also
reflected delays in
the signing of
funding agreements
and the time taken
for some tenders.
11.0 27.3 11.7 Additional One project did not
Estimates, meet a milestone in
2003–04 2002–03. The
resulting
underspend of
$0.3m carried over
to 2003–04.
11.0 25.6 13.4 Budget, Re-phased mid-
May 2004 2003–04 to allow
for expected delays.
E.g., one project
decided to conduct
an unplanned tender
process.
63.
11.0 18.5 20.5 Additional Significant delays
Estimates,2 to several projects.
004–05 E.g. a tender did not
attract suitable
solutions and the
tender process for
another project was
held up by a change
of state government
administrative
arrangements.
Underspend of
$7.1m in 2003–04
carried over to
2004–05.
11.0 18.5 14.37(2) 6.13 Budget, $6.13m re-phased
May 2005 mid-2004–05 to
allow for two
projects to extend
activity into
2005–06.
Source: Information provided by Regional Communications Initiatives Branch of DCITA, October
2005.
Notes:
(1) Original profile established in the expectation that major infrastructure projects would require
significant early expenditure. This did not happen.
(2) No underspend or further carryover of funds required at end of 2004–05 or 2005–06.
These variations to the profile are understandable given the complex and innovative
projects supported by the NCF. Managing funds to a predetermined profile is difficult
for any program. This is especially so for programs like the NCF involving a few
large projects, each of which will have a different design, lead times and timing
requirements for the injection of funds. These variations to the profile would have
been almost inevitable once all the successful projects had been selected and the
funding agreements actually signed.
Further changes to the funding profile resulted from delays in negotiating the funding
agreements. These processes are more within the scope of DCITA managers to
influence but not entirely so. It takes at least two parties to execute a funding
agreement.
Other changes to the funding profile arose from various delays within the projects
themselves and especially in the early stages of several projects. Some of these were
genuinely beyond the control of the project managers, such as an unproductive tender
process or delays resulting from changes to the administrative arrangements or senior
management within a state agency. Other delays seemed more within the control of
project managers but, even then, were often for quite positive reasons. For example,
RegNet—the SA project—was delayed so that it could be integrated and co-delivered
with a large state-wide initiative.
64.
Although there were several re-phasings of the NCF allocation, all funds in the
original budget allocation were expended. For a new program, that had to be designed
and operated from scratch and with only a few large and complex funded projects, a
carryover of about 12 per cent of total program funds into just one further fiscal year
is a good achievement.
Management of running costs
Of the $52.2 million provided for NCF, $2.2 million was provided for the
administration of the program. In accord with standard practices, the amount allocated
to the Branch administering the NCF was decided on a year-to-year basis according to
need.
The NCF mid-term review (DCITA, 2004) reported that:
There have been significant changes in staff numbers throughout the project; for
example the grant assessment period required eight FTE [full-time equivalent]. Since
the successful program was announced in July 2002 the trend has been diminishing
staff, currently there are less than three FTE for project monitoring.
The annual administrative costs for the NCF are not separately identified in the
Departmental budget. … Based on the staffing figures above, it is likely that the
actual departmental costs of administering the NCF will be slightly less than the $2.2
million allocated.
From the divisional finance and staffing records, the evaluation confirms that, by far,
the majority of the administration expenses were for staff and staff-related costs,
which were at their highest in the first two years. There were also significant costs
associated with consultation about the detailed design of the program and the
guidelines, national advertisements for applications, briefing of prospective applicants
as well as selection-related costs for technical consultants and expert panel members.
Once funding agreements were signed, there were further significant expenses. These
included inspection and consultation visits to the projects, a series of three national
roundtables for project managers to share their experiences and the expenses
associated with the mid-term review and this evaluation.
The cost of administering the NCF is estimated to approach, but not exceed, the
$2.2 million originally provided. If the $2.2 million figure is taken as a high estimate,
the ratio of administration costs to programs funds would be 4.4 per cent, which is at
the low end of the Australian National Audit Office’s (ANAO’s) accepted range for
an efficiently administered program.
Costs borne by applicants and stakeholders
Application costs
Project managers interviewed during the fieldwork were only able to provide very
approximate estimates for costs required to prepare and support applications. They
agreed, however, that staff/time costs were the main resource cost. No data was
sought from unsuccessful applicants.
65.
Based on approximations gained from project managers, it would appear that
applicants expended from four to 12 person months in putting their applications
together and supporting them through the selection process. Higher staff costs appear
to be associated with the larger projects and those that involved both health and
education-related agencies. This leads to a very approximate estimate of the cost per
application of between $40 000 and $90 000.
NCF attracted 59 applications and thus, based on the average of the above range—
$65 000—the combined costs for the applicants is estimated to be between $3 million
to $4 million. This equates to about six to eight per cent of the funds made available.
Given that these costs were voluntarily entered into by applicants, this evaluation
considers that this is a reasonable level of total applicant costs for a program offering
attractive high levels of support for quite large and complex projects.
Financial and in-kind contributions by funding recipients and other project
partners
Successful applicants were required to contribute financial and/or in-kind resources to
the projects with state and territory agencies required to provide at least equal
funding. Requiring a matching contribution is common practice among government
funding schemes as it signals a real commitment to the project by all the parties. For
NCF, the Australian Government was also seeking to maximise the benefits of its
investment.
Collectively, the projects have contributed about $120 million in cash and in-kind
support. Together with the NCF program funds, this created a total pool of resources
of about $170 million. Substantial leverage was achieved.
Applicants were also required to provide a clear and convincing strategy for ensuring
on-going viability of the services set up by the projects. Based on the fieldwork
interviews, all projects have taken steps to build recurrent and maintenance costs into
on-going agency budgets. Funds for future capital upgrades were, however, far less
certain. This issue is also discussed in the previous chapter (see page 51).
Review of administrative processes
This section of the evaluation examines each of the main NCF processes largely
guided by the ANAO better practice guide (ANAO, 2002). It also includes any
feedback received during the fieldwork interviews.
In essence, this evaluation considers that the NCF was soundly managed throughout
the life of the program.
