NBN: lessons at home and abroad

One thing that everyone's talking about right now in Australia is the NBN. It's probably the most dramatic change in telecommunications that has occurred in this country for many, many years but one of the most interesting things about it is the lessons that can be learnt from the experiences here and from all of the changes and regulation here for some other countries in the region.

One example of this is the reforms around universal service in telecommunications that have occurred as part of the NBN.

A universal service is basically about ensuring that everyone in the country has reasonable access to telecommunications and that's a very important social objective. But what's really interesting is how that issue is becoming so significant now in some of our major trading partners and neighbours in Asia. And I think two huge countries where there are some surprising similarities to Australia are China and Indonesia. What are the similarities? Well both of them are