New and Used Telephone Systems

Avaya Small & Large Business Telephone Solutions

FIXTEL has your medium sized business covered. With our vast selection of global brands and products. FIXTEL will design he perfect phone solution for your business. We specialise in creating unique, user-friendly phone system Solutions that incorporate the latest technology -designed for today AND tomorrow with only quality products.

The latest Avaya products and features, proven VoIP technology and incredibly user friendly software and handsets are all backed by Australia’s longest phone system warranty (36 months – 300% longer!).

FIXTEL employ the best Avaya phone system installation practices in Australia, performed by our highly skilled, nationwide team. All our Avaya PABX solutions are backed by a 100% Money Back Guarantee.

Avaya IP Office 500 Phone System

Avaya IP Office 500 phone system is well suited for the under 30 user environment using the built-in Standard Edition software. Through an easy upgrade license, Professional Edition capabilities and capacities are easily achieved.

The IP Office 500 system can support up to 270 telephones, 30 VoiceMail Pro voice messaging ports, as well as advanced applications through optional licensing: Conferencing Center, ContactStore, Voice Networking, Advanced Voice Networking, Interactive Voice Response, Text-to-Speech, and Compact Contact Center.

Total voice and data communication solution for small business and medium size business

Functions as a traditional phone system or an IP Telephony Server
Supports both single locations and multi-site networks
Basic call center and voice messaging capabilities are built-in
Scalable as business needs grow

Special Features – Avaya IP Office 500 Phone System

Avaya Phone Conferencing
Avaya VoiceMail Messaging
Avaya IP Office Networking
Avaya Phone Manager
Avaya SoftConsole for Reception
Avaya Remote Hot Desking
Avaya SIP Trunks

Avaya IP Office phone system
is an all-in-one solution specifically designed to meet the communications challenges facing small and medium sized businesses.

Due to its modular design, Avaya IP Office telephone system can scale from 2 to 360 extensions to meet the needs of home offices, small businesses, stand-alone business locations, and multiple branches and head offices. Built on Avaya’s latest advancements in converged voice and data technology, small-mid sized businesses can benefit from many of the advantages that sophisticated communications can deliver.

How Australia created the technology election

Tags: ausvotes, colin jacobs, delimiter, election, electronic frontiers australia, family first, filter, julia gillard, national broadband network, syndicate, tony abbott

This post is by Colin Jacobs, the chair of Electronic Frontiers Australia. It first appeared on the EFA’s site and is re-published here with his permission.

opinion This election, online issues finally got the attention they deserve. And the situation is here to stay.

I’m not talking about which party had the most Facebook followers or made the most gaffes on Twitter (Julia Gillard and Family First, respectively). Serious issues around internet governance and our internet future came into play, and by all accounts will continue to be significant as the situation plays out this week.

The first issue that affected the election was Labor’s mandatory internet censorship policy, 3 years old and counting. Throughout that time, I believe the accepted wisdom amongst the scheme’s proponents — the most notable being of course Senator Conroy — was that it would be unpopular with a handful of geeks but would appeal to the wider audience of mums and dads in the electorate.

If this was indeed the strategy, I think it backfired. Although it’s based on mainly anecdotal evidence, I believe many internet users had their political consciousness awoken by this attempt to slap censorship on the country’s net connections. When this issue was important to people, it didn’t just put them slightly off-side, but made them hopping mad, if not lifelong skeptics of the ALP. Over time I have spoken to MPs and parliamentary staffers of all stripes, and I’m pleased to report that many people did indeed contact their elected representatives and let the opinions be known. For some MPs, this amounted to a veritable flood, and the issue was absolutely on their radar.

Unfortunately, we’ll never be able to quantify what this did to Labor’s vote. The fact is that Labor suffered a big swing against them, and it’s worth noting that most of this swing went to the Greens, the most vocal opponents of the filter in Parliament. At the ballot box, we can’t disentangle the filter from other issues such as climate change and refugees that the Greens campaigned on, but I believe the filter played a big role.