In addition to the published NCF program guidelines (DCITA, 2001), two internal
DCITA documents were created to guide administration. These were the program
plan, which focuses on the consultation and selection phases of the program, and the
NCF procedures manual (DCITA, 2003), which guided NCF team members in
administering the funding agreements.
66.
Setting up the program
Consultation about the design and operation of NCF
Consultations about the detailed design of the NCF were undertaken in the months
following the Australian Government’s announcement of its creation. This involved
two distinct stages. The first set of consultations was conducted with a reference panel
of Australian Government officials from the education, health and community
services departments as well as health and education officials from state and territory
governments. It also included Australia-wide face-to-face meetings with stakeholders.
The second set of consultations sought comments on draft NCF guidelines. These
were released for comment by the then Minister for Communications, Information
Technology and the Arts, on 10 September 2001. These consultations involved some
further face-to-face meetings but mainly involved the analysis of written comments.
Comments were made about a quite wide range of topics including a lower minimum
funding amount per project, a definition for the term ‘services’ and whether particular
state service delivery agencies (such area health services) should be regarded as
government agencies and thus required to contribute matching funds. Some comments
led to changes such as an extension of the proposed closing date for applications to
take better account of the education sector’s Christmas ‘shut down’ and the addition
of ‘sustainable competition’ to the selection criteria.
The evaluation considers that the program was established in a most time-efficient
manner especially given the complex nature of the NCF objectives, which required
extensive consultation at both Australian Government and state/territory government
levels and in both the education and health sectors. The nation-wide and public
consultations about the design and operation of the program helped to improve and
fine tune the design of the NCF.
Evaluation planning
An evaluation plan was not prepared for the program. However, a mid-term review
was conducted between May and December 2004 and was published on the DCITA
website in June 2005. In early 2005, the NCF team arranged for this final evaluation
of the program to be conducted from July 2005 onwards.
In addition, the NCF was also reviewed as part of a performance audit of the TSI
programs by the ANAO in 2006, which considered that the NCF effectively achieved
its stated objectives.
Risk analysis
A risk analysis and management plan was developed in October 2001. It focused on
the selection and other early phases of the program. A considerable number of risk
management features are built into the DCITA funding agreements and the processes
used to administer the agreements. With respect to individual projects, while they
were not required to submit a risk analysis plan, the project managers reported that
most projects incorporated a risk analysis into their project planning. Project
managers reported that these were typically used regularly by the project steering
committees to assist with the on-going management of their projects.
67.
The ANAO recommended in the above audit report on the TSI programs that future
recipients funded for complex or high risk projects are required to develop a risk
management plan at the start of projects, monitor and manage risks throughout the
project and report regularly to DCITA on the management of the higher priority risks.
DCITA agreed to incorporate this recommendation into the guidelines of relevant
programs but noted that the introduction of such a measure should be undertaken
having regard to the relevant Australian Government policies and directions, such as
the use of standardised funding agreements.
Selection
The evaluation considers that the selection process as a whole was sound.
Information for applicants—the program guidelines
The NCF program guidelines (DCITA, 2001) contained succinct information for
intending applicants about the NCF’s objective, eligibility, selection criteria and types
of projects that would be supported. They also included a clear statement about the
minimum level of funding (i.e. $3 million), the expectation of collaborative projects
and the requirement for applicants to contribute some of their own funds/resources.
The document provided information about the funding agreement that DCITA would
insist be signed by successful applicants. Telephone, fax and email contact
information for DCITA was also provided for any intending applicants requiring
further assistance.
DCITA’s website contained a copy of the guidelines, and other NCF-related material
was added progressively. The information could be readily identified from either a
site-search from the home page using the term ‘NCF’ or by clicking the ‘grants and
funding’ side bar and then examining the alphabetical list of programs by name.
However, it can be argued that from the DCITA home page it was not immediately
obvious where the information about the NCF would be located.
Publicity and information for prospective applicants
Media coverage was achieved by the then Minister for Communications, Information
Technology and the Arts’ public call for applications and information sessions that
were held around Australia. The public call and information sessions were advertised
nationally in relevant newspapers and included a clear statement of the closing date
for applications. About 400 people attended the sessions. Information was also
provided directly to the health and education organisations—both government and
private—that had been involved in the consultations about the program’s design.
Enquiry form
Intending applicants were required to submit to DCITA a short ‘enquiry form’ prior to
being sent a copy of the actual application form. DCITA stated that this approach
would permit DCITA to disseminate the application forms to interested parties as well
as to ascertain the likely level of demand. Other than contact information for the
intending applicant, the enquiry form only asked for three pieces of information—an
68.
outline of the proposed projects, an indicative total project cost and a list of possible
collaborating organisations.
The NCF team has advised that an inquiry form process was used to give DCITA staff
an indication of the likely number of applications so that adequate assessment
resources could be organised.
Preparing and submitting applications
The five months provided for the preparation of applications—early October 2001
until end February 2002—appears to have been adequate for the preparation of the
quite complex NCF applications. This was despite the fact that it included the
normally slow business period over Christmas/New Year and the period of the 2001
Federal election. Indeed, the NCF team was very conscious of providing adequate
time and the originally proposed closing date was extended by several weeks
following feedback from stakeholders in the education sector. It also sought and acted
on advice received about the publicity and information activities that it could and
could not undertake during the election’s ‘caretaker convention’ period.
Fifty-two applications were received by the due date in February 2002. There were
seven late applications and all but one was accepted. Thus 58 applications were
accepted.
Eligibility criteria
The eligibility criteria required applicants to meet the following requirements before
their applications would be considered in the selection process:
the application must be from an eligible organisation;
the project must involve the delivery of education and/or health services using
telecommunications infrastructure;
project education and/or health services must be delivered in regional Australia;
the application must be for a minimum grant of $3 million;
applicants must complete the eligibility checklist of the application form and
include it with their application. Applicants must be able to answer each question
in the affirmative to be eligible;
applications must be made on the NCF application form and must include all the
information and documentation requested; and
the application must be lodged at a time and in a form consistent with section E of
the guidelines.
Thus these eligibility criteria served the purpose of ensuring that each application had
met certain minimum process and content requirements. Five of the 58 accepted
applications were judged ineligible leaving 53 applications to be assessed against the
selection criteria.
