More Connectivity In The Outback

The outback of Australia is considered one of the most thinly populated regions of the world

, with over 80 percent of the country's total population living all along the coast. More than 120 years after the American frontier ceased to exist; Australia has kept its counterpart, and is likely to continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Isolated sheep and cattle ranches, some of them bigger than Maryland, dot the countryside. The region is also covered with sections reserved for the aborigines, in addition to national parks.

Despite their isolation, people living in the outback have benefited from various services designed uniquely for the area. The most significant of these, in operation since 1928 and 1951 respectively, are the Royal Flying Doctor Service and the Schools of the Air. (Prior to the introduction of the radio, too, children in rural Western Australia were educated with the periodical Our Rural Magazine.) Likewise, Internet service has been making headway into the outback (which has also made it simpler to receive and view children's homework). The advent of smart phones has accelerated these developments by rendering access to a computer pointless.

Nevertheless, tourists travelling in this remote region have found that Internet connection to be slow and troublesome. One camper remarked seven months ago on the blog site http://catchallthekangaroos.blogspot.com/2011/10/internet-in-outback.html that "It's been really hard trying to identify a way to upload this while camping out on the side of the highway."

Fortunately, something else is going on in the country with respect to technology. Australia, like other developed countries, is abandoning analog TV in favor of digital, and technicians at CSIRO (the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization) are working to reuse the old analog transmitters to set up broadband Internet connection, which is much faster than the older dial- up method. They have even given the technology an aboriginal name- Ngara- meaning "listen, hear and think."

The nonprofit group Volunteers for Isolated Students' Education, Inc., has adopted as its most current goal "taking the Internet to the outback," a project coordinated by a former member of the Victoria Department. These volunteers, who are trained by the Information Technology Department at the University of Ballarat, Victoria, are delegated to areas controlled by the Schools of the Air. Obtaining Internet access to the outback is still a work in progress, but the number of people there with access continues to rise.

by: Brian Lakeman

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