Broadband Interoperability Facilitation Update to InternetNZ Council 03/12/03
Project Status
On October 29th Broadband Community representatives met in Wellington to scope the work required to address interoperability issues. Representatives self selected participation in one of the three work streams; Technical Interoperability, Standards Development and Ubiquitous Broadband. A meeting "outcome" document has now been circulated to representatives recording their formal resolution as representatives of the broadband community to "work together in partnership to establish a consensus view of the issues around interoperability to industry & government." In addition three planning documents have been circulated to representatives, each the derivative of the breakout sessions held at the meeting. As the process to ensure ratification of the documents as a record of the issues identified and agreed plan moving forward, they had been previously circulated to group representatives for their contributions. As the next step, Phase 2 of the project, plans will be converted to deliverables based hierarchical work breakdown structures for formal program implementation. A further meeting of representatives will be called to gather feedback on these plans prior to implementation.
Funding
The cost of Stage 2 has been estimated at approximately $300,000 and needs to commence prior to Christmas. SIF (Strategic Initiative) funding has been recommended as potential source of government funds and discussions are in train to secure support from this source in addition to some from the smaller discretional budgets of some senior officials. As private sector sources Telecom has confirmed a financial contribution of around 15% of the project cost. TelstraClear and Cisco have also been approached for lesser amounts but have not yet confirmed to what extent. A number of smaller private sector organisations may also contribute.
Issues
The ongoing attempts of TUANZ to derail the initiative leave the project leader puzzled and frustrated. The past several months have seen in excess of 10 meetings with various representatives of the organisation; each such discussion finding resolution of the issues of the day only to find them replaced by a fresh set of objections.
