TOCPCs – The Elite Geeks Blog

A recent news article has come to my attention that the government plans to spend $1m ($1,000,000) or one million dollars, on a campaign with only ONE goal.

It’s not the goal of promoting broadband’s benefits and cost savings to consumers, it’s not the website they established to outline metro comparable plans for Australians.

It’s sole purpose? According to the news article, to shoot down Labor’s plan, and promote the Government’s plan.

What a fantastic waste of $1 MILLION dollars. There’s a lot that can be done with that money, a lot more.

Why not simply just promote BroadbandNow, and keep it updated and refreshed and ensure it becomes a resource that the marketing dollars spent will win over, and over again?

Why not simply state the facts behind Telstra’s war on regulation?

Why is this coming from Tax Payer funds? Why aren’t they installing ADSL2+ and competing backhaul to my suburb with those tax payer dollars? Why are they spending money on something the majority of the public can get off their own asses and use Google to find out for themselves, or better, why aren’t they sending them here, where they can get the best mix of news :P?

It doesn’t take $1 million to shoot down the ALP plan, the ALP plan doesn’t seem workable at all really.

They have the right idea, that’s true, that is, going into a public, private partnership to ensure that technologies are rolled out to Australians in a manner that promotes open competition.

Where they have the wrong idea is that they will be putting money into something that wouldn’t reach as far as they want it to, and further, taking money from the Future Fund, which more tax payer dollars, and revenue from the network would be needed to replenish that fund.

There’s a lot the current government can spend a million dollars on, but a campaign that has one goal, winning the election, doesn’t seem like the right move.

If anyone is voting for the ALP, based solely on broadband, and not based on fiscal manangement, or based on health care, or based on actions (yeh, I know, the current government need a foot in the arse too), they really need their right to vote removed.

Simply if you are voting for the ALP, you are voting for the eventual return to a economy that is funded primarily by debt, taxes rises in 4 years when they get the boot due to tax increases, and a proposal that sees only 70% or so of Australian’s getting the proposed broadband service.

Is the likely deduction from Health Care, or Education worth it?

Actually, here’s a little peice I’ll add here. Education. It really could use a $1 million dollar boost.

Let me just be short, without naming anyone specifically, or any particulars, that the current educational environment for those after high school in NSW, absolutely rates below average in my words.

$1 million might not fix it up completely, but it’d be a start to ensuring that the education system deployed currently gets a much needed workover, and much more advancement.

The next step where $1 million could be better spent is fixing the issues providing problems to many Australian’s. For me, a key issue is the broadband service that I am forced to pay through the roof for, for many others, health care will rate as an issue, such as Dental Care being Medicare funded, and the state of the water supply in many areas, or perhaps the issues that are being dealt with in the communities in NT, or perhaps the roads that need a upgrade over the country.

$1 million, a lot of money. It’s going to flyers to slam the ALPs broadband campaign, that only the ignorant would fall for.

Enjoy!

I often wonder what is the point of Telstra gaining money, if the next week, or next month, or next year, they are going to have to give it all back to where they get it from anyway?

Such a case has happened again recently, with Telstra ordered to return the ‘lunch money’ sum of $16 million to iiNet after the ACCC has mandated LSS prices of $2.50 should be backdated to when iiNet were first raising disputes about the $9.00 charge they were eating to provide ADSL2+ services.

Telstra has repeatedly claimed, barked, howled, and woofed that the competitors should build their own infrastructure in Australia.

When they manage to do this, through the help of regulated prices to ensure the business case remains viable, they are pickpocketed by Telstra and overcharged to the tune of millions.

More to it, the case is strung up in legal action with the ACCC and courts for 2 years, before they lose the case anyway.

As another Whirlpoolian has said, they’d buy shares in the law firm Telstra use, as long as it wasn’t a no win, no fee law firm, because they lose so much you’d wonder where they get an income from at all.

