What is it?

Australian Web hosting providers can offer the same services and operating systems as any host in the U.S. The top level domain for Australian businesses is ‘.com.au’, but customers usually can purchase any top level domain through domain registrars or through hosts that offer these services. Domain name charges are about double that of U.S. domain name registrations, and the currency conversion doesn’t change the fact that these transactions are expensive in Australia.

Australia also maintains a limited amount of hosting services simply because of the size of the country. Previous local news stories have written about the limitations offered by hosting services, mainly through server maintenance. However, it appears that hosting services in this country are growing, both in the quality of service and in the quality of hardware offered. Although many businesses in the country host sites on U.S. servers, just as many sites within the country have sought out and found high quality hosting services in Australia.

What Are the Issues?

The main reasons to host a business in Australia is for security reasons or if that organization is governmental. Currently, many Australian businesses have discovered bargains in hardware and in service in the plethora of hosting services offered in the U.S. There are some issues about the speed at which applications can be accessed from Australia, but the consensus currently seems that increased reliability and cheaper prices offered by American hosting providers more than make up for performance shortfalls.

Outside high prices for Internet services, the main focus in Australia has returned to censorship, particularly for child pornography. Internet censorship legislation was introduced to Australia in January 2000 with the Commonwealth Net Oppression Act, which regulates ISPs and content hosts. State and territory laws were gradually introduced to regulate the activities of Internet users and content providers, but those laws are not uniform. This adds to the complexity of a specific state, territory, province or country’s legislation applying to online content that can, in theory, affect ISPs, hosts, content providers and users anywhere in the world.

In its original form, the legislation was intended to force ISPs to block certain content, something that proved highly problematic. This was when the NetAlert program was enacted, where information and parental supervision was encouraged. Now, the new Labor Government has returned to the mandatory filtering approach. On December 31, Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said plans were under way to introduce legislation requiring ISPs to provide Australians with a “clean feed” that is filtered. This would be determined by a list of banned content maintained by the Australian Communications and Media Authority.

Web Hosts that Offer Australia