Tony Newstead (1923-2017)
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Keywords
Tony Newstead, Telecommunications network planning, trad jazz, Australia, World Bank
Abstract
Tony Newstead, who died on 6 November 2017, was a pioneering figure in Australian and worldwide telecommunications network planning, as well as in Australian trad jazz as both a trumpeter and early bandleader. This obituary attempts to do justice to his career in both fields. In an Attachment, Dr Clemens Pratt provides a short memoir in appreciation of Tony’s role as his career mentor and colleague, and John Burke provides an appreciation of Tony’s innovatory role in pioneering open planning in Australian telecommunications.
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References
John Burke, private communication, 8 January 2018.
Ann Moyal, 1984. Clear across Australia. A history of telecommunications, Thomas Nelson Australia, ISBN 017006266X, 436 pp.
Clemens Pratt, ‘Memories of Tony Newstead’, Attachment to: ‘Tony Newstead 1923-2017’, Australian Journal of Telecommunications and the Digital Economy, December 2017, DOI:
Mark Newstead, 2017. ‘Tony Newstead’, obituary delivered at Tony’s funeral, November 2017.
Tony Newstead “for the NTP Team”. 1975. ‘Telecom 2000. An Exploration of the Long-Term Development of Telecommunications in Australia’, National Telecommunications Planning (NTP) Branch, Australian Telecommunications Commission (Telecom Australia), December 1975, 166 pp.
Tony Newstead. 2000. ‘Telecom 2000 – In Restrospect’, Telecommunications Journal of Australia, Vol. 50 (3), Spring 2000.
NTP Branch, July 1978. National Telecommunications Planning Branch, ‘Outcomes from the Telecom 2000 Report’, Telecom Australia, July 1978, 70 pp.
List B: Tony’s career as a jazz musician and bandleader
Anon, 2017. ‘St Silas has a proud jazz tradition’, in ‘Jazz Band – Parish of the Parks’, posted on the St Silas & St Anselm Albert Park website, http://www.parishoftheparks.com.au/jazz-band.html, accessed on 24 December 2017.
Bill Haesler, 2015, ‘Luminaries of Australian Jazz’, at http://jazzinaustralia.org.au/pioneers/
Bill Haesler, 2014. ‘Veteran of the golden years of Melbourne jazz. Graham Coyle, jazz pianist 10-8-1932 – 17-11-2013’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 12 April 2014.
Tony Newstead, 2005. ‘The Best of Tony Newstead’ [CD digital sound recording], published by the Victorian Jazz Archive, Wantirna, Vic.; 2005, featuring Tony Newstead, trumpet and voice, with various musicians and bands, available from Trove [National Library of Australia]. Recorded between 1950 and 1977.
Geoff Tobin, 2017. ‘Tony Newstead’, Jazz Ramble, 14 November 2017.
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Article Details
Copyright Telecommunications Association Inc.
Clemens Pratt, Telecommunications Association
Dr Clemens Pratt, educated at Brisbane State High School, the University of Queensland and the University of London, had a 38 year career with the PMG Department/Telecom Australia/Telstra, initially specialising in telephone traffic engineering, and later working in information systems planning and development, network operations, total quality management, and network planning. At various times during this period, he represented Australia at the CCITT Traffic Engineering Working Party, the Economic Commission for Asia & the Far East, and also on the governing body of the International Teletraffic Congresses.
After taking early retirement, he undertook contracts with Victoria University (quality management), the Committee for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (reviews of quality assurance programs in universities), the Australian Information Technology Education Company (training in forecasting & traffic engineering), and Air Services Australia (security of its private telecommunications network).
He enjoys music, theatre, amateur astronomy, the grandchildren & the great grandchildren.
John Burke, Telecommunications Association
John Burke (BSc, Melbourne; BEd, Monash; MA(Ed), Stanford) has taken a number of strategic and development roles in corporate, community and government organisations, including: Deputy Director, Australian Commission for the Future (1987-88); Group Manager, Business Planning, Telecom/AOTC/Telstra Corporate Strategy (1991-94); and Director, Centre for International Research on Information and Communication Technologies (CIRCIT) (1994-2000).
Peter Gerrand, Melbourne University
Life Member, TelSocHonorary Professorial Fellow at the Melbourne School of Engineering, University of MelbourneAdjunct Associate Professor (Research) in the School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics at Monash University
Peter Gerrand was awarded the Charles Todd Medal by ATUG in 1998 'for outstanding contributions to the telecommunications industry', an Australian Government Centenary Medal in 2003 'for outstanding service to science and technology particularly to public science policy', and Life Membership by the TSA in 2003.
He is now an honorary academic and a freelance writer. He was Editor-in-Chief of the Telecommunications Journal of Australia (1994-2013), and of TJA's successor, the Australian Journal of Telecommunications and the Digital Economy (2013-14), of which he remains an Associate Editor. He was a founding Director of TelSoc (July 2013), the reincarnation of the former Telecommunications Society of Australia. He stepped down from the TelSoc Board in October 2015.
From 2004-2007 he carried out research at La Trobe University in the School of European and Historical Studies, and was awarded a PhD in Spanish and Catalan studies in 2008. His thesis, “Minority languages on the Internet: promoting the regional languages of Spain”, was published by VDM Verlag in 2009.
Amongst career highlights, he was an engineering executive in Telecom Australia/Telstra where he successively led network research, network product development, network planning and network strategy groups, until 1993. He subsequently became a professor of telecommunications at two universities (RMIT in 1993-6 and then Melbourne from 1996 to the present). He was the founding CEO of the University of Melbourne’s subsidiary Melbourne IT from 1996 to 2000, which he established as a successful international domain name registrar before publicly listing it in December 1999 (ASX: MLB). He developed AUSTEL’s Interconnect Model (1995) as an independent expert consultant to the Australian telecommunications regulator. From 1993 to 2003 he was Chairman of the Telecommunication Society of Australia Ltd.
He is author of the monograph An Interconnection Model for Modern Telecommunications (1998) and ‘Revisiting the Structural Separation of Telstra’ (2004). The latter article served to rekindle policy debate on that topic after it had been ruled out by the then Minister for Communications.
He is also author of 'Cultural diversity in cyberspace: the Catalan campaign to win the new .cat top level domain' (2006) and 'Estimating linguistic diversity on the Internet: a taxonomy to avoid pitfalls and paradoxes” (2007). The latter paper was responsible for successfully debunking the statistical data hitherto republished by UNESCO and the OECD on the diversity of language usage on the Internet. His most recent published paper is 'Cuba's Winners and Losers' in Inside Story.
He is currently an honorary Professorial Fellow at the Melbourne School of Engineering, University of Melbourne; and an Adjunct Associate Professor (Research) in the School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics at Monash University.