My take on that is, perhaps they should look elsewhere for advice on matters, as it seems the current legal team are getting nowhere.

They get a negative decision, ask for an appeal, get an appeal, lose the appeal.. what next..? Another High Court appeal that they will lose ANYWAY?

This is why I don’t own Telstra shares. They did look attractive at one stage there, at the rate they are going though, any value getting built in the shares is going to be quickly destroyed by wasting shareholder funds on propaganda websites, incompetent poll coders, and frivilous legal action.

It’s near time they accepted the fact that the competition is going to exist, either the easy way or the hard way, Australian’s WILL have competition.

A quote from a Telstra spokesman stated that “We will always protect our shareholders assets from any third party who enjoys privileged regulatory protection so they don’t have to build, install and maintain their own infrastructure”.

What a load of crock, the ACCC dispute (and resolution) was over LSS, that is, iiNet installing their OWN infrastructure in exchanges, and renting a part of the copper line TELSTRA ALREADY COLLECTS LINE RENTAL FROM to provide an additional service, which they don’t maintain at all.

The claim that they don’t have to build, install and maintain their own infrastructure is absolute rubbish.

It’s not economical to duplicate a copper network. It’s stupid to even consider that, as the copper is a old, aging asset, and many advanced countries looked at fibre over copper for the obvious advantages.

So, for any new ISP to consider the argument above, they would need to roll out their own fibre, because they’d be dumb to roll out copper, to each house they want to service.

That’s a high installation cost, and no easy task, and in fact, not a good task given the FTTN debate, which still uses the copper network.

I think Telstra have lost the plot, first they state that they want competitiors to invest in their own infrastructure, and when they do that, they still state that’s not good enough, because they are paying to use a part of a line that Telstra already makes a full retail or wholesale line rental return from anyway.

To challenge this ruling is even more absurd, because they’ll lose, it’s the ACCC that mandated the pricing of $2.50, and the Act specifies that the decisions can be backdated, and generally are.

In my honest opinion, and I’m being extremely wide open here, Telstra would achieve a lot more, shutting it’s wide open cakehole, and working with industry for an outcome that is beneficial to everyone.

It makes perfect sense to work with industry, working against it is just going to burn the profits they are making now with a negative outcome for them, and a even more positive outcome for everyone else.

Telstra, look at what happened with the OPEL decision. If you don’t want that to happen in Metro Australia, where the majority of market share is, it’s time to get up, get your act together, and get a proposal that will consider the interests of EVERYONE involved. If you can’t do that, you aren’t in the right job, get a plane, let someone else do it properly.

BT have done it properly, and they’ve stated time and time again, it’s been a great business move.

For supposed professional CEOs from the USA, they certainly aren’t doing a good job at maintaining a popular face in the industry they have a monopoly in.

Reading another article, I was filtering through the talkback comments, and of the 48 comments on the ZDNet article, I’m surprised at how many comments are slagging off Telstra, but you can’t blame the people, something gave them that perception to start with, and since 2005, they have done very, very little to get those users back on the team, to get them at least tolerating, or in support of the actions Telstra takes.

That to me says volumes more. Users are annoyed, they’ve done nothing to improve the image.

In fact, they’ve done a lot to damage the image.

Enjoy!

Telstra have taken the correct way this time, and worked with the regulator to get regulations removed from a part of its network.

With Optus’s massive fixed network roll out, Telstra deem that there is enough competition in the areas that have Optus ADSL2+ and phone that the regulations about Wholesale rates should be dropped.

Now, part of me thinks this is fair. Sure, why not. Optus have infrastructure to compete beside Telstra, there’s no need to force Telstra to lower its prices when competitors can simply go to Optus for a better deal.

Telstra want to simply say, “We’ve helped create competition in this area, with cheaper, through regulations, ULL and LSS access, competition exists, Optus has 300 odd exchanges providing broadband and telephone services to consumers, it’s time we got a break from regulation of resale call regulation, and line rental regulation.”

