Rural
Industries Research & Development Corporation
 |
SHAPING
THE FUTURE WITH INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE INTERNET IN THE RURAL SECTOR An occasional newsletter published by the Rural Industries Research & Development Corporation in Association with Farmwide Pty Ltd. Compiled. Contributions are welcome – in particular forthcoming events, research updates and new web sites. Contact Dr Roslyn Prinsley, at roslynp@rirdc.gov.au. Subscriptions to the newsletter are free. To add your name to the mailing list contact Carol Reeve on (02) 6272 4005 or by email carolr@rirdc.gov.au.
Issue 3, December 2000 |
Access
and prices hold back Internet
| The rapid development of the Internet
is highlighting both access difficulties and the emerging demand for information
to rural and regional subscribers.
Many of the obstacles to gaining online access in rural areas are being addressed by Farmwide projects mentioned in this edition. The full report, Unmet Demand for Online Services in Rural Australia, can be viewed on the RIRDC website at http://www.rirdc.gov.au/ reports/Index2.htm#humcap The rapid development of the Internet is highlighting both access difficulties and the emerging demand for information to rural and regional subscribers. |
In a RIRDC-commissioned project, Farmwide conducted a national survey in 1996-1998, to assess the unmet demand for online services in rural Australia.
The survey showed that farm households have a higher level of demand than others in regional areas.
"We found evidence that use of the Internet is lower in regional areas as a result of poor telephone lines and slow line speeds.
"There are also some areas where there is a lack of local call access to an Internet Service Provider," said Robert Ceramidas, Chief Executive of Farmwide.
"The survey indicated that overcoming line quality problems would result in a 13% increase in households in regional areas accessing the Internet and an 8% increase in use of online services by existing users.
Relieving excess price problems could also increase access by 6% and average usage by 4%.
"So overall, overcoming these problems would increase the total usage of online services in non-metropolitan areas by around 30%.
Further action needed
Robert Ceramidas says given this disparity between rural and city areas, there is a clear case for further policy action in this area.
"The most realistic option would be to include progressive improvements to rural subscribers’ line speeds within Customer Service Guarantee arrangements.
"A number of initiatives are in place such as content development, and awareness raising, such as that of the National Office of the Information Economy and the Networking the Nation program.
"There is also
a need for measures to help overcome barriers to online access in rural
areas arising from lower levels of support, particularly for newcomers,
in overcoming the challenges of gaining access.
Helping Aussie farming families to get online
Email is proving to be one of the most attractive facilities on the Internet for farm families.
In fact 30% of a group of ‘switched on’ grain growing families from south eastern Australia, are using email daily.
These families are part of group of around 450 grain growers from a RIRDC funded project with Farm Management 500.
A massive 80% of this group are now on-line, with a further 13% expecting to be connected in the next 12 months.
This is a much greater degree of connection than the 18% of general grain, beef and sheep farms that are connected to the Internet Australia wide.
On-line services considered useful by FM500 members
The FM500 project has been successful in assisting farm families to become familiar with the Internet. They have held workshops and emailed newsletters encouraging use of the World Wide Web.
Of the FM 500 project members, 53% now use the Internet for business, 34% for personal use and 24% for education.
They are accessing information on weather, market and technical areas.
On-line banking is used by almost half of the group as shown in the table below.
On-line services
considered useful by FM500 members
| Internet service | Percentage of on-line FM500 members who consider the service useful |
| Weather | 87% |
| Market Analysis | 67% |
| Technical Education | 66% |
| Education | 62% |
| Internet Banking | 48% |
| News & Current Affairs | 34% |
| Selling Farm Produce | 10% |
| Purchasing Farm Inputs | 10% |
| Source: Farm Management 500 Project | |
While many of the FM 500 group regularly browse the Internet for new information they are becoming increasingly frustrated due to the slowness of their connection, and the sheer volume of irrelevant material they encounter.
"Despite the constant promotion of the potential benefits offered by bulletin boards, discussion groups and chat rooms, they have largely failed to appeal to the large majority of farmers," says FM 500 Project Manager Matt McCarthy.
Attempts to set up long term links between groups of FM500 farming families and groups of farmers overseas using the Internet is a lot more difficult than expected.
