beyond pt 0 23/1

Section Four
Communications services
4.1 Description of the sector
The Communications services sector is made up of telecommunications
services, postal services and courier services. The sector contributed over
$16 billion, or around 3.0 per cent, of GDP in 1997–98 and employs
approximately 155 000 people.
E-commerce appears to be having mixed effects in the sector. While
telecommunications companies are big players in the e-commerce
marketplace, postal and courier services are generally viewed as risking
having their value being eroded as more information is shifted
electronically rather than in physical form.
4.2 E-commerce and communications
E-commerce is having a remarkable impact on the communications
industry. Telecommunications carriers have an obvious role to play in
providing the communication lines and bandwidth to make network
access and ultimately e-commerce possible.
Of major importance for telecommunications carriers is the impact of
increasing data traffic and the use of the Internet for voice traffic.
Box 4.1 discusses changes that have already been felt.
Box 4.1
Telecommunications and the Internet
Earlier this year, Telstra’s data traffic volume—everything ranging from plain-text
EFTPOS transactions to multimedia Internet traffic—overtook voice traffic.
The Internet has changed the face of telecommunications. Although the quality is
not consistently high, telephone calls over the Internet are proving a much
cheaper alternative to earlier arrangements. Doug Campbell, group managing
director of Telstra’s carrier services, says Telstra has nearly completed the digital
upgrading of its network. ‘We are now looking at our data mode-of-operation
project to assess our network technology and how it will accommodate data and
the Internet. The assumption we are working on is that the Internet is going to
grow very rapidly, and voice over Internet will, in the fullness of time, become the
primary means of voice communications.’
Source: Margaret Banaghan, Business Review Weekly, June 22 1998.
The impact of e-commerce on communications is not restricted to the
telecommunication companies. Postal services are also being impacted by
e-commerce, as discussed in Box 4.2 below.
109