Selection criteria
69.
The degree to which an application offered value for money was assessed against each
of the following selection criteria:
1. The nature and extent of education and/or health needs present in the regional
area which the project is seeking to address.
2. The characteristics of the proposed services to be delivered by the project:
a) the nature, range and quality of the education and/or health services
which will be delivered by the project;
b) the nature, range and quality of the other services which will be
delivered by the project; and
c) the nature and level of demand for the services, particularly education
and health services.
3. The benefits and outcomes of the project:
a) the benefits and outcomes of the project in terms of improvements to
the delivery of education and/or health services to regional
communities;
b) the nature and extent of consequential improvements to
telecommunications services, particularly high bandwidth services, in
regional communities targeted by the project;
c) the degree to which the project is consistent with overall directions in
education and/or health and with other regional telecommunications
initiatives; and
d) the degree to which the project demonstrates and/or develops
Australian Information and Communications Technology (ICT)
capabilities to deliver education and/or health products, services and
information.
4. The reason NCF funding is required for the project to proceed.
5. The extent to which the Commonwealth's funding will be leveraged by
support from private, government and other sources.
6. The degree to which the project is sustainable after NCF funding ceases.
7. The quality of the project plan, management strategy and financial plan.
8. The quality of expertise and experience of the proposed management team
with regard to establishing and managing the project.
9. The nature and range of organisations involved in the project and their
capacity to contribute to project outcomes.
These selection criteria focused on the assessment of relative merit. DCITA officials
worked with other Australian Government officials from the health and education
sectors and technical experts to develop a shortlist of 15 superior applications. A
probity adviser was also engaged. The short listed applications were then assessed
independently by an expert panel appointed by the then Minister for Communications,
Information Technology and the Arts. Technical consultants also provided support to
the panel. All short-listed applicants were interviewed. The panel’s advice was put to
the Minister who made the final decision on projects and funding allocations.
70.
The fieldwork for this evaluation provided little feedback on the adequacy or
otherwise of the selection processes. Only a handful of the individuals involved in the
project delivery phases—and hence in the fieldwork interviews—had been closely
involved in the application phase of their project. The evaluation did not contact any
unsuccessful applicants. They may have been less satisfied; however, no complaints
were received by DCITA at the time.
Possible improvements to selection processes
Drawing from the NCF experience, two possible improvements to selection processes
can be offered for future complex and nation-wide programs akin to the NCF.
Firstly, the NCF used a quite large number of selection criteria—a total of 13 items
across nine selection criteria. Notwithstanding the capacity to weight different criteria,
this still means that 13 matters contributed to the merit selection. One possible effect
of having so many selection criteria is that those criteria that are directly related to the
program’s objective can be diluted in the overall selection assessment. For future
programs it is suggested that the selection criteria be limited to factors directly
relevant to the program’s objectives and that other necessary factors – such as having
a suitably experienced project management and delivery team – be built into an
expanded set of eligibility criteria.
Secondly, the projects that NCF funded were widely distributed across Australia
despite the fact that no criteria or condition specified this as a desirable outcome. The
program guidelines do not raise the issue of geographic spread of projects but the
possibility of geographic spread being used in selection was mentioned in information
sessions. The issue here is that applicants, stakeholders and even those involved in the
assessment processes have a tendency to assume that wide geographic spread is a
criterion whether explicitly stated or not. Not explicitly addressing the issue in the
selection criteria potentially creates uncertainty during selection and may raise
questions once the successful projects are known. This uncertainty can be avoided by
a clear statement of policy in the program guidelines.
Administration of funded projects
As noted earlier, the NCF developed a procedures manual to guide DCITA’s project
officers in administering the funding agreements. This manual became available in
February 2003 (when four of the eight funding agreements had been signed and when
the first of the quarterly reports were due). The Manual was updated in October 2003.
It contains a wealth of useful information for the managers and project officers in the
NCF team. It provides guidance, for example, on the assessment of regular project
reports, processes for the approval of payments and audit requirements. It also
contains a number of checklists and templates for some of the more routine
correspondence such as reminder letters. It seems to have built on and captured the
experience gained by earlier but unrelated DCITA programs. It is a useful document.
Funding agreements
The funding agreements, and in particular the schedules, capture DCITA’s experience
of administering a wide-range of technology-intensive programs. The main agreement
71.
used by the NCF is based on an Australian Government-wide standard form of
agreement. The main body of the agreement is essentially common among the
projects with rigorous requirements as to each party’s responsibilities plus other
technical and legal requirements associated with funding from the Australian
Government. Project-specific requirements, including the project milestones, are set
out in various schedules attached to the main agreement. The schedules also specify
standard reporting formats so that information coming from the different projects is
similar.
The performance indicators included in the schedules are typically implementation
milestones. These are essential. However, indicators of the ultimate success of the
project tend not to be included. Thus, while performance data from projects is
sufficient to monitor whether the project is completed, it is less able to be used to
judge whether the project is successful.
The evaluation considers that the agreement and the schedule provide a sound basis
for setting out the relative responsibilities of both the funding recipients and DCITA,
and for tracking the progress of projects.
Most of the project managers accepted the standard form and other terms specified in
the agreements. They saw such complex agreements as more or less normal for large
technology-intensive projects.
However, large-scale complex projects can throw up complex legal issues, especially
with regard to the ‘standard’ clauses for Australian Government funding. DCITA’s
approach of not involving its in-house legal advisers in negotiations quite frustrated
one particular project manager. Whether by involving these advisers in negotiations or
otherwise, DCITA needs to develop more practical ways to achieve the timely
negotiation of funding agreements for complex projects. Alternatively, DCITA should
consider giving earlier advice to intending applicants about the intended terms of the
agreement and make more strenuous efforts to ensure that it is understood by
applicants that the main body of the agreement is essentially non-negotiable.
For these and other reasons, it took many months to negotiate the eight funding
agreements. The first was signed in November 2002 and three more were signed by
end January 2003. A further three were signed in June 2003 but the last was only
signed in October that year. Overall the agreements took between four and 15 months
to finalise. This was too long, especially for a program such as NCF that planned to
have the projects run for a limited three-year period.
