2012-Feb-3
Friday round-up
Telstra has rejected claims by its competitors that it is milking universal service obligation (USO) payments for extra cash.
In several radio interviews this week, Shadow Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull stated that the National Broadband Network project would cause consumer broadband prices to rise higher than those currently on the market. However, unfortunately this statement was factually incorrect.
Government business enterprises have long been able to escape freedom of information (FoI) requests on the basis of commercial sensitivity and confidentiality arrangements.
The Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy has revealed exit clauses in a 20-year, $2 billion contract with Telstra that can be enacted if the incumbent's copper network is abandoned faster than expected.
A group of US-based public interest and intellectual property experts has revealed it will seek a radical reframing of the secretive Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) at negotiations in Melbourne next month.
In a new blog entry entitled “What can we learn from the UK?”, Liberal MP Paul Fletcher has lambasted the broadband policies of the Gillard Government, unfavourable contrasting them with the approach of the Cameron Government in the UK.
2012-Feb-2
Thursday round-up
In the long-running football broadcasting rights opera, the fat lady has merely cleared her throat.
Exetel chief executive, John Linton, has passed away overnight after suffering a stroke.
John Linton, the maverick chief executive of Internet service provider Exetel, has tragically passed away, according to several public notices published by Exetel staff this morning.
An appeal of the Optus TV-recording case against the football codes and Telstra is a certainty, as it becomes the first major test of the 2006 amendments to the Copyright Act.
Twisted Wire looks at the AFL and NRL loss in court over how Optus stores TV content in the cloud. There's also the battle to declare Telstra's wholesale DSL. We know who will lose that one too.
Shadow Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull has warned the National Broadband Network Company must not not dodge Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) oversight, echoing concerns by a number of the company’s ISP customers early this year.
Fish, barrel; fox, henhouse; Abbott, NBN. Mocking Tony Abbott's ignorance of telecoms has become so easy and habitual that his latest pronouncements would normally hardly merit a response.
NBN Co has refused to reveal the price paid by a Tasmanian resident to receive a fibre connection outside of the planned footprint because the figure could unleash a chain of events that brings the network to a grinding halt.
2012-Feb-1
Wednesday round-up
Children with hearing or vision impairments who live in regional and remote areas of Australia will soon receive specialist services and therapies via the National Broadband Network.
Yesterday Opposition Leader Tony Abbott stated in a high-profile speech at the National Press Club in Canberra that cutting Labor’s National Broadband Network project would free up Federal Government money to be spent in other areas such as transport. It was a nice political soundbite. However, unfortunately, this statement was factually incorrect.
The Federal Court has found Optus' TV Now service did not infringe the copyright by allowing users to record and later view AFL and NRL football matches on a mobile device at a later time.
2012-Jan-31
Tuesday round-up
Artists are being offered grants of up to $100,000 by the federal government to create "visionary" works promoting the controversial $36 billion National Broadband Network.
National broadband provider iiNet this afternoon announced it had completed its $105 million buyout of rival Internode, a month ahead of schedule.
Telstra has received $39.2 million from the Western Australian Government to expand mobile coverage in regional and remote parts of the state over the next three years.
Funding for the National Broadband Network (NBN) and a number of other tech projects would be redirected to building roads and tax cuts under a Tony Abbott Coalition government, the opposition leader has revealed.
Telstra has scored a $39.2 million contract with the Western Australian government to build the Regional Mobile Communication Project (RMCP), following a competitive tender process.
The anti-NBN argument that we don't need faster internet has always been spurious. The latest ZDNet Australia speedtest results show that our appetite for speed is insatiable.
Telstra has criticised NBN Co for having too much flexibility over pricing of National Broadband Network (NBN) wholesale services in a submission to the Special Access Undertaking (SAU) consultation paper. The SAU was submitted to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) in December 2011 and is designed to guarantee fixed wholesale prices for the next five years to service providers.
2012-Jan-30
Monday round-up
TPG has called for the competition watchdog to regulate wholesale ADSL, claiming that the customers it lost when Telstra jacked up its wholesale DSL prices had overwhelmingly jumped to Telstra as a result.
Two weeks ago, we discussed how buying iiNet could expand TPG's network reach by 40 per cent. But there are many more reasons why TPG should be taking a hard look at its competitor from the west.
Telstra is in the process of installing a temporary cable to have fixed-line telephone and internet services ready for residents in North Bundaberg, Queensland by 8 February.
Major internet service providers have opposed significant tenets of the proposed regulatory framework for the National Broadband Network.
The Opposition has formed a new working group to deal with the issue of online safety for Australian children, stating that its rival policy will avoid the “ham-fisted” “cyber-censorship” mandatory Internet filtering approach that remains Labor Federal Government policy for dealing with the issue of how children are protected from Internet nasties.
ADSL connections to US homes are on the slide as companies and consumers turn to cable and fibre for faster connectivity.
Telcos are worried about the insufficient powers the Australian Competition and Consumers Commission (ACCC) can wield over the National Broadband Network (NBN) under NBN Co’s special access undertaking (SAU).
The Pirate Party of Australia has made a submission to the Federal Government recommending it reject the controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) signed this month by the European Union, despite the fact that Australia actually signed the deal in September last year.
At Airlie Gardens in this coastal North Carolina city, 400-year-old live oaks nestle next to natural wetlands and cutting-edge technology. In the guard house a quarter mile from Airlie's entrance, a monitor displays high-definition images of the security gate captured by a remote camera.
A consortium of greenfield fibre operators will escalate allegations of anti-competitive behaviour levelled against NBN Co, after a Productivity Commission investigation resulted in no action.