Asurvey by the Australian Bureau of Statistics in March 1999 showed that computers were being used on approximately half of Australian farms and one in five were using the Internet.
Given the substantial increase in the number of farms using the Internet from the previous year (up by 65%) and computers (up by 27%), you would expect these figures to be even higher now.
Farm families had a similar rate of computer use to people in metropolitan areas, but they were using the Internet less in March 1999 (18% versus 23%).
Cotton growers (76%) and plant nurseries (71%) had the highest computer use and Internet use (36%), while cattle farmers lagged behind in computer use (38%) and Internet use (12%). Less than 4% of Australian farms shopped on the Internet during the year to March 1999.
Computer and Internet use by rural industry in March 1999
Industry |
No. of farms surveyed |
Computer use |
Internet use |
Horticulture |
23 041 |
56.7% |
25.9% |
Grain, sheep,beef, cattle |
|
|
|
Dairy |
14 000 |
50.8 |
13.5 |
Poultry |
1 411 |
64.9 |
25.8 |
Other livestock |
4 966 |
55.7 |
25.2 |
Other crops |
7 967 |
48.6 |
18.7 |
Other |
1 621 |
61.2 |
31.3 |
All farms |
147 181 |
49.3 |
17.6 |
The Farmer’s Guide untangles the farmers’ web
The Australian Farmer’s Guide to the Internet - Second Edition, released in December 1999, is a comprehensive guide introducing the Australian agricultural sector to the services and applications of the Internet in layman’s terms.
It’s based on a solid understanding of Australia’s rural and remote telecommunications environment and the experiences of over 1000 farm families connected to the Internet since 1996.
The guide helps users learn to use many of the features of the Internet including electronic mail, the World Wide Web, newsgroups, chat rooms and even how to develop your own Web site.
Also included are reviews of over 500 Web sites. These sites are of particular interest to agriculture and cover subjects such as the weather, commodity prices, production information, banking, commercial services, government services and home shopping.
The Australian Farmer’s Guide to the Internet CD.
The Australian Farmer’s Guide to the Internet CD contains Internet Starter Kits from OzEmail, Telstra Big Pond and TPG Internet. It also introduces some useful shareware to trial. This CD has been designed for the Windows 95/ 98/NT operating systems.
Up to date info on the Internet
The good news is that a website called the Farmer’s Guide has been set up at www.farmwide.com.au/farmersguide/ to allow the constant updating of information available the Australian Farmer’s Guide to the Internet.
The Internet is searched on an ongoing basis for new online resources, which are of relevance to agriculture, with a view to review and inclusion in the Farmer’s Guide website. As a result new sites are constantly being added and those that are outdated are deleted.
The website coordinator Robert Parker reports that 80 sites within the guide have recently been revisited and their reviews updated. 30 new websites have been added and 34 sites removed.
Farmsell www.farmsell.com.au/
Farmquote
www.farmquote.com.au
Glossary
of Australian Agricultural and Farm Business Management Terms www.roseworthy.adelaide.edu.au/
icooper/glossary/index.html
Nu-Trene
Organic Plant Food Co. www.nutrene.com.au/
Herbs Australia
www.herbsaustralia.com.au/
Crop Care Australasia www.cropcare.com.au/
If you would like to recommend a site for inclusion in the Farmer’s Guide complete the site recommendation form which can be found at the website www.farmwide.com.au/ farmersguide/.
To ensure the Farmer’s Guide site maintains as high a profile as possible on the Internet and reaches as large an audience as possible the website has recently been submitted to over 20 search engines. A site specific search engine is also being developed to increase the accessibility to the large amount of data already held in the Farmer’s Guide database.
The hard copy of The Australian Farmer’s Guide to the Internet (Dec. 1999) is available for purchase from the RIRDC website Eshop at www.rirdc.gov.au/eshop.
Many FM500 group members use the internet as a source of market information and intelligence prior to purchasing or selling a product. Only about 10% of these ‘Internet advanced’ farmers use the Internet for actually selling products or purchasing inputs.
Matt McCarthy says this area of e-business has not grown as expected over the last few years.
"Existing shopping and purchasing models are often not suited to farmer’s needs and can be frustrating to deal with.