That’s fair, right? The competitors can go to Optus, Telstra want to charge us this, what will you do it for? And then go back to Telstra, Optus said this, what will you do it for? Until either Optus or Telstra refuse to budge, making someone the winner of the deal.

In theory, that works well. It means they can fight for prices out with each other.

Unfortunately, in the real world, it’s not going to work as well.

Optus don’t have the full network that Telstra have. Optus don’t have the ports available, they don’t have the power to, at this present time, adequately service masses of customers.

So, Telstra still might lose out on this one, but for a reason that is not quiet spot on the mark. Optus could add more ports, and I am sure they would, but with Telstra at the exchange ownership point, and keys being lost for exchanges, a well known reason for deployment delays, its likely that Optus are at a disadvantage.

ULL and LSS are still obviously regulated.

It’s an interesting submission, part of me says, yes, sure, they can go for it, the other part says no, removing regulation could see a different marketplace.

It’s already in the media now, the big question is “Why remove regulation?”. Obviously, to put prices up, and negotiate individual deals with suppliers of services.

It’s not going to affect everyone nationally, it will affect a large number of people though, 5.1 million.

Maybe this move might encourage more competitors to get out there and invest in more infrastructure, and we have a more competitive framework?

iiNet planned an MSAN rollout a while back, maybe they might decide to flick the switch and move forward with that?
Primus is also running MSAN infrastructure in exchanges, as I understand it, perhaps not all, but some.
Optus have thought the roll out well, rolling out both ADSL2+ and phone infrastructure, but many cases in the Let’s Go PDF show that the problems are they are filling up quickly.

Could it be people cannot wait to get away from Telstra? Market forces might be trying to tell us something, and I think Telstra might be on the right mark with asking for regulation removal.

It’s fair, as long as it doesn’t force consumer prices up to a point where deregulation is pointless, and regulating the industry for a 2nd or 3rd additional competitor is the only workable solution.

Enjoy!

I’ve been monitoring the ADSL2+ coverage from Optus on the Let’s Go website (here: http://www.letsgo.com.au/adsl2.php) and have discovered that the roll out has slowed considerably.

I wrote a post some months back about Gosford’s upgrade to ADSL2+ due soon, and the possibility that while they were coming this way, they’d drop by and install ADSL2+ here.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t seem to be the case.

Looking at my post at that point, I estimated ADSL2+ services to arrive somewhere in the area of May 2007. It’s now July, so my estimate is a bit off.

I’m hitting a critical point in my service with Netspace, Nutspace, or Nutshape, however you like to refer to them. I’ve noticed outages increase a little in recent times, and that’s a big annoyance. It’s not unstable or anything, just I’ve noticed more outages than I did in the first 6 months or so of service with only 1 BIG outage during that time that lasted nearly the whole day, and I was rather annoyed at that, but accepted the fact they have been rock solid and good value.

Things have changed, I moved and had to move with them, and basically they screwed the move up beyond belief (see posts on here, search Netspace), and caused me to be more annoyed.

At that point, the annoyed radar went very high, and I was really annoyed, however, due to Telstra’s charging methods, we were forced to stay with a 6 month extended contract with them to ensure we wouldn’t disconnect the line (like I would anyway, considering a lot know I am online – every day – so, it isn’t in a flash that I decide.. Yep. I’m sick of ADSL, I’m gonna arrange a disconnection) – Trust me, NextG’s network is far too expensive to even consider using, even on a temporary measure, I’d go dial up.

I’m still rather sticking to my words at this point, the very day the contract is up, the churn application is going to go ahead and Netspace can go and get royally screwed.

The critical point for me is. Who do I go to? If I move, I could be sticking to a new contract, are we getting ADSL this side of November? This side of March? If not, then a new ISP is all the go, I can use the better upload right now too (despite being expensive Telstra’s 8Mb/384k up, the 256k is not really doing us nicely right now with the extent of data management I am doing, and the amount of data flying out of here on the artificially shaped Telstra Wholesale port).