The Coalition, of course, decided to oppose the filter themselves, and this didn’t happen until the election campaign was already underway. Once again, from reading the feedback online, there’s some evidence that this gave their campaign a boost amongst Australia’s netizens. The fact that they decided to make an announcement then, rather than wait for the legislation as they had previously indicated, shows that they thought this was the case as well.

So while I wouldn’t want to oversell it, internet users are hardly a minority in Australia, and issues close to their hearts are at getting more attention than ever before.

The other major technological issue of the campaign was of course the National Broadband Network. This was without a doubt the one area where the policies of the two major parties differed the most. At the risk of over-editorialising, it was also one of the few policies with long-term vision and a nation-building agenda. Labor’s policy calls for a huge investment in our broadband infrastructure, and — setting the economic arguments aside — is a clear win for internet users. The Coalition’s policy is much more modest and boils down to wringing the last drops out of the copper network while leaving the market to take care of the rest.

As it happened, both policies got some real scrutiny, culminating in Tony Abbott’s embarrassing 7.30 Report appearance where he begged off discussing the details of broadband by claiming (correctly) that he was no “tech-head”. This is a major development; our leaders are now expected to know the difference between peak and actual speeds, symmetric and asymmetric connections, ADSL2+, DOCSIS 3 and fibre to the home. Telecommunications capability has assumed a place next to, even ahead of, rail and roads as critical infrastructure. This is as it should be.

The NBN is still making itself felt. The regional independents, now ubiquitously dubbed “kingmakers” by the media, have all flagged this as an issue. Nothing reduces the “tyranny of distance” like a fast net connection would, so it’s a crucial issue for regional voters. If the three amigos decide to put Gillard back in the Lodge, our broadband future may have something to do with it.

Incidentally, an example of just how badly the filter has damaged Labor’s credibility with regard to online issues is some of the negative comments we received for praising this broadband policy in contrast to that of the Liberal party. Although this failure to “maintain the rage” against Conroy is temporary and I hope forgivable, the ALP have a long way to go if they ever want to regain the trust of Australian internet users.

I haven’t yet touched on the uses of the net itself, including social media, in the campaign. The major parties focussed as normal on scary TV ads to get their message out, and online spending by the major parties (as best we can ascertain) came in at well under 10 percent. The Greens and minor parties relied much more heavily on drumming up support online, both as a deliberate strategy and due to financial necessity. It doesn’t seem to have done them any harm at all. It’s interesting to ponder what will the next election will look like; will the 30-second TV spot still reign supreme?

With the way things are going, we might not have to wait three years to find out.

Image credit: Believed to be public domain or out of copyright

If there is one thing that is clear from the latest Sophos mid-year security threat report, it is that traditional attacks on private data are still prevalent.  Perhaps the vectors are shifting but figures show Spam, Phishing and Malware are still a major source of worry for security personnel world-wide.

How can this be the case?  Why is it that the general public are continually fooled by Spam emails for example?  And beyond these basic questions, why don’t people, armed with the knowledge of rising online fraud crimes shy away from using services such as Internet Banking?

Michael McGuiness, Sophos’s Vice President of Worldwide Sales and Field Operations tries to explain “A general observation that we would make is that most people will default towards convenience over security. Though people are aware that credentials could get stolen, and bank accounts compromised creating a situation, at best a huge nuisance and at worst at significant financial loss for them, they are still unwilling to go back to the point where they hand write cheques and lick stamps.”

McGuiness continues, “The same is true in the corporate world, employees of a corporation understand that using an iPhone is not as secure as a Blackberry, they still demand the iPhone.  It starts at the top, it’s not somebody sneaking one in at the lower levels of the organisation, and it’s the CEO demanding the ability to use the iPhone to communicate with the board of directors about a critical earnings announcement.”

The Security Threat Report shows that the traditional security attacks are migrating to social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.  Since April 2009,moving into 2010 reported Spam attacks reported from social networks increased from 33.4% to 57%, Phishing from 21% to 30% and Malware from 21.2% to 36%.  It is clear that criminal activity is moving into the online worlds increasingly populated by everyday internet users.

