Australia has always had a pretty unique relationship with the internet. Our isolated position down in the southern hemisphere complicates online shopping, to say the very least. Now that a significant portion of our population lives in rural areas, it’s clear to see some of the barriers that keep us from jumping online.

But what exactly is holding Australia back from delving into the digital era? And will these same barriers be in place in ten years, or is there an air of change in the radio waves?

We’ll be exploring Australia’s digital infrastructure in detail today. Read on to learn more about what’s to come in our down under digital revolution.

Strengthening Australia’s cyber awareness

One of the most prominent barriers to Australia’s digital growth is the lack of awareness surrounding the cyber sphere. For example, the usage of VPNs in Australia is lower than usage statistics across the US. But as modern global conflicts like the Russia-Ukraine War begin to involve malware and hackers, more netizens recognise the value of staying safe online.

As a result, cyber analysts have predicted that the global VPN market will balloon to $107.5 billion by 2027. Alongside this, the number of VPN users across the globe is also expected to increase. As it stands currently, however, around one-third of all internet users across the globe are VPN users. And Australia isn’t well-represented in this figure.

But we do have a lot to gain from learning how to use VPNs and other cyber tools. Alongside accessing region-locked content, VPNs can also help us maintain privacy when accessing the web. With that, it’s safe to predict that an increase in VPN usage in Australia will significantly reduce our cybercrime rates. And with the ACSC estimating that one case of cybercrime is reported every 7 minutes in Australia, we can certainly benefit from reducing this figure.

Bolstering our digital literacy ratings

Another key component of reducing cybercrime rates is ensuring that Aussie netizens know how to identify a digital scam when they see one. This will mean investing in cyber education and boosting national digital literacy ratings.

‘Digital literacy’ is a term used to denote proficiency with digital and communications technologies. If you know how to use a computer to send an email or how to make a copy of a document using an all-in-one printer, then you can call yourself digitally literate.

But there are levels to digital literacy, just as there are levels for reading comprehension in our schools. Having strong digital literacy skills requires netizens to be able to think critically about what they read online. Because of this, citizens with stronger digital literacy are less likely to fall victim to a scam than those with poor digital literacy.

So how do we improve Australia’s digital literacy rates? The answer is from the ground up: investing in digital education for our schools and tertiary institutions. Educating young people on how they can identify threats online can help ensure the safety of future generations. This is foundational to thriving in an increasingly digital world.

There are also calls for educating seniors and older Australians on the dangers that may await them online. The ACSC partners with other government bodies like the Australian Institute of Family Studies to develop learning resources for older Australians. With these resources, seniors can protect themselves against phishing scams and other threats online.

Connecting rural Australia to the world wide web

There are, however, other barriers to accessing the web in Australia. For starters, the sprawling layout of Australia’s rural communities has made it difficult to provide digital infrastructure for families living in regional, rural, and remote areas. The government-funded National Broadband Network (or ‘NBN’) still has a limited reach and lacks the infrastructure to provide high-speed internet for those living regionally. The NBN’s limitations are also impacting populations in Australia’s metropolitan areas.

The Australian Digital Inclusion Index estimates that around 2.8 million Australians remain ‘highly excluded’ from internet access. Researchers from RMIT and Swinburne Universities developed the Australian Digital Inclusion Index in partnership with telecommunications giant Telstra to determine how we can tackle these digital barriers.

Their findings revealed that greater investments in both digital infrastructure and digital transformation were vital to ensuring that Australia’s digital revolution finally meets regional townships. The construction of mobile phone towers in Australia’s most remote regions can also help improve our web usage and digital literacy statistics.

And speaking of cell towers, even though the NBN is a little limited, the rollout of 5G in Australia has been a comparative success. Mobile broadband and data speeds are as strong in Australia as globally. This allows rural web users to stay connected without an established NBN connection.

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Australia’s unique population distribution has forced civil engineers to think creatively since our first settlement. In this regard, the ongoing challenges of charting Australia’s digital revolution aren’t at all unfamiliar. We’ve tackled similar challenges with food scarcity, resource distribution, public transportation, and even emergency service accessibility for decades now. So connecting Australia’s most remote communities to the world wide web shouldn't be too difficult. We can expect more Aussies of all ages to be accessing the web daily as we delve deeper into the age of the digital. It’s only a matter of time and cyberspace.