Monitoring the projects
Virtually all funding recipients and project managers commented favourably on the
helpfulness, responsiveness and flexibility of DCITA staff administering the NCF.
Their ‘customer service’ was seen as superior. This was no accident, as all of the NCF
managers during the program put a premium on the team being quick to respond to
issues raised by the projects.
Monitoring processes for the NCF has been focused on the timely receipt and review
of regular reports from the projects. The timing and minimum content of these reports
was explicitly specified in a schedule of each funding agreement. This review of
72.
written reports provided the main means of judging the progress of the projects and
their compliance with the agreements.
NCF administrative team members were also required to keep in regular contact with
the project staff and, in particular, to ensure that any unexpected developments were
identified and discussed.
Project managers interviewed in the fieldwork found the program reporting
requirements acceptable. Some queried the need for quarterly reports especially
during those parts of the project when little was changing (e.g. while external tenders
were running). Some managers argued that less frequent reports are more likely to
result in meaningful information being provided with less repetitive information
simply copied from previous reports.
Variations to the funding agreements were common to vary the schedule of payments
to better match the actual progress of the project and, in two cases, to extend the time
allowed for the project. In some instances, more extensive variations were required to
capture significant changes to the design of projects such as when two projects
changed the technology solution to be deployed. Several agreements were varied
several times.
Variations to the funding agreements may be inevitable for complex multi-year
projects such as the NCF projects. In particular, it is difficult to accurately predict the
likely progress of projects prior to tenders being called and the subsequent supply
contracts being signed. It is only then that firm project plans can realistically be
prepared. This presents an on-going challenge for DCITA programs.
Final report and acquittal procedures are documented in the current procedures
manual and appear to have been adhered to by project officers.
With 59 applications and eight funded projects, the cost of developing a full
administrative database was not warranted. The NCF team developed and used a
spreadsheet to monitor the reports due, received, accepted and payments due and
made for each individual project. The payment information was summarised for the
program as a whole. This spreadsheet was often referred to as the ‘NCF admin
database’. Instructions for its use were included in the procedures manual. This
seemed to be an effective and efficient solution for the NCF program.
DCITA could again consider an investment in centralised IT support for program
administrative databases (or spreadsheets for the smaller programs). It seems
inefficient for each new program to itself develop its own database design, especially
given the desire of being able to regularly reconcile financial records in the program
databases with DCITA’s main finance system.
Managing the performance of the program
Once the successful projects were announced, and especially once the funding
agreements were signed, the focus of the NCF team switched from the start-up of the
program as a whole to managing a collection of individual projects. As the procedures
manual makes clear, its scope is the administration of the funding agreements.
73.
The individual funding agreements do not require program-related performance data
to be regularly provided. There are no requirements in the procedures manual for
collating information or otherwise monitoring the extent to which activity by the
individual projects is addressing or progressing the program’s objectives as a whole.
Various summary reports or briefs have been prepared but these were typically done
on an ad hoc basis and were not part of any systematic management review of overall
program activity or monitoring of overall performance against objectives.
More performance information at both project and program levels could be built into
agreement schedules. It would be desirable for clearer links to be established between
individual project performance, the program’s performance indicators and the
program objectives as a whole. Only within this broader perspective can the overall
success of a program be assessed.
Conclusions
Management of funds and timeliness
Program funds were well managed over the course of the full five-years of the NCF
program, with all funds in the original budget allocation expended. Annual
expenditure over the life of the program was re-profiled on several occasions due to
delays in the negotiation of funding agreements and the slow early progress of some
projects, and in particular the two projects that required an extra year to complete.
These variations to the annual funding profiles are understandable given the complex
and innovative projects supported by the NCF.
The projects have collectively contributed about $120 million in cash and in-kind
support. Together with the NCF program funds, this created a total pool of resources
of about $170 million. Substantial leverage was achieved.
The amount of funds allocated to the branch administering the NCF was decided on a
year-to-year basis according to need. The cost of administering the NCF is estimated
to approach, but not exceed, the $2.2 million originally provided. If the $2.2 million
figure is taken as a high estimate, the ratio of administration costs to programs funds
would be 4.4 per cent, which is at the low end of the accepted range for an efficiently
administered program.
Setting up the program
The program was established in a most time-efficient manner, especially given the
complex nature of the NCF objectives, which required extensive consultation among
Australian Government departments as well as with state and territory agencies in
both the education and health sectors. The nation-wide and public consultations about
the design and operation of the program helped to improve and fine tune the design of
the NCF.
An evaluation plan was not prepared for the NCF. However, both mid-term and final
evaluations were conducted. The NCF was also reviewed as part of a performance
74.
audit of the TSI programs by the ANAO (ANAO, 2006), which considered that the
NCF effectively achieved its stated objectives.
A risk analysis was prepared for the early phases of the program and a considerable
number of risk management features are built into the DCITA funding agreements
and the processes used to administer the agreements. The ANAO recommended in the
abovementioned audit, and DCITA has agreed, to require recipients funded for
complex or high risk projects to report regularly on the management of the higher
priority risks.
Selection and administrative processes
The project selection process was sound, with officials working with technical
consultants to develop a shortlist of 15 superior applications from a pool of 59
received in response to a nationally advertised call for applications. The short-listed
applications were then assessed by an expert panel. The then Minister for
Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, made the final decision on
projects and funding allocations. A probity adviser was involved in the process.
From the date of announcement of the successful projects, the funding agreements
took between four and 15 months to finalise. This was too long, especially for a
program such as the NCF that planned for the projects to run for a limited three year
period.
The DCITA funding agreement and the schedules used by the NCF provided a sound
basis for setting out the relative responsibilities of both the funding recipients and
DCITA, and for tracking the progress of projects. The schedules could be improved
further if they set-out requirements for more performance information at both project
and program levels. This would help establish clearer links between individual project
performance, the program’s performance indicators and the program objectives.
The NCF was managed soundly throughout the life of the program. The NCF team
developed a procedures manual to guide project officers in administering the funding
agreements. It contained a wealth of useful information for the managers and project
officers.
Virtually all funding recipients and project managers commented favourably on the
helpfulness, responsiveness and flexibility of the DCITA staff administering the NCF.