“The most common way to get infected these days is no longer double clicking on an attachment in an email, but rather following a link to a website,” explains McGuinness “Which is why the social networking vector is becoming more prevalent and prominent. It fools people, if you go to Facebook and up on your news page your best friend says ‘isn’t this cool?’  You don’t necessary think, wait a minute, was his account compromised? And was this sent as a way to entice me to a malicious website?  I start to think that way now, but I didn’t necessarily a month or two ago. “

McGuinness continues “You look at something and say, is that really what my best friend would have done. You don’t have to go to a website and click on something; you only need to be at the website and malicious code will execute, if you are unprotected.”

The organisation of criminals attempting to get hold of your private information is getting more professional by the year.  One way of enticing traffic to malicious websites is no longer simply to present an alluring link, instead malware writers are using current news events and search engine optimisation techniques to simply put their sites at the top of an innocent Google search.

Obviously money is being made by these organisations.  “It’s growing, it’s profitable, and it’s much more professional.” Says McGuinness  “ I have this vision of a modern malware author-hacker out there is a guy with a lunch box, [access] badge, health plan and a desk.  They show up at the office, badge their way in, and spend a day trying to steal your money, punch out, go home and coach the kid’s soccer team.”

“If you ask most people where does most malware come from?” says McGuinness “They would say Russia or China, but you can see from the report that it comes from the U.S.”

42.29% of Malware is hosted in the U.S according to the report, with China at 10.75%, Russia at 6.13% and Germany and France around 4%.

McGuinness is quick to point out that things are changing in China “Even more recently China has dropped much further down the ranking, the suspicion is that Chinese are just stopping out-bound spam.  If they determine a high volume spammer is residing in China they just shut down that IP address.  So I think China has become a very good corporate citizen of the internet in the last six months.”
How can the everyday computer user hope to beat organised crime gangs constantly attacking and probing for digital information?

McGuinness says” We are in a different world. When you were young, you had your parents to teach you when to cross the road safely, cross when there is a green man, not when there is a red man.  But who’s teaching our society currently about what is good and bad?  We are having to learn by accident.  We have the largest social change that has probably ever occurred in our social history, and that change is happening around us right now, legislation is a couple of years behind, law enforcement is a couple of years behind and one of the good elements that isn’t behind is the media.  I think you guys are doing a good job publicising what is good and bad whilst our society goes through its learning. “

Thanks Mr McGuiness, but there must be more weapons in our defensive arsenal?  McGuiness goes on “The other element other than good legislation and good education is obviously good technology, we are getting better at integrating and making that simpler.  The enemy of security continues to be complexity, so bringing together good elements of education, legislation and technology I think we will win the battle one day, but I think we are really only at the start of that process.”

How does a company such as sophos stay on top of new technology in this new world?  What are security firms doing to protect the public where a new connected device hits the market every month?

Roby Forsyth, Managing Director for Sophos in Asia Pacific explains” We actually have more people baking in security to new technology rather than bolting it onto the outside, so if you have a new product coming to market and you want the market to perceive it is a good product to use, and you haven’t thought of security then you will not be successful.  So that is why Sophos works with so many OEM partners to ensure we bake in their security.  I think we are getting better at it, there is a long road ahead but each new product that comes on the market is more secure than its predecessors.”

Michael McGuinness expands on this”Many of our customers are concerned about additional devices that they consider insecure, for example the iPhone, the iPad, however, the concern right now is less about malware and more about information loss.  It is very easy for people to carry around huge amounts of information on these devices, and if they are lost, or stolen or somehow compromised then that information is out in the wild, with potentially significant ramifications both in terms of regulatory compliance, IP protection even legal action.  We are a company that focus both on malware as well as helping companies with information protection, so we start to put in capabilities into our products that let companies assign policies for different types of device interaction.”

In Australia our (yet to be decided) Government is wrestling with the best options for connecting even more people to the internet, whether it is fibre to the home or some other technology, chances are that over the next few years even more folks will be greater consumers of connected technology than ever before.
Forsyth is also the Deputy Chairman and Treasurer of the Internet Industry Association of Australia and certainly has some thoughts on what the NBN may mean for the country:  “ The delivery of high speed broadband to our society, comes with some security risks to those that haven’t been exposed to it previously.  I suppose I am keen to see the rollout of any future broadband network have security baked in rather than tacked on.”