"The farmers find doing e-commerce on the web to be clumsy and time consuming. The prices are also not competitive enough to make them leave the relationship they have with their local reseller.
"The problem of slow line speeds is also a major barrier to the further adoption of e-business to farmers, although wider broadband and satellite services will assist greatly in the future.
The FM500 project is now developing an e-business guide specifically for the FM500 group of farm families to help raise awareness of e-business facilities that exist on the net.
Funding for the FM500 internet project was provided by RIRDC. Additional funding from Networking the Nation is further advancing farmer use of the Internet.
For further information see the FM500 website at http://www.fm500.com.au.
Website designs: improving for rural audience
There is a growing recognition that websites for a rural audience should be designed in a way that allow fast and easy access because of problems with slow line speeds.
Project Manager of the Australian Farmer’s Guide to the Internet website, Robert Parker, says that generally website designs are improving.
"There are now about 12 websites in the Farmer’s Guide that have been given a 4 star rating, up from two websites a couple of years ago.
However, there is still plenty of room for improvement, with a report to RIRDC in 1999 finding that Internet web site designers were creating barriers and holding back widespread Internet usage. Communications specialist Jim Groves found many content providers ignored issues like poor infrastructure and web overload when designing sites, drastically reducing their impact in regional areas.
"The reality is that the quality of Web site design from an accessibility point of view is highly variable," Mr Groves says.
Mr Groves highlighted three major areas of concern with sites:
¨ effectively inaccessible to some of the major Internet search engines, and hence to the users of those search engines
¨ laden with excessive graphics that slow download times to a crawl, resulting in little other than user frustration
¨ difficult to navigate to find sought-for information.
"Companies who now expect to do business with rural Australia on the Internet, either via e-commerce or as a marketing tool, have an incentive to make the information as accessible as possible," Mr Groves said.
"Regional users should play their part and make designers aware of any problems by simply emailing or using feedback links to make sure the message gets across." The full report, Web Sites for Rural Australia Designing for Accessibility, can be viewed on the RIRDC website at http://www.rirdc.gov.au/ reports/Index2.htm#humcap
Farmers use net for decision making on crops
The Internet is likely to become an invaluable and cost-effective tool in helping farmers overcome the tyranny of distance to improve their cropping decision making processes.
One Darling Downs farmer has attributed the 50% yield increase and 2% protein increase of his 1999 winter wheat crop to his involvement in online discussions.
This farmer was part of a group of dryland grain producers involved with the FARMSCAPE project based at the Agricultural Productions Systems Research Unit in Toowoomba.
The project is being funded by RIRDC and CSIRO to improve the adoption of this technology through researchers working with farmer groups and using the Internet.
The farmers collected information about their crops, soils and weather conditions over the previous two seasons and then linked up with the researchers via the Internet.
Gathered around one of their kitchen tables they were able to see how simulation models can be used to help develop their cropping programs for the coming season.
Project leader,
CSIRO Researcher Dean Hargreaves, says this use of the Internet will be
most valuable for farmers who are isolated.
 |
Left: Farmers using the net and crop simulation to evaluate alternative management strategies |
Research into Central Queensland where we will work with two groups who will gain a real benefit from this type of interaction.
"To be involved in the online discussion workshops farmers require two phone lines, to accommodate a speaker phone and a computer connected to the internet.
"We’re using a Microsoft product called NetMeeting, we can provide a sound and video link to the farmers and we can share applications." The pilot study has been so successful that farmers exposed to the value of crop simulation are now looking for service providers for the technology.
Online multimedia resources about soils are also being developed.
For further information see the Farmscape website at www.farmscape.tag.csiro.au, or phone Dean Hargreaves on (07) 4688 1458
The benefits of using e-commerce for rural businesses were highlighted at a workshop held in June 2000 funded by RIRDC.
Workshop organiser Franco Papandrea of the University of Canberra’s Communication and Media Policy Institute says the Internet brings a worldwide market within reach of even the smallest of businesses.
"In the twelve months to May 2000, 6% of Australian adults used the Internet to purchase or order foods and services. In addition, 8% of all adults used the Internet to pay bills or transfer funds in the three months to May 2000," says Franco Papandrea.