75.
FEEDBACK FROM CLIENTS AND LESSONS LEARNT
This chapter reports feedback from NCF project managers as well as a selection of
users and stakeholders. It then draws together lessons learnt from this evaluation.
Feedback from clients and stakeholders
Client feedback is always among the most valuable information available to managers
and evaluators. It can be accurate or it can be based on incorrect impressions. It can
sometimes be difficult to understand or interpret and it can be about factors that
program managers cannot control or influence. Despite this, client feedback remains a
valuable resource.
Table 6 reports comments made by project managers, users or stakeholders
interviewed in the fieldwork for this evaluation. Interviewees were asked to offer any
lessons learnt from the NCF and provide suggestions for improvement, should a
program like the NCF be considered in the future. The comments were recorded
without discussion or debate. Only about half of the interviewees provided answers to
this question. To maintain the confidentiality of the persons, the comments are not
linked to specific projects and they are paraphrased. As some of the comments were
quite cryptic, the evaluation team has added some clarifying information in the second
column of the table and in some cases expressed some views as to the merit of the
suggestion or the extent to which similar comments were made by other interviewees.
It should be noted that the more removed the interviewees were from the actual NCF
project team, the less likely they were aware of what facilities had been specifically
funded through the NCF. Therefore it was sometimes difficult to attribute their
comments directly to the NCF project per se, as opposed to general comments on
broadband availability or other Australian Government, state or territory government
initiatives.
TABLE 6
Feedback from project managers and stakeholders
Feedback from project managers and Clarifications and
stakeholders Interpretations
Satisfaction
This project is the starting point for Essentially, all users were very
broadband and we can build from here. satisfied with the new broadband
capabilities.
Before broadband, medical staff had to travel
long-distance between towns.
There is now a greater potential to be able to
undertake a TAFE course online in remote
areas.
It is like Disneyland coming to our small
76.
town.
Design of the NCF program
Projects the size of these NCF projects All of the projects were under time
should be run over four to five years. The pressures. The extraordinary
three years allowed from announcement of efforts of some staff and
the successful projects to the expected contractors to achieve delivery on
completion date was far too tight for these time should be acknowledged.
large and complex projects. For instance, one Note that this comment relates to
year needs to be allocated for a large-scale one project.
government procurement process as required
for this NCF project.
Due to time pressures, some community
consultations were ‘left out’ of the project.
Having state government entities as anchor
tenants allowed some of the risk to be
removed from the overall project.
There were difficulties meeting the general
community benefits provision with a project
so directly focused on health/education
service delivery objectives.
Development of the applications
Project scoping discussions with other
agencies were very complex and time
consuming.
In order to participate we needed access a
sizeable amount of up-front internal funding
to cover the bid expenses, negotiate the
funding agreement and meet other set-up
costs.
Finding matching funds from state
government sources and then getting
agreement to commit the funds was a
challenge.
Project governance
One of our success factors was that we There were strongly held yet
worked out our governance arrangements divided opinions as to the optimal
before implementing the project. arrangements for the governance
of individual projects. These
For this project there were far too many comments were not directed at
committees to go through. This caused major
DCITA.
delays.
In future we would work with a smaller
project team, because having many
77.
stakeholders ‘blowing their own trumpets for
their agency’ tended to cause us to lose the
plot and forget what we were seeking to
achieve.
Make sure that the right people are involved
in the project from the beginning.
Project design and planning
There are three stages in getting a project up Managing the scope of the projects
and running—scoping, tendering and was a major issue for, essentially,
negotiating the deal. This involves a zero all project managers.
‘sum game;. The more work that is done in
the beginning (i.e. scoping), the less
negotiation is needed.
Managing the scope of the project is
difficult. Scope creep is a constant threat.
However, with telecommunications and
equipment prices dropping continuously, we
had the opportunity to expand the number of
towns covered considerably.
‘tele’ and ‘e’ shouldn’t be used anymore. Some projects gave greater
The technology needs to be integrated emphasis on the deployment of
seamlessly—just another service delivery applications and changing work
option. The reason the telephone works is practices. Many users were
because everyone has one and it is embedded seeking further training and
into the way we all work. support and urged even greater
priority be given to these aspects
The agencies aren’t yet using the network as in future projects and programs.
effectively as they could for service delivery.
To ultimately see value being delivered,
projects should be seen as having three
levels or elements—the network, the
applications that run on the new network and
the changed work practices that use the new
applications in delivering services. Within
projects, funding should be allocated for all
three levels.
The major metropolitan hospitals could There are some cases where the
better support rural patients and hospitals if new capabilities of the broadband
they too adopted video-consultation systems. network are under-utilised due to
Having the systems in the bush is only half lack of developed applications
of the solution. and/or work practices.
Delays arose from our lack of understanding
of Indigenous cultural issues. It took time to
gain the permission of elders to enter
communities, to discuss possible routes for
cables and to gain agreement to what
78.
facilities might be installed in the
community centres.
Standardisation issues
There’s a need for standardisation for The project managers were acutely
everything—broadband connections, VOIP, aware of the existing range of
videoconferencing. different standards currently being
DCITA needs to be more consistent with used and conscious of not wanting
setting the standard requirements for to make future efforts to integrate
broadband. networks even more difficult.
Need to deliver the right network. The
Commonwealth needs to address the issue of
a national uniform network.
Tendering and procurement
Consulting potential suppliers about the The project managers expressed a
project design prior to tenders being called, ‘love/hate’ reaction to tendering.
sped-up the overall process. They were frustrated by the time it
(The carrier) learnt a lot about their internal takes to tender, the detailed
pricing model and developed alternatives process work involved and the
based on the up-front provision of capital inflexibility it introduces to
(i.e. made possible by the NCF project planning discussions with
funding). potential suppliers. That being
Having preferred suppliers allows faster said, those that did tender were
procurement times and makes the project run ultimately very pleased with the
smoother. prices and capabilities it delivered.
Would have helped if there were state
government or NCF period contracts already
in place to purchase the equipment.
Funding agreement
Good structure, although, should have some Project managers were ultimately
flexibility. accepting of the DCITA funding
Not being able to get together with DCITA agreement. The main request was
lawyers to discuss clauses in contract created for more flexibility in negotiation
misunderstandings and confusion. and dealing with variations.