Forsyth continues “If we have a disadvantaged community in a remote part of Australia, who has not previously been exposed to the internet, and is suddenly given a 1GB link to their premises, that’s going to be a serious security risk to expose them to the worst of Eastern European crime.  It doesn’t matter if that is delivered wirelessly or  fibre, whether it comes at 12MB or 1GB, we still have an education process to go through, and if the government are going to get involved in delivering then they must take responsibility for delivering it safely.  We don’t build roads without having rules on those roads, without driver education and without standards for seatbelts and air-bags, there is a whole range of things that come together for that kind of safety, and should exist in any type of rollout of a National Broadband Network.  One way or another the society will end up with a fast broadband network, the delivery mechanisms will be decided on through government initiatives and commercial realities of what can be afforded, so I have no doubt we will get there, but I want to get there safely.”

Finally, there was a time when one of the selling points for Apple’s range of technology was that it was relatively immune to many security attack vectors.

McGuinness says” Don’t underestimate the bad guys, be very certain that they are in a free market economy, and so they invest their resources where their likely to get the greatest amount of return.  Historically Macs were a relatively low percentage of users, especially if one of the objectives might have been to steal corporate information.  I would say, in the U.S [today] Macs are fifteen percent of the corporate population, and growing.  And those fifteen percent are often contain the most valuable information, because their C level executives or key designers, or creators of intellectual property within an organisation.  They are the ones that feel they have the need or the power to say ‘I’m getting a Mac’.  As the prevalence of Mac use increases in both the home and the corporate environments, the bad guys are just going to start to target the Mac.”

Source: http://www.itwire.com/business-it-news/security/41466-sophos-dont-underestimate-the-bad-guys

Is Australia’s Rudd Labor Government taking Aussies for a ride when it comes to the Internet and broadband?

First we have a minimum 12Mbps fibre broadband guarantee that has seen delay after delay, with a 5 year build-out timeframe that hasn’t seen a single sod of soil turned, any contracts awarded and the removal of Australia’s dominant telco, Telstra, from the NBN (National Broadband Network) tender bidding process.

Then came the revelations that Australia’s new Government wants to censor the Internet, supposedly to protect Australians from child pornographers by blocking websites that pedophiles aren’t using in any case, preferring instead to operate via P2P and other more secretive channels. This then led the Government to announce it would trial the filtering of P2P services as well.

Now we have the Federal Opposition making claims that the “Rudd Government does not believe taxpayers should have to foot the bill for broadband services in any part of Australia where a commercially sustainable wireless option is available”.

Opposition Shadow Minister for Communications, Senator Nick Minchin, says in that statement that this “raises serious questions about its motivation to spend $4.7 billion of taxpayers’ money on its trouble-plagued National Broadband Network”.

The rest of the Senator’s statement is as follows:

“It has been reported that the Rudd Government plans to reduce subsidies available under the Australian Broadband Guarantee (ABG) program by tens-of-millions of dollars because of the continued expansion of 3G wireless services.

“The ABG was established by the previous Coalition Government to provide Australians living in under-serviced parts of the country access to subsidised broadband services such as satellite.
 
“In what could amount to a major broadband policy shift by Labor, the spokesman for Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has told The Australian: “The purpose of the ABG is to ensure metro-comparable broadband is available to all Australians. If it is available from a sustainable commercial operator then there is no need for taxpayers to subsidise.”
 
“Senator Minchin said these comments indicate that the Rudd Government itself does not really believe taxpayer money should be spent in any area where the private sector is providing some type of viable broadband service fixed or wireless.
 
“The Rudd Government wants to spend $4.7 billion of taxpayers’ money on a fibre to the node project that will replicate the type of fixed-line services already available to many Australians, particularly those living in metro areas, but is now effectively saying it doesn’t really believe taxpayers should have to pay,” Senator Minchin said.