"The National Office for Information Economy is predicting that web sales in Australia will grow to $1,300m in 2001, up from $61m in 1997. This is a very high rate of growth and suggests enormous scope for further growth.
"To date e-commerce activity in the rural sector is limited and so through this RIRDC-funded research project we examined a number of rural businesses that are using the Internet successfully.
"We found rural businesses use the Internet for various activities including email communication, on-line banking and customs clearance, market research, product promotion, and on-line sales.
"Overall, the results of our study suggests that well planned and executed adoption of e-commerce practices can add value to rural businesses.
E-commerce tips
"The research highlighted some important factors that should be taken into account by those planning to adopt e-commerce practices in their operations.
These include:
Ö The need for clear objectives for a website
Ö The need for inclusion of accurate and current information
Ö The need for prompt responses to contact via the website
Ö The cost of developing and updating web sites.
Several enterprises that are successfully using the Internet to develop electronic markets and electronic supply chain management made presentations at the workshop including:
• Olives Australia (http:// oliveaustralia.aust.com/)
• Reynolds Wine Company (http:// users.hunterlink.net.au/~madjr/)
• Toorallie Australia (http:// www.toorallie.com.au/)
• McMahon Global Foods (http:// www.mcmahon.com.au/)
• e-wool (http://www.e-wool. com.au)
• ag.dealer.com.au (http:// www.agdealer.com.au)
• Freshport http:// www.freshport.com.au)
• Easy Orchids (http:// www.easyorchids.com/).
The full report, E-commerce in Rural Areas, RIRDC Publications No. 00/ 185, is available from the RIRDC website at http://rirdc.gov.au/eshop
Wonders of the Web - Freshport
Business to Business E-commerce
The Freshport Agribusiness Services site connects members of common trading groups such as growers, merchants, transporters, processors and buyers. Through an electronic hub using the Tradeport e-business system, information and documentation is transferred along the supply chain. It is also a warehouse for a range of business and resource management tools.
Members can then access information regarding supply forecasts, delivery schedules, quality management and risk reduction, product ordering and prices, and feedback on value adding processes.
The Freshport system has been applied and tested at the BGF Co-operative at Murwillumbah. The project addressed the needs of approximately 1000 growers and over 200 products purchased by some 250 merchants. Also involved are 13 loading depots throughout northern NSW, transport companies and market unloading services. The Freshport hub is expected to improve efficiency, cut data handling and telecommunication costs and lead to earlier invoicing and payments.
In another application of the Freshport system, a winegrape project will link growers with wineries, contract harvesters and transport companies and initially cover the communication of yield forecast, maturity test, QA and harvest schedule information. It is anticipated that over 500 growers in the Murray Valley will be online by the next harvest with further expansion in time for the following harvest.
See the Freshport website at http:// www.freshport.com.au or phone (02) 9966 9708.
Wonders of the Web - Toorallie Australia
Toorallie Australia makes a range of quality knitwear products, from the sheep’s back to the finished product. They sell products direct to customers, to wholesalers and through their own retail stores. About 40% of their sales are made to overseas buyers.
Toorallie relies heavily on the Internet to support its business. It maintains a website, uses email, and search engines to locate potential customers, and banks and pays its bills online. While Toorallie makes only about 3 or 4% of its revenue directly from online sales, the company has already reaped the benefits of establishing the site five years ago in product promotion, sales and the establishment of international business relationships.
See the Toorallie website at http:// www.toorallie.com.au.
RIRDC e-commerce makes research more accessible
Rural and regional Australia can now immediately source the latest research information from the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation with the introduction of electronic commerce to its website - www.rirdc.gov.au/eshop.
RIRDC conducts $22 million of research each year in 20 different research programs across the agricultural spectrum from new industries like olives and tea tree to established industries like eggs and rice.
"RIRDC’s breadth of funded research makes it unique in rural Australia," RIRDC Managing Director Peter Core said. "We are the first R&D Corporation to take this step to make our research even more accessible, ensuring the results are taken up on the land." The Corporation’s website already houses more than 450 different research reports and summaries which are freely available.
The introduction of e-commerce on the site means users have the opportunity to buy the latest books and hard copies of reports they want to keep on-hand or are too big to download.