Contractual arrangements meant that there
were concerns with the testing of the
technology. Risk is transferred, not shared.
A better agreement than used for some other There is also an issue among the
DCITA programs. project managers with the extent
DCITA needs to be more flexible especially to which the agreement is
with deed variations. Variations on a 3 year perceived to put all the project risk
project are inevitable and there should be a onto the recipient.
better system in place to cope with such
changes. We are concerned with how to
make the best use of limited time over the
3 year project period. Processing variations
isn’t one of them!
79.
Monitoring and reporting
Quarterly reports were very time consuming Positive comments about DCITA
to complete. The content was also repetitive far outweighed the number of
and hence unnecessary. Better alternative critical comments.
would be a six monthly reporting system.
Hard to quantify in-kind contributions.
DCITA’s NCF staff were ‘tops’. They were
responsive and flexible.
Changing staff at DCITA meant that we had
to re-educate DCITA staff and bring them up
to speed.
Roll out issues
Detailed site audits are critical. The first
dozen sites are a big learning curve. Many
practical lessons learnt.
Delivery of equipment was an issue. There
were issues with the power supply for a few
locations.
Internal two person teams installed the Internal and locally engaged
equipment on site as it was about a third to a installation staff were commonly
quarter the cost of having it done by used by projects.
suppliers. Saved us tens of thousands.
Important to be able to use local resources –
they tend to be less costly and are available
to be deployed quickly.
All partners worked well together and learnt Effective collaboration was
from one another as we went along. common among project partners
Communications and expectations that had not previously worked
management was very important. Clients together.
need to be informed about where the project
is up to and why the roll-out of services is
happening in the sequence it is.
The hierarchy in the city did not understand
the rural situation. They made decisions
without consultation. They just turned up
one morning and said the school was to do
this or that, instead of consulting the
teachers. The metropolitan people do not
understand that decisions that might fit the
city do not necessarily fit the regional areas
because of (1) distance; (2) cost; and (3) the
adversity some schools have to overcome.
Run time issues
You can’t embed a system unless everyone Without exception the users of the
has access to the same system. Also new networks were thrilled with
important to keep in contact with people who what they could now do on the
80.
aren’t connected to the network. new networks. As noted here, the
Some people are still scared of using the new common themes about problems
applications on the network. They take some are support for training,
getting used to. applications development and
The use of videoconferencing increases deployment, as well as on-going
dramatically when heavy rain causes road technical support.
blockages.
Learnt that ‘low-tech’ solutions can still play
a big part in new work practices. For
example, faxing a medical chart can often be
more time and cost efficient than scanning
the chart and emailing it especially if no new
equipment needs to be purchased. Need to
design cost and time effective work practices
and not be distracted by trying to always use
the maximum capacity of the new
technology.
Irrespective of the time and cost savings to
the health system and patients, medical
practitioners need to be able to get paid for
online consultations before they can be
expected to embrace online technology.
This project is sustainable because it is now
financially supported by the Department of
Education; the equipment is owned and
serviced by the Department, which also
supports the network.
Staff need to be available to aid with product
support or you run the risk of people losing
interest in the equipment.
Teachers need further education on
applications. The responsibility for
equipment upgrades is with the individual
schools in this state (and elsewhere I
understand). We all end up with a messy
collection of different gear that we struggle
to keep working.
There is a need for a full-time person to be
employed to oversee the upgrade of email, e-
newsletter lists, email harassment and
administrative issues, child protection, fraud
and security screening blocking tools. This is
a full-time IT job—not a part-time/after
hours’ job for a teacher.
System breakdowns are a problem as we
need to wait until someone can get out here
to fix the connection.
There is still a need for applications to drive
uptake.
81.
Sustainability issues and planning for the future
Sustainability needs to be addressed in the
initial project design.
You shouldn’t need a project champion. The
technology should be integrated into your
service model and be invisible. It is just
another tool for carrying out day-to-day
business and delivery of services.
Demand will ultimately be driven by content
delivery rather than pipes.
Input from other states would be helpful. It
would be valuable to be able to get in contact
with people who have gone through the ‘big
network’ experience before or are
experiencing it at the same time as we are.
Project sponsors should consult with users
before designing or implementing large-scale
projects like this—not after the money is
available when the main design elements are
fixed and everything has to be rushed.
Funding needs to be embedded in budgets
and not provided ad hoc. Can savings from
less staff travel, for example, be somehow
captured for upgrades?
Niggling concern about all the separate
government broadband networks. Wonder if
this is a sustainable model with one-off
capital investments and no recurrent income.
Perhaps the universities national broadband
system is a better model for governments in
Australia.
Greater collaboration among the states as
well as with the Commonwealth would give
greater buying power.
There needs to be more interconnection At least one other project did
between systems. There is no allow general practitioner’s to
interconnection between the general connect to its network. Another is
practitioner’s network and ours (i.e. public investigating in this as a post-
health system). project enhancement.
Small business is still holding back
regarding broadband. It seems to want to see
where market is heading.
If community use of our network is to be
encouraged, a person needs to be appointed
for about one-day per fortnight to organise
and facilitate community trial and use.
Beyond the scope of NCF
82.
Minimum universal service obligation
(USO) requirements limited to phone
services. This should be changed to include
provision of Internet services.
There are still problems with basic
telecommunications services in remote areas.
Network robustness is lacking at the remote
‘fingers’ of the network. Often there is only
one cable into a town. If this gets cut then
the whole town will go offline and it can
take a long time for the carrier to fix the
problem.
Source: Fieldwork interviews
Lessons learnt
About the NCF projects
Impacts of projects on regional broadband availability
Depending on the choice of technology in each project, the NCF has demonstrated
that connecting broadband to education and/or health facilities in rural and regional
towns can also make broadband widely available within those towns.
The NSW/NT project that upgraded services to families with children attending
SOTA, demonstrated the potential of satellite to deliver effective broadband to
isolated families, communities and businesses.
