Loomio
Thu 23 Apr 2015 11:24PM

Access to telecommunications

SD Sophie Davies Public Seen by 357

Forms of telecommunications and how they are used have changed greatly over the last decade. These trends are expected to continue, so it is important that census data collected in this area remains relevant for the future, while retaining comparability.

Data on household access to a telephone is still important to collect. Although internet access has become more prevalent, in many households a telephone is still the only form of telecommunication available.

Whether information on fax access should continue to be collected in the census is questionable, as faxes are becoming obsolete due to widespread use of the internet.

We considered for the 2006 Census whether it was more appropriate to gather information on access to cell phones at an individual level. The report on this issue concluded that the question on the dwelling form currently met most users’ needs. To gather useful data on usage of specific devices would require a series of detailed questions not suited for inclusion in the census.

Our current recommendations relating to access to telecommunication systems

  • We recommend that access to telecommunication systems be included in the 2018 Census, but that information on fax access no longer be collected.

  • We recommend that access to telecommunication systems continues to be collected on the dwelling form.

See our preliminary view of 2018 Census content (pages 54-55) for a more detailed discussion on access to telecommunications information.

See 2013 Census information by variable for information on the access to telecommunications variable.

DP

Derek Phyn Tue 9 Jun 2015 2:46AM

Hi Keely,

Access to telecommunications is a crucial bit of information for Civil Defence and Emergency Management (CDEM) in terms of knowing our public alerting reach. Having this variable only being recorded at the household level means we have to make some pretty crude assumptions about what proportion of the population actually has access to the various telecommunication types, and then only if they are in their usual dwelling. I would argue, given the proliferation of smartphones, that it is more important to know what proportion of individuals, at any location, normally have access to telecommunications as opposed to the proportion of households at only one fixed location.

Knowing the proportion of usually resident individuals that usually have access to mobile phones versus smartphones would certainly help CDEM in planning the implementation of public alerting systems.

Thanks
Derek

CB

Chris Bullen Tue 9 Jun 2015 11:04AM

Yes it would be very helpful to know devices used to access the internet

Chris

DCC

Digby (2018 Census content) Tue 16 Jun 2015 1:14AM

Some feedback that came out of the recent face-to-face workshops was on the need to capture information on access to fast broadband, especially in rural areas due its impacts on rural business capability.

Given the recent extension and additional funding put towards the government's Rural Broadband Initiative, we are interested in customer information needs in this area. Especially as the census is likely the only survey that could meet the geographic detail required for this information.

some broad questions:
- what would the distinction (where business capability is significantly limited) between 'normal' internet access and fast/ultra-fast be?
- will this distinction still be important by the time of 2018 census outputs?