RIRDC uses the industry standard Camtech secure gateway system endorsed by most of Australia’s largest banks and online retailers.
The gateway provides ‘real-time’ processing, authentication and funds.
Mr Core said the progression to electronic retailing was due to increased demand for RIRDC books and reports.
The New Rural Industries – A Handbook for Farmer’s and Investors and the Australian Farmer’s Guide to the Internet have sold more than 4000 copies each.
"We are one of the few sources for research information in areas like new plant and animal industries, olives, culinary herbs, Asian foods and wildflowers," Mr Core said.
Visit the new electronic catalogue at www.rirdc.gov.au/eshop
Impacts of the Internet down on the farm
ARIRDC-funded study has concluded that the impact of the Internet on farm management practices are diffuse and vary from farm to farm.
"It is significant that there were no negative impacts of the Internet on farm management identified, however there also no very substantial positive impact identified either.
So says researcher Jim Groves, who was reporting on a study based on interviews of 27 farmers who use the Internet.
"In terms of overall farm performance, the impact of the Internet at this stage must be considered to be extremely small.
On average only 18% of farmers access the Internet.
"Compared to the potential of the Internet to transform the social and economic position of Australian agriculture, the reality to date is quite disappointing. Nevertheless, a number of hopeful signs can be seen in the impacts that some farm Internet users were able to discern.
"Of the people we interviewed the greatest impact of the Internet were in relation to:
n communications possibilities with others;
n more convenient and timely access of information;
n access to information that would otherwise not be available, with consequent benefits for production and/or financial management; and
n savings in transaction costs and purchase costs, and particularly for comparison shopping for supplies.
The full report, Realising Potential: Farm Management Impacts of the Internet, RIRDC Publications No 00/53, is available from the RIRDC websiteat http:// www.rirdc.gov.au/reports/ Index2.htm#humcap.
Boosting online services in the bush - the Farmwide Regional Access Network
Farmwide Pty Ltd, has stepped up its program of technology testing, research and delivery of online services to farmers. As part of this program, the Farmwide Regional Access Network (FRAN), has undertaken a number of trials of specific telecommunications technologies across Australia.
On the agenda has been increasing local call access to the Internet, training and support for Internet users, content development and a tailored commodity and news service with rural specific information services.
Local call access
The major objective of the FRAN project has been successfully achieved with the project’s fifteen Points of Presence (PoP’s) successfully constructed and commissioned to deliver quality Internet access at the cost of a local call.
These new PoP’s are found in Normanton, Cooktown, Barcaldine, Winton, Richmond and Hughenden in Queensland; Gloucester, Old Bonalbo, Hay, Gilgandra, Coonamble and Coonabarabran in New South Wales; Swifts Creek and Woomelang in Victoria; and Ceduna in South Australia. All fifteen PoPs have been fully operational for more than eighteen months with user registrations continuing to increase at an approximate average for all sites of 10.5% per month.
"It’s made an enormous difference. People use the Internet on a daily basis. It’s used for business, socially, has helped youth (they have more to do). The older people are seeing things they have not had an opportunity to access before,online ordering, etc. Isolation has been reduced ."
Targeted Internet training
A large component of the FRAN project has been the provision of training to rural and remote users of the Internet. Targeted for training were each PoP community, the Farmwide participants including people trialing satellite technology, and the 1000 farm families who are accessing online services using traditional telephone connections.
Training courses for 180 people in each of the new PoP communities has been provided at various levels.
This training, which followed a standardised curriculum designed by Farmwide, was delivered by community or regional training organisations.
Farmwide delivered
introductory and intermediate training to its participants in around 60
locations Australia-wide. This training was supplemented by remote training
sessions via Internet Relay Chat (IRC).
 |
Left: Cameron and Helen Kennedy having Internet training in Winton, Queensland |
The advanced training for Farmwide participants is designed to enable the participants to develop their own online web presence. This training is a self-paced interactive instruction and is delivered totally online.
The Farmwide help desk provides support for the hundreds of users on the satellite trial and the Online Service Pilot. The support team handles a wide range of issues involving complicated satellite technology, modem fault testing, email configuration and recommendations for hardware and software.