Senator Minchin continued: “While Labor’s firm promise is to deliver new high-speed fibre-to-the-node broadband services to 98 per cent of Australians, the experts have long said and the NBN bidders themselves have now confirmed, that this is nothing more than a naive Labor pipe dream, even with the Commonwealth subsidy.
“So if Labor still plans to spend the $4.7 billion, do the spokesman’s comments indicate that it has now given up on delivering fibre to the node to rural, regional and remote Australians as promised?

“Does this pave the way for it to do what many have long suspected, roll out fibre in well-serviced and easy-to-reach metro areas until the money runs out?” Senator Minchin asked.
 
“On top of that, Labor will scale back the ABG and what tell rural, regional and remote Australians that ‘even though we promised you fibre to the node broadband like the city, we’ve decided you can’t have it and expensive wireless or satellite is good enough for you’?”
 
“By contrast the previous Coalition Government was to contribute $958 million towards a new, high-speed broadband network for under serviced parts of rural and regional Australia (OPEL), which was targeted for completion by mid 2009. Labor cancelled this project with no alternative to it and now also wants to scale back the ABG.
 
“Senator Minchin said these developments made urgent the need for Senator Conroy to release his expert panel’s report which includes recommendations on bids for the NBN and is due on Wednesday (21 January).
 
“This report, as well as that of the ACCC on crucial competition and regulatory issues, must be released, with the opportunity for public comment before the Rudd Government makes any decision,” Senator Minchin concluded.

Serious questions have been raised, but given the torturous path that has already been taken, clear answers from politicians seems as forlorn a hope as encountering an honest second-hand car salesman, true world peace, a sound gold-backed currency or an operating system that doesn’t crash.

Source:   http://www.itwire.com/it-industry-news/strategy/22723-coalition-says-labor-changing-98-broadband-nbn-promise

Google launched the service to take on online communications pioneer Skype.

Local users logged-on to their accounts yesterday to discover a new directory of phone contacts listed under a voice calling link, along with an offer for some free calls and prices for international calls to landlines and mobiles.

A Google Australia spokeswoman confirmed the phone lists are compiled from data extracted from users’ emails and chat sessions.

Google has not responded to repeated requests for clarification on the nature of internal account searches and the extraction methods used to populate personal web phone menus, nor has it indicated whether it sought users’ approval before taking action.

But online privacy advocates say it appears Google has not learned from outrage over the Buzz social networking tool that automatically connected users based on data mined from personal emails and chat sessions, nor from the angry reaction to Facebook changes to privacy settings that exposed previously hidden material.

“As far as I can see, Google has done this without even notice, let alone consent,” said Roger Clarke, chair of the Australian Privacy Foundation. “And they’ve learnt so little that they seem not to have offered an opt-out.”

David Vaile, executive director of the University of NSW’s Cyberspace Law and Policy Centre, said it appeared Google’s auto-exposure tools were getting a little out of control.

“This has shades of Buzz,” he said. “When will big data-mongers ever learn that opt-in is much more respectful than ‘opt-out – if you can’.”

Mr Vaile questioned whether Google had clearly and transparently disclosed their use of its tools to everyone potentially affected by their operation.

Google confirmed that local users registered under the English-US language setting can access the web phone service, that has not officially launched in Australia.

Source:   http://www.theaustralian.com.au/australian-it/telecommunications/gmail-phone-service-raises-eyebrows/story-fn4iyzsr-1225910912539

According to Cisco, the report’s findings “culminate in four illustrative scenarios, designed to help decision-makers in both technology companies and government understand, anticipate, and manage key changes, risks, and opportunities so that the Internet’s potential to create economic and social value can be realized globally.”

The report, Cisco says, “outlines five powerful trends already underway that provide a common foundation for any scenarios on the Internet’s future. These trends relate to the global composition and governance of the Internet, generational differences, interface technology, and pricing models for connectivity.”