Cooperation among agencies
NCF has shown that cooperation across very different state/territory government
service delivery agencies can work and deliver cost-effective levels of service. This is
despite the fact that health and education agencies have very different needs for
privacy, hours and days of operation, content screening, access control, reliability and
other critical features.
Design of individual projects
The development and delivery of the more complex online services will typically
require three levels of action:
having access to a reliable and robust broadband network;
having applications that run well on the new network; and
having new work practices that are designed and tested to actually deliver the new
online-based service.
Projects need to allocate time and resources for work at all three levels, especially the
third level for the more ambitious new services.
Decreasing cost and increasing coverage
A noticeable feature of each funded project was that the number of sites connected to
broadband increased steadily from what was proposed at the application stage to when
sites were actually connected. It is likely that similar decreases in prices and
83.
associated increases in coverage can be anticipated in most future multi-year
programs where telecommunications services and equipment are a large proportion of
the total project cost.
There may be merit in trying to have applicants plan for and declare what additional
coverage or quality levels they will seek if price reductions do occur. Applicants
could, for example, be asked to specify in a separate attachment to an application
what they would plan to do should prices drop (or the potential area covered increase)
over the project period by, say 10 or 20 per cent.
Operational cost savings
The recurrent cost savings offered by the adoption of IP telephony (in most projects)
enabled project champions and administrators to more easily obtain the support of
their governing boards and smooth the implementation of new work practices also
made possible by the new network capabilities.
The capacity of the new networks to support centralised ‘help desk’ and network
maintenance/upgrade capabilities is delivering significant cost savings. It is also
delivering substantial savings in staff time and ‘wear and tear’ on staff that now need
far fewer physical visits to the remote sites.
Committed project staff
Essentially all projects had staff who committed strongly to delivering their projects
on-specification and on-time. This was particularly so for staff involved in the
physical roll-out of the networks and end user equipment. Their efforts warrant
recognition.
Several project managers reported very favourably on the commitment made by their
carriers to deliver network functionality on time and as promised.
Other factors that affected the development and delivery of services
Observations from the NCF projects suggest that some common factors influenced
service development and delivery in regional areas. They were:
Services already exist—the applications that seem to have been most quickly
adopted tended to be those where the application already existed, but where
regional access was previously limited by poor Internet or other online access.
Champion or sponsor—services that were among the first adopted included those
where the professionals involved identified a significant service benefit and went
to some effort to make it happen.
Bringing potential beneficiaries together—one value of large projects like those
funded by the NCF is that they can provide enough external finance and stimulus
to bring the potential beneficiaries together to research, design and trial a new
service. The investment for which no one beneficiary alone could justify.
City-based professionals—Enthusiasm for using the new network capabilities
offered by the NCF projects typically resided with leaders within regional
communities—the place where the main benefits accrue. City-based professionals
typically have little to gain from any new regional services and thus can lack an
incentive and the encouragement to participate.
84.
Sharing of learning
When the projects were well underway, NCF organised three roundtables for the
sharing of information among the project managers. These were well received.
However, there was limited information sharing among the projects in the early
design phase of projects. Scheduling such roundtables much earlier, say, immediately
following the announcement of the successful projects, would be more helpful to
funding recipients and enhance information sharing across the projects.
The number of successfully adopted applications and work practices might be
effectively increased by diffusing already adopted systems, modified as necessary,
into other states and territories. Such a diffusion initiative within a program like the
NCF may also serve as a practical means to open up longer term discussions among
agencies—Australian Government as well as state and territory—regarding the scope
for future cooperation.
About the design and administration of the NCF
Consultation and liaison across government
The NCF program has shown that collaboration across Australian Government
departments and among state/territory agencies can not only deliver enhanced health
and education services in regional and rural communities but also significantly
improve telecommunications services.
Tight timelines for a program supporting large projects
Four years is very tight timing for a program designed to support large
telecommunications projects that deliver services on new networks. Particularly time
consuming activities were:
initial consultations and detailed program design;
application, assessment and announcement processes;
tendering; and
negotiation of funding agreements.
Delays associated with the delivery of equipment were reported by some projects as
significant. For two projects, there were delays associated with the integration of the
NCF activities into other broader state-based initiatives.
Both DCITA and prospective project recipients can learn from the NCF experience
that time is precious, even in a four-year program. Any up-front delays in the
selection, announcement or agreement negotiation phases can put high levels of time
pressure on the project design and implementation phases.
Negotiating funding agreements
DCITA’s approach of not directly involving its in-house legal advisers in negotiations
has frustrated several of the successful applicants and increased the time taken to
achieve the execution of the funding agreements. The sticking points in these
negotiations tend to be associated with the main agreement and not the detailed
project-specific schedules. Whether by directly involving these advisers in
negotiations or otherwise, DCITA could usefully consider further ways to expedite
85.
the negotiation of the larger value and more complex funding agreements, such as
those needed for the NCF.
About the design of future broadband programs
Focusing the selection criteria on the program objective
One approach to better focus the selection process on a program’s objective is to
reserve the final selection or merit criteria to just those factors that directly relate to
the program’s objective. Other necessary or prudent factors known to be important to
project success can be taken into account via the eligibility criteria or another pre-
screening process.
Performance monitoring and evaluation
There are several straightforward ways that managers of programs like the NCF could
improve the monitoring of overall program performance:
develop a practical monitoring system as part of the program’s design;
establish baseline levels for each of the performance measures or indicators prior
to funding any projects;
specify in the project funding agreements the information and data required for
both project and program monitoring; and
progressively collate, analyse and monitor the received information and data.
KPIs should be focused on monitoring the key aspects of a program’s objectives.
Payments for online medical services
Online health and medical consultations are not likely to become embedded work
practices unless medical professionals can receive payments as they would if that
consultation was face-to-face, and unless patients can similarly claim refunds.
Coverage, demonstration or innovation
With the NCF being designed around an open call for applications, there was no
control over the rural or regional areas that would be covered by the program. It was
entirely up to the applicants to nominate their intended areas of coverage. This
approach serves well for a program aimed at demonstrating what was feasible with a
new approach but would be less effective for a program aimed at achieving wide or
systematic coverage.
If a program is to have a demonstration element within its mission, then this should be
clear in the call for applications. Individual applicants should propose plans and
resources for this demonstration work as part of their projects.