Every call is targeted directly, ensuring that questions are covered promptly and with a successful result. The help desk is manned by several support staff proving it to be a busy component of the project.
Research and development by an Australian company, Maestro, in conjunction with Farmwide has led to a new design, the Woomera, a modem with the capacity to better deliver the Internet to rural and remote Australia.
Some 726 modems
have been distributed to testers connected to the FRAN PoPs. Multiple tests
and survey responses completed by individual installations of Woomera modems
are continuing to be collected in a database and are being analysed to
check the performance of the Woomera modem and quality of the local Telstra
customer access network.
www.farmwide.com.au continues to attract more visitors, with site hits doubling over the last 10 months.
This growth is believed to be the result of the growth in the size of the rural Internet user market and the continued use of the site by these users.
Feedback received from users of the Farmwide site has also been very encouraging. Positive comments and encouragement have been forwarded from a large cross section of the agricultural community, from individual farmers to agri-corporate entities.
"I have spent hours working through this site, it has tonnes of great information. I was very interested in the pilot program connecting rural Australians. And I must have a copy of The Australian Farmer’s Guide to the Internet.
Congratulations to the webmaster for the layout and the content writers. I got a lot out of this site and will continue to use it as a vital resource." "CONGRATULATIONS. Before I hit the wrong button again, I just wanted say WELL DONE, great site. You put many other ag’ sites to shame." "I find your site very useful, particularly the search facility, when I am looking for names of people and "things". Often I hear words on radio, so I don’t have the correct spelling." The Farmwide web site has for some months now hosted a free ‘Personal Web Page’ service that caters for individuals, families and small farm enterprises that wish to develop a simple web presence online. Over 120 pages have been created without specific knowledge of HTML or familiarity to web jargon.
Farmwide’s web site also includes a number of other useful and rural specific tools. AgLinks is a database of web sites of interest to agricultural users in Australia. It is the largest collection of agricultural links in the country and is consistently the most used part of the site overall.
Farmwide’s agSearch is one of the first Internet search engines targeted squarely at Australian farm enterprises and rural users. It has been designed to crawl and index the very best agricultural resources in Australia and the world and provides better, more focused search returns for its users.
General comments about agSearch include: "As a new and novice user of this service I did find agSearch easy to use." "It is the best search ag search engine for agriculture that there is." The Farmwide Government Shopfront has also been operating for over a year. It features a database of Government web sites that have been categorised into one of five lists; ‘Farm Business’, ‘Farm Family’, ‘Registrations and Rebates’, ‘Exceptional Circumstances’ and ‘Off Farm’.
There are currently over 220 links to Government sites in the database.
This information service provides access to federal and state governments as they relate to farm families and farm enterprises and eliminates the odious task of searching for a particular area within government.
Commodity and rural news service
The Farmwide commodity and news service provides daily price updates and market commentary for cotton, wool, grains, sugar and key financial market indicators. Users praised the ‘Market Snapshots’ box on the homepage, which is updated several times per day.
Livestock markets are covered, with recently obtained a news feeds of interest to pork farmers.
The ‘Hot Properties’ section contains commentary and direct links accessing a broad database of properties for sale via some of the major rural property agents.
As an adjunct to the main commodity arms of the service, the site now also provides farm forestry market/economic data and continues to report on European agricultural issues of importance to Australian farmers.
General Comment:
"I
regularly check out the site and I just want to compliment you on doing
such a thorough job. Given the appalling level of journalism in rural Australian
papers this site can perform a real role." The commodity and news service
is also integrated with the chat room, by developing ‘food for thought’
that is extrapolated in guest chats. The news service has a loyal regular
audience accessing many lively and interesting articles on a particular
commodity area or general news event.
A Farmwide Training Tool – ‘The Online Classroom’ is new to the Farmwide site, dedicated to training and supporting rural and remote users who attend training sessions online, rather than face-to-face training.
It boasts a Bulletin Board, where users can post questions and answers, a Chat Room, where many of the training sessions are conducted, Frequently Asked Questions, Training Updates, Course Schedules and the Online Classroom itself, a series of self paced, online lessons helping people through the early and more advanced stages of online learning.