The report’s four scenarios “portray challenging and distinctive alternative stories about how the world might unfold.” They are:

Fluid Frontiers: “A world in which the Internet becomes pervasive and centrifugal. Technology continues to make connectivity and devices more and more affordable (in spite of limited investment in network build-out) while global entrepreneurship - and fierce competition – ensure that the wide range of needs and demands from across the world are met quickly and from equally diverse setups and locations.”

Insecure Growth: “A world in which users – individuals and business alike – are inhibited from intensive reliance on the Internet. Relentless cyber attacks driven by wide-ranging motivations defy the preventive capabilities of governments and international bodies. Secure alternatives emerge, but they are expensive.”

Short Of The Promise: “A frugal world in which prolonged economic stagnation in many countries takes its toll on the spread of the Internet. Technology offers no compensating breakthroughs, and protectionist policy responses to economic weakness make matters worse – both in economic terms and with regard to network technology adoption.”

Bursting At The Seams: “A world in which the Internet becomes a victim of its own success. Demand for IP-based services is boundless, but capacity constraints and occasional bottlenecks create a gap between the expectations and reality of Internet use. Meanwhile, international technology standards don’t come to pass, in part because of a global backlash against decades of U.S. technology dominance.”

Finally, the report proposes two frameworks that explore the business strategy and policy implications of each scenario: What business models will best establish a sustainable, profitable position around the Internet of the future? What are the policy challenges that need to be addressed, nationally and internationally?

Source:                                                                                                                                                                                             http://www.itwire.com/business-it-news/technology/41437-the-internet-in-2025-according-to-cisco

Digg needs an overhaul to keep up with … Facebook? Source: news.com.au

TIME magazine has released its list of the 50 best websites of 2010.

In a sometimes strained bid to remove itself from the predictability of last year’s list – which included Google, YouTube, Facebook and Skype – Time’s Top 50 Websites of 2010 has opted to give some of the smaller hitters a boost in 2010.

Vimeo is more intuitive than YouTube. Gowalla is more fun than Foursquare. LinkedIn and Tumblr have surpassed Facebook and Twitter.

WikiLeaks has made the top five News & Info list, but then again, so has The Onion.

But it seems the big announcement from Time has been outdone by its own complementary piece, “The Five Most Overrated Websites”.

News Ltd’s MySpace – owned by the parent company of www.news.com.au – gets its regular pasting for not being innovative enough, while Craigslist is too boring, even for a classifieds listing.

The real interest is the vote against news aggregator slash social network Digg, criticised again for not keeping up with the likes of Facebook.

It’s the top trending topic at Time.com, no doubt fuelled by thousands of raging Diggers themselves.

Best Websites versus Most Overrated Websites? Once again, bad news is good news for publishers.

Source:

http://www.news.com.au/technology/overrated-digg-causes-more-debate-than-times-top-50-websites-of-2010/story-e6frfro0-1225910222654

Tony Windsor, Rob Oakeshott, the ABC’s Chris Uhlmann, Adam Bandt and Bob Katter at the National Press Club in Canberra. Picture: Gary Ramage Source: The Australian

INDEPENDENT MP Tony Windsor has questioned the $43 billion National Broadband Network price tag, describing it as a “fictitious number”.

Mr Windsor is one of three country MPs at the centre of power-sharing negotiations, including Rob Oakeshott and Bob Katter, who want access to Treasury secretary Ken Henry and Finance department secretary David Tune as they prepare a “roadmap” before entering into talks with Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott.

They’ve issued a “call for information” on seven key areas, including access to the costings on all election commitments. As a result Labor could finally be forced to reveal how the $43bn figure was derived.

Mr Windsor described the request as “a test to the parties in terms of their promises going into the election” and questioned the veracity of the NBN funds.

He was flanked by the two federal independents and newly elected Greens MP Adam Bandt.

The NBN is set to be the largest ever infrastructure project undertaken in Australia but the government has never provided a cost-benefit analysis to support the ambitious project.

In fact Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has repeatedly said there was no need for such a study.

Senator Conroy last reiterated that stance to reporters on August 10 at the National Press Club, Canberra.

“Telstra made it very clear that they could find no business case beyond five capital cities and north and south of Sydney.