So come the day where my contract is finally up (for the second time) with Nutshape, do I go elsewhere or wait it out?

The 3 month rolling forecast on the Let’s Go chart has really slowed. It seems a lot of exchanges have come active in recent times (even Woy Woy, NSW), but one disappointment is the lack of exchanges being added to expand to.

With the OPEL announcement coming soon too, it’s more and more curious as to what the go is. I had a look at the maps, and there’s no ADSL2+ exchange list. There is no additions to the ADSL2+ Optus exchange list (and not likely, as they aren’t Optus DSLAMs, but OPEL DSLAMs).

So what we need from them is some idea of timing. My next ISP is a little shy on support, but.. well, support? Do I really need it considering that if the connection is stable, they won’t even have to speak to me? If it doesn’t work, I’ll tear them to pieces til they fix it? I think they’ll be fine. But, If I can tell Telstra where to stick this overpriced ADSL1 port, by going with a much better valued ADSL2+ port, then I am all ears. I need to know sooner though, as if time comes by and I can’t see anything changing my way, I’m more likely to stop giving Netshape my dollars and go elsewhere for the mean time, which could have a hidden disadvantage, a contract perhaps after ADSL2+ is installed, and the contract being too expensive to leave from.

Interesting point, they like to get you into contracts, after you’ve done your 6 months minimum connection time with Telstra Wholesale, they insist that if you churn, it’s also a 6 month contract, but I suppose that still puts 24 months from Bigpond right back at sea where it belongs.

I like flexibility, if an ISP annoys me, I wanna be able to tell them where to stick it (with a new ISP :)).

I do hope Optus aren’t slowing down too much with the roll out as they seem to be, I think they have the good theory going, get out there, get customers on hardware, if FTTN does go ahead, so what, we still have customers on more hardware that we can sue Telstra for if they choose to strand the investments.

On the other hand, if they build FTTN themselves, they’ll protect investments from competitors (including the Telstra outdated and artificially shaped hardware) by using Remote Switching technology which will leave all exchange services intact, and allow customers to “switch” the service to the node instead of the exchange at the customers choice. Makes great sense.

Enjoy!

Just a short post on this bit now, the Now We Are Talking site, I’m putting to the test. I read this BlogToon here. The author is basically stating that SingTel is the new tax man.

I’ve put the following reply through, I find this response to be accurate, and reasonable, considering the topic of the post is suggesting that SingTel is the new tax man.

I suppose you should look at it this way.

I would much rather SingTel’s lower “tax rates” than Telstra and Bigpond’s “Excessive Tax Rates”.

Allow me to put an example here:

For a 1GB at 256k with Bigpond, the two tax years Bigpond requires you as a customer is: $3598.80 (based on the 200MB 256k ADSL plan, no phone line bundled).

For a 1GB at 256k with another ISP, the two tax years that you don’t have to stay a member for are: $865.00 (inc. Installation).

So, if you are the “tax payer” in the above scenario, would you really want to be paying the Telstra tax man, or the Exetel tax man?

Both provide the same service. Both provide consistent reliability.

I’m sure there are other examples, but I couldn’t compare to Optus, as the plans they have are all faster, and more data than Telstra’s plan, for example:

24576kb down, and 820kb up for the 1GB data area is $39.95 a month (or $958.80 over the same 2 year tax period that Telstra’s tax man requires you for).

I would start taking bets on the probability that this comment would be censored, but now we know Syd Lawrence, the friendly Telstra Shareholder in Brisbane, reads, it’s got every oppourtunity that the bets would not produce a favourable outcome.

Anyway, the post is here, and we can all certainly test the waters to see if they will go about censoring what I think is a fairly reasonable response to the topic posted.

Back to other news.

Telstra might actually be doing some good soon, they plan to build a cable to the USA. This news is great news.

