Still a long way to go to close the digital gap, new report finds

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TRANSCRIPT
Accessing a bank account, logging into government services or even checking on how friends and family are doing – the internet is playing an increasingly important role in society.
But access to it is still not universal in Australia.
New research conducted by RMIT University has found that despite some improvements in access, cost remains a huge barrier to greater digital inclusion.
RMIT Associate Professor Lyndon Ormond-Parker is a First Nations Digital Advisory Group member and was a principal Research Fellow on the study.
“Some of the biggest challenges is around affordability of the service. So being able to install a satellite dish in your house. So where you live in a community, you may not have access to a credit card, you may not have access to identity documents where you’ll need to be able to provide via your own internet service for your own home. So therefore, you’re relying on prepaid services.”
The researchers visited 12 different remote communities with different population sizes over three years.
They observed a 12 per cent increase in the number of people using the internet and around 19 per cent more regular internet users.
The results are promising, but there is still a big problem with infrastructure.
Dr Daniel Featherstone, Senior research fellow at RMIT, explains.
“The challenge is that most of that relies on co-investment by the telcos, by industry, and where there’s very small populations and very remote areas without the fibre optic network infrastructure, it’s a lot more expensive to roll out to those communities, and there isn’t that return on investment.”
Lauren Ganley, head of First Nation Strategy and Engagement at Telstra, which helped fund the research, says the challenge goes beyond that too.
“So there’s the cost to build it, but then there’s also, there’s a huge reliance on power in remote communities, or in remote anywhere in Australia. So when there’s a power outage that dramatically affects the connectivity, which relies heavily on power, that’s a big barrier.”
The study also found that 99 per cent of mobile phone users rely on prepaid credit recharges, with low and unreliable incomes limiting their uptake of better value monthly plans.
Ms Ganley again.
“People like that because they are in control of when and how they spend their income. So I think that’s the main reason, that it’s about having control over your own access to the internet.”
There are new, cheaper pre-paid plans being implemented in these areas by providers.
The aim is, rather than convincing people to adopt a new type of plan, to work with the one they prefer.
Even so, it seems that having more affordable providers isn’t the only issue to be addressed to increase connectivity in these communities.
After giving people access to the internet, they have to also have the necessary skills to use it.
Professor Ormond-Parker explains.
“It’s very important that people have a reasonable level of digital literacy. It’s so they can then go online and access government services, whether it’s accessing Medicare, whether it’s accessing Centrelink, whether it’s accessing the tax office, whether it’s doing a tax return. All of these essential services, which Australians must engage with, are being able to be accessed by people living in remote communities.”
Even so, Jessa Rogers, Associate Professor at the University of Melbourne, says this is not the only aspect of digital literacy to be addressed.
“I think a lot of Indigenous people do have digital skills, they can navigate things like email and websites and the things that they want to do online. It’s when it comes to actually understanding the impact of choosing a prepaid service, rather than a postpaid, or understanding how much data is on each different plan, or knowing which modem or other hardware they’ve got in their house which might be slowing down their connection. There is this emerging issue of connectivity literacy, so not the ability to do things online, but actually knowing how to buy or get services that meet your needs.”
She says this is a task that needs strong government involvement.
“There are great people doing great things, but I do think that the government and others should be investing in widespread research across Australia, not relying on one survey or one test or one organisation to do the majority of the work.”
But even with all the barriers, Professor Ormond-Parker says Indigenous people are creating their own online communities.
“We’ve seen innovation in remote communities where people are engaging younger people in particular and are engaging in social media. They’re engaging in production of their own cultural things. And, for instance, doing videos and stories, putting them online, sharing them. We have seen an increase in participation in Facebook as a form of getting news and information services over the last three years as part of this project and report.”
Still, there is much to be done to close the digital gap.
Professor Ormond-Parker again.
“There’s a long way to go, but we are slowly making progress, but we need to bridge that digital divide so that Aboriginal and Torres Strait people can make informed decisions about their life and get online and get online safely.”