“So the Gillard government has decided we’re going to do it. We’re not going to wait another 12 months doing a cost-benefit analysis.

“We are leading the world in leading Australians to the 21st century. We’re not hiding it, we’re making it clear that this is a government investment,” Senator Conroy said then.

Taxpayers will provide $27bn to fund the NBN with the remainder coming from private equity.

The Coalition will scrap the fibre-based NBN and replace it with a $6bn version using a mix of technologies including HFC and wireless.
The Greens publicly back the project but don’t want the network privatised in years to come.

“The NBN should go ahead, with priority for communities in regional areas, and it should absolutely stay in public hands so that we don’t see another repeat of the debacle that followed the privatisation of Telstra,” Greens communications spokesman Scott Ludlam said last month.

“The opposition’s wrecking tactics in the telco sector have gone far enough with the in-principle agreement signed between Telstra and the Commonwealth Tony Abbott no longer has a constituency for blocking, delaying and avoiding reforms,” Senator Ludlam said.

Labor and the Greens want Telstra to separate its wholesale and retail operations – a proposal the opposition has railed against.

Earlier today, the three independents outlined the process they would undertake before commencing talks with Ms Gillard and Mr Abbott.

“We need to establish where the budget bottom line is … in terms of the promises made by the parties,” Mr Windsor said.

“What we are actually talking about here is in terms of the promises that were made during the election campaign by both sides. We need a starting point of the finances of the nation.”

Source:  http://www.theaustralian.com.au/australian-it/government/nbn-under-scrutiny-by-country-mps-windsor-katter-and-oakeshott/story-fn4htb9o-1225909874574

He said the chosen sectors – agriculture, renewable energy, the digital economy, lifestyle and tourism – had been identified by the Australian Innovation Research Centre in its report, An Innovation Strategy for Tasmania A New Vision for Economic Development: Conceptual Overview and Options Outline, presented by Professor Jonathan West in late 2009, and that many of the initiatives had been designed to strengthen and support small businesses.

“Small businesses will be critical to the strategy‘s success, because they make up 95 percent of private sector employment in Tasmania’s food processing and agriculture sectors, and 90 percent in tourism,” Bartlett said.

The premier said initiatives to support the innovation strategy,  including those in the 2010-11 State Budget, included, for the digital economy:
- $5.85m over two years for the sector to increase awareness of the opportunities provided by the digital economy;
- $0.6m on a number of strategies to grow awareness levels, including establishing a hands-on digital coaching pilot and a digital tool kit for small businesses;
- $0.25m on research into the impact of the NBN deployment on business engagement in the digital economy and the effectiveness of government programmes;
- $0.4m to migrate key business websites to the Government 2.0 model for online information sharing and service delivery;
- $3.6m for a Digital Futures Capital Fund to fund the development and delivery of digital content, applications and services that add value to businesses and the community engaging in the Tasmanian digital economy;
- a Digital Futures Advisory Council “to bring together world-class expertise to ensure Tasmania capitalises on its digital opportunities;”
- collaborating with industry and TasICT to develop a Digital Economy Industry Strategy (DEIS).

The $3.6m Digital Futures fund will be used to support the three NBN Stage 1 connected towns to offer in-home eHealth services for chronic diseases, including in-home consultations. The strategy suggests that it could also be used for innovative ideas such as eLearning, smart energy management, culture and entertainment and immersive experiences for the community.

The new Government 2.0 model for online information sharing and service delivery is being adopted by governments across Australia and the Tasmanian Government’s $0.4m will be used to migrate key websites, starting with the government’s business services sites, to this model.

The migration will incorporate the Council of Australian Governments’ Business Online Services initiative, which will interconnect the three levels of government business services from a single web portal.

The Digital Advisory Council will “bring together the experience of world-class practitioners, end-users, and analysts to provide a whole-of-economy perspective on the most beneficial opportunities for the government to pursue in developing the Tasmanian digital economy.”

Source:                                                                                                                                                                                           http://www.itwire.com/it-policy-news/government-tech-policy/41404-tasmanian-government-innovation-strategy-builds-on-nbn