Specific funding for service development or delivery
Future follow-up funding programs might require not only that broadband networks
be installed, but that a certain proportion of total project funds be allocated to the
development and/or deployment of online-based health or education services.
86.
APPENDIX 1—ABBREVIATIONS AND GLOSSARY
AARNET Australia’s Academic and Research Network provides high-
capacity Internet services to the Australian education and
research communities and their research partners.
ABN Australian Business Number (www.abn.gov.au)
ABS Australian Bureau of Statistics (www.abs.gov.au)
ADSL Asymmetric DSL (see below) that offers a high-speed digital
service.
ANAO Australian National Audit Office (www.anao.gov.au)
Back-haul Any transmission infrastructure that carries more than one
users’ traffic, whether incoming or outgoing. Normally the
back-haul infrastructure is regarded as being the link between
the local telephone exchange or wireless tower and the core
network (where user traffic is concentrated further to, for
example, send out on the Internet).
BDSL Business Digital Subscriber Line—a form of DSL (see below)
that offers guaranteed minimum data speeds.
BRT Broadband for Rural Tasmania.
CDMA Code Division Multiple Access.
CDMA EVDO CDMA (see above) Evolution data optimised which provides a
wireless broadband access (3G) internet service directly to the
laptop.
CCIF Coordinated Communications Infrastructure Fund, a DCITA
program announced in 2004 which is aiming to accelerate the
roll-out of broadband into regional Australia using key sectors
such as health, education and government services as anchor
tenants. It is widely regarded as a follow-on program to the
NCF.
Connect Australia An initiative announced by the Australian Government in
August 2005 that will roll-out improved broadband to people
living in regional, rural and remote areas, extend mobile
coverage, build new regional communications networks and set
up vital telecommunications services for remote Indigenous
communities.
DCITA Australian Government Department of Communications,
Information Technology and the Arts (www.dcita.gov.au)
87.
DET Department of Education and Training.
DEST Australian Government Department of Education, Science and
Training (www.dest.gov.au)
DFA Australian Government Department of Finance and
Administration (www.finance.gov.au)
DSL Digital Subscriber Line is a broadband technology that uses
existing twisted-pair copper lines.
FTE Fibre to Ethernet.
GWIP Government Wideband Internet Protocol - a new Telstra
service supporting high bandwidth connections for government
departments in regional areas.
Gbps Gigabit per second1 million Kbps is a measure for the speed of
data transfer.
HiBIS Higher Bandwidth Incentive Scheme is a DCITA program.
IDL Interactive Distance Learning. This was the term used by the
NCF project which delivered a satellite broadband service to
SOTA students in NSW and the NT.
IP Internet protocol.
ISDN Integrated Services Digital Network supports speeds from
64 Kbps to 1.5 Mbps.
ISP Internet service provider—a company or organisation that
provides access to the Internet.
Kbps Kilobits per second1024 bits per second—a measure for the
speed of data transfer.
KPI Key performance indicator is one of a small set of measures
that collectively provides information on the extent to which a
policy, program or initiative is achieving its objectives.
Mbps Megabits per second1000 Kbps—a measure for the speed of
data transfer
MPLS Multi-protocol Label Switching
NCF National Communications Fund—the program being evaluated
in this report
NEAHS New England Area Health Service.
NSW New South Wales
88.
NOIE National Office for the Information Economy
NT Northern Territory
NTN Networking the Nation, a former DCITA program that
supported the development of telecommunications in regional
Australia.
PI Performance indicator is a measure of some aspect of
performance (See also KPI).
POP Point of Presence, an interconnect point where a carrier (or
other manager of telecommunications) can pick up and
exchange voice and/or Internet data with another system.
QLD Queensland
RFDS Royal Flying Doctor Service
RTT Radio transmission technology
SA South Australia
SOTA School of the Air
TAFE Technical and Further Education offer a wide range of
vocational education and training.
TSI Telecommunications Services Inquiry, referred to as the Besley
inquiry.
UNE University of New England
USO Universal Service Obligation.
VoIP Voice-over Internet protocol, which allows the Internet to be
used for phone calls.
VPN Virtual private network is a private communications network
often used within a company, or by several companies or
organisations, to communicate confidentially over a non-private
network.
WA Western Australia
WiFi ‘Wireless fidelity’ Internet access via a microwave connection.
Most commonly utilised by laptop users, although it is also
becoming increasing popular within homes and businesses with
89.
multiple computers. Several health and education facilities
supported by NCF deployed WiFi systems.
WAN Wide Area Network—a computer network spanning a large
geographic area, typically consisting of several interlinked
local-area networks.
90.
REFERENCES
Alston, R (Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts),
2001, National Communication Fund Launch, media release, 10 September.
Alston, R (Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts) and
Anderson, J (Deputy Prime Minister), 2003, Government Response to the Regional
Telecommunications inquiry, joint media release, 25 June.
Australian National Audit Office, 2002, Administration of Grants: Better Practice
Guide, May, Canberra.
Australian National Audit Office, 2006, Management of selected Telstra Social Bonus
2 and Telecommunications Service Inquiry Response programs, June, Canberra.
Coonan, H (Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts),
2005, Connect Australia - A Plan to Future-Proof Telecommunications, media release,
17 August.
Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, 2000,
Connecting Australia - Report of the Telecommunications Services inquiry, (Besley
inquiry), September, Canberra.
Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, 2001,
National Communication Fund Program Guidelines, Canberra.
Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, 2002,
Connecting Regional Australia: Report of the Regional Telecommunications inquiry,
(Estens inquiry), November, Canberra.
Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, 2003, NCF
Procedures Manual.
Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, 2004,
National Communications Fund Mid-term review, Canberra.
Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, 2005, Annual
Report 2004-05, Canberra.
Department of Finance and Administration, 2004, Reviews of Lapsing programs:
Generic Terms of Reference, Estimates Memorandum 2004/18, Canberra.
Department of Finance and Administration, 2005, Portfolio Budget Statements 2005-
06—Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts,
Canberra.
Essential Equity, 2004, An evaluation of the Satellite Internet Access Project for
SOTA Final Report, Open Access College of the University of Sydney, Sydney.
91.