Farmwide’s agSoftware was built to be a central location for users to search for agricultural software packages to help them run their farm businesses. This is a database driven site which lets vendors and suppliers of agricultural software log details of their business’s and software packages which can then be browsed and searched by end users who often have a limited range of choices available to them locally. To date, over 40 vendors have listed over 75 software packages in 15 different categories.
Farmwide also uses their Internet site’s chat room to run Guest Chats on a regular basis, inviting important and influential visitors to speak on a range of issues of interest to agriculture in Australia.
Topics covered
recently include: "World Rural Women’s Day", "Online Futures Trading",
"Single Desk for Wheat Exports", "The National Women’s Justice Coalition
and the Albury Wodonga Community Legal Centre Conference" and, "The ATO
on GST".
Over 400 Internet-via-Satellite stations are being trialled in rural and remote Australia by Farmwide. Of these, 201 are using the DirecPC product and 235 the Gilat product.
The DirecPC product is a one-way satellite system that uses the telephone line for connection and outgoing requests, with data coming back to the user via the satellite network. This technology is working very satisfactorily with Telstra and Ericsson continuing to make improvements to the network structure to enhance its performance.
Initially, the Gilat product available to Farmwide was also a one-way service. However, Farmwide faced a number of issues with the technology ranging from computer incompatibility to delays in installation schedules. The Gilat two-way system has since become available through Heartland Communications and Farmwide was able to switch the participants to this product, also eliminating problematic telephone lines.
This will be the largest application of two-way satellite technology ever in Australia. It will raise the benchmark for service delivery throughout Australia and it will begin to address the issues of quality and price equity in service provision for non-urban Australians.
The last remaining area of work to be undertaken is the trial with Telstra of digital subscriber lines (xDSL) that allow high throughput of information on standard telephone lines. The trial will be held in Cobram Victoria.
Contact: Farmwide
Pty Ltd PO Box E10 KINGSTON ACT 2604 Telephone 02 6273 6384 Facsimile 02
6273 6413 Email fwmail@farmwide.com.au
Internet http://www.farmwide.com.au
The Kintore Ranges lie in one of the most remote corners of the Northern Territory - where isolation is a fact of life. Distances are vast.
Alice Springs is seven hours or 540 kilometres drive to the east, travel is expensive and shops and services are few.
The Walungurru Aboriginal Community calls Kintore home.
Internet and computer usage among the 300 to 500 floating population is not high. But people like the school headmaster, local doctor and essential services officer, Peter McDermott, find it a boon.
Access to the Internet through Telstra’s BigPond™ satellite service, ‘has changed the way we do things drastically’, says Peter, an Internet user since 1997. Before Peter got his satellite dish, connection speeds of 7,200 bits per second were the best they could hope for.
Peter, East African born and for the past five years resident at Kintore, maintains a watchful eye over the electricity, phone, water and airstrip services for the community. If something’s broken - he sorts it out.
Peter sends and receives emails daily, both for work and to keep in touch with family overseas. This used to be slow and downloading web pages was next to a waste of time, especially if they had much in the way of graphics.
The BigPond fast Internet satellite service has been Peter’s faithful friend since mid-2000. With outstanding speed of up to 472,000 bits per second, even huge files or sophisticated graphics, like colour weather charts or detailed machinery diagrams, can be received almost instantly. At speeds of up to 65 times faster than his standard dial-up connection, gathering information is miles faster.
Big Pond Broadband powered by satellite, is a one-way system designed to meet the needs of the majority of Internet users. Peter dials on his phone line to his Internet Service Provider (ISP) and his email and webpages are then transmitted to his PC via satellite at fast speeds. As Peter says, ‘downloading is the most important thing and that’s changed dramatically at Kintore’.
Share trading online is a passion which Peter does more cheaply and efficiently than ever before. He downloads company research from stockbrokers and consults specialist investor websites like Business Review Weekly. The latest share prices are delivered ready and waiting to be read on his PC each morning and he subscribes to email delivery of the latest news from sources like the ABC.
Peter also does all his banking and pays for his share purchases over the Internet. ‘It’s so much faster now, most people who are online are using Internet banking’, he says. What the others lack is Peter’s vastly faster download or incoming speed, thanks to satellite delivery.
