March 2011

Australia's parliament has agreed on legislation that sets out the regulatory framework for the National Broadband Network, Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy Stephen Conroy said.

The legislation passed the House of Representatives on March 28, and included some amendments accepted by the Senate on March 25. "The bills set out a clear regulatory framework to provide that NBN Co. will operate on a wholesale-only, open and equivalent-access basis, delivering long-term benefits for competition and consumers," said Minister Conroy. Passage of the bills further underpins the government's policy to deliver structural reform of the telecommunications industry to promote sustainable retail-level competition, and fair pricing of wholesale services for all Australians, he said.

State-owned broadcasting signal distributor Sentech on March 25 provided the first insights into its plans to have another go at building a national broadband network.

Sentech outlined its plans to parliament’s portfolio committee on communications as part of its strategic plan for 2011 to 2014. CEO Setumo Mohapi says the new plan is not meant to compete with private-sector players but rather to provide coverage to areas the private sector has missed. Sentech wants to provide Internet access to schools, clinics and underserviced rural and municipal areas, and Mohapi has set a deadline of five years to get the network built. “It is certainly doable in three years,” he says. The company is hoping the department of communications and national treasury will come to the party with additional funding for the plan, with Mohapi saying it needs more money to finance the project.

For years the United States and Europe, with around 700 million Internet users between them, have diverged in their approach to policing the Web. But the two sides are converging in their Web privacy positions, partly through intensive meetings in recent months between regulators from Washington and Brussels. There are still many specifics to be worked out -- final legislative proposals are not expected from the European Union until later this year and the United States in June or July -- but officials are confident about steadily narrowing the gap.

Online auction site eBay announced it has agreed to buy the ecommerce and interactive marketing firm GSI Commerce in a $2.4 billion deal. The acquisition was financed with cash, and debt and is expected to close in the third quarter of 2011. As part of the deal, eBay will divest GSI’s sports merchandise business and 70 percent of ShopRunner and Rue La La. Those assets will be sold to a new holding company, led by GSI founder and chief executive Michael Rubin.

GSI, like Amazon, has the infrastructure in place to help merchants of all sizes conduct e-commerce. GSI, which is based in the Philadelphia suburb of King of Prussia, Pa., assists more than 180 top brands and retailers with their websites, including Aéropostale, Timberland, Mattel, Zales and Major League Baseball. With the deal, EBay gets an order-management, fulfillment and shipping business that competes directly with Amazon's own fulfillment offering for merchants. Fulfillment centers pack up orders for shipment.