Time spent online has, ‘Probably halved from 50 hours per month to about 25 now’. When Peter’s computer is hooked onto the Internet, it accesses what he needs much quicker than before. Usage charges with his ISP have halved.
‘The extra outlaid for satellite access is basically covered by my ISP cost-saving’, says Peter.
Peter looks forward
to improvements in uploading capacity for sending out files faster. This
would make things easier like emailing digital photos of a broken piece
of equipment for expert advice or talking on the phone while both people
look at the problem part. The launch of Telstra’s two-way satellite service
next year should suit him down to the ground.
On behalf of the Online Council, the Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts (DoCITA) is currently working on the implementation of a number of online communications and information initiatives of particular relevance to regional Australians.
These initiatives are intended to provide a comprehensive resource for regional, rural and remote communities seeking to determine the most relevant and appropriate means to improve access to advanced telecommunications networks and services.
Members of the public, community groups, the private sector and the Government will have the opportunity to contribute and publish relevant information and links to the Regional Communications Online Resource (RCOR).
The resource will be publicly accessible via the DoCITA website.
In addition to providing a one-stop access point for government policy and commercial information relevant to regional communities, it will also facilitate the sharing of Information Te chnology and Telecommunications information between Commonwealth, States and Territories, local government, community groups and other relevant organisations.
RCOR will feature a comprehensive search facility allowing users to sort material according to a number of search criteria, including subject, author, date and keyword, as well as on a geographic basis, either in terms of the location from which the material was supplied or of the region to which it relates.
The RCOR site will feature a Forum facility that will allow for closed user group discussions with remote stakeholders, including secure online discussions with State and local government representatives.
The website will also feature a toolkit which describes how communities, both overseas and in Australia, can and do work together to bring about sustainable improvements to telecommunications networks and services in their regions through leveraging their regional strengths and bargaining power. The toolkit provides links and information to a wide range of communications related initiatives, policy documents, case study material, "how-to" guides and technical and market information.
Another resource being developed over the longer term is a spatial data, or geographical mapping, facility with geographic maps, charts and reports on telecommunications facilities in regions throughout Australia.
Public users will be able to access information about the level of telecommunication services and related activities in their own region and elsewhere is Australia.
In addition,
RCOR will allow for relevant Networking the Nation (NTN) program information
to be made available through the site with links to NTN Online and other
departmental grants projects.
Here are someof the new reports reporting RIRDC research in to rural online issues. You can order these and others from our online book shop at http;//www.rirdc.gov.au/eshop (Look under Human Capital, communications and Information systems). Many alos are avialbe as free pdf downloads at http://www.rirdc.gov.au/reports/Index.htm#humcap
Unmet Demand forOnline Services in Rural Australia, 00/177, $10, by Farmwide Uses a rigorous conceptual framework to provide an estimate of the extent of unmet demand for online services among rural and remote Australians. Recognises the differences between the farm and non-farm population.
Connecting the Country, 00/147, $10, edited by A. Appleton Planned as an event to address challenges facing rural and regional Australia. This conference provided an opportunity to discuss major policy issues and find practical solutions to real problems of direct relevance to the people of the Murray region and beyond.
E-commerce in rural areas 00/185 $15, by F. Papandrea et al Describes case studies and records the experiences of rural operators in introducing e-commerce practices in their business operations and provides practical examples of what is possible.
Demonstrates that benefits can be gained even from simple e-commerce applications and that successful applications are not dependent on the size of the business.
Websites for Rural Australia - Designing for Accessibility 00/13, $10, by J. Groves Addresses the accessibility of information provided on the web and the barriers to rural Internet use, such as poor communications infrastructure and content gaps. Suggests these barriers could be removed by better design.
Farmers, Advisers and Scientists Interacting on the Net 00/13, $10, by D. Hargreaves et al Describes online interactions on soil monitoring and computer based crop simulation. Features an Internet based approach which has demonstrated potential to provide timely, cost-effective interactions between researchs and remotely situated farmers.
Realising Potential: Farm Management Impacts of the Internet 00/13, $10, by J. Groves et al Investigates whether increased access to the Internet for rural and remote Australians may relate to improved farm management.
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updated: 7 March 2000
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