Why? Well, a few reasons.

1. There are only 2 cables keeping Australia connected to the international areas, one to Japan, one to the USA. They are both in a duopoly state, and don’t generally lower prices to compete, and instead just basically price at or around each other so that they don’t get in each others faces and both make respectable high profits.

2. Introducing a new cable has the effects of:
a. Increasing competition. Telstra can go in, and get competitors signed up to use the cable at a price that is 10 – 20% lower than the current charges.
b. The above scenario would force prices on the other two to come down, to regain marketshare.
c. The duopoly situation will be broken, as Telstra, will hopefully be as an aggressive competitor as they are a aggressive body attacking the government.
d. An extra cable, even if from Telstra, will still provide more redundancy for the national network.
e. Future proofing. Capacity issues that aren’t likely to be reached in the next 10 years will be eliminated for a longer time frame.

3. The flow on effect of encouraging more to build cables: If the small $4 share price company that is Telstra can get an international cable built, the other ISPs out there getting similar dough can do the same, and heck, it might even encourage more private investment in that area.

4. Cheaper consumer services. By pushing those down to rock bottom prices (they all want to keep the business coming), consumers benefit with cheaper prices, because competition in the ISP marketplace will heat up as ISPs find better deals and can use that as a competitive advantage.

The end result of the above is a fight, or a “competition” for ISPs to find the cheapest, yet most valued deal, and pass savings on to consumers to increase profits and market share.

We likely can start to picture the situation of good quality ISPs having links by multiple suppliers at that point, so if the international link is ever broken at one point, there are certainly others to keep the traffic flowing on.

In the same related news, PIPE networks is gaining on getting its International Cable to Guam worked on. In around 2 months we’ll have a newer announcement on the project they propose.

I wonder if OPEL would be prepared to help that out? Actually, the fact is, Optus, a part of OPEL own part of the Sothern Cross network, helping PIPE get a competing cable isn’t on the agenda.

But they price it at just $200 million. That’s pretty cheap from a cable point of view. Amazingly cheap. I hope that goes ahead, because it’s certainly a great deal to get connected to VSNL, who have a keen stake in the international networking business, and will likely want to leverage that cable more to enhance it’s own international agenda.

It’s a great project from the point of view that the international network we all so much depend on gets made more redundant, with backup, and prices come crashing down.

Oh, and Sydney Lawrence hasn’t responded to my questions as yet, it’d be nice to get a response to those questions, as they are as I had said, a hot topic for a shareholder in the industry right now, and I’d be keen to know why, when you consider all those factors and the uncertainty that surrounds the issues, you’d keep such a stake in the company that could be facing a major revenue cut if things turned out bad.

I suppose they do have the PSTN network, so either way they’ll have some asset they can profit off, but still.. There are more certain areas to invest in, like Banking. I started a test portfolio on NineMSN’s site a while back, and I’m kicking myself I didn’t actually buy CBA at that point in time, they rose something like $10 odd a share in just a few months (not likely to happen a second time, but I’m no real investor, was simply playing).That was truly incredible.

Enjoy!

With the launch of BroadbandNOW.gov.au, a site that nearly runs in competition with Whirlpool Broadband Multimedia’s Broadband Choice, the government owned community website takes a different look at helping consumers choose a broadband plan.

The Broadband Choice plan search is more targetted towards the users who know what an “upload” is for example.

The BroadbandNOW site is targetted for the population who does not have a clue what they are looking for, and just want a broadband connection.

I admire the initiative they have taken, they list all plans that are available from various ISPs for users that are metro comparable.

Doing this requires some data tweaking, such as what is currently average among metro plans, and what is available with comparable value in regional areas, at the same comparable price.

The biggest kicker for this site (and perhaps the most admired) is the fact that they won’t list (yet) any plans that have a speed of less that 512/128k, and have a price that exceeds $2500 over 3 years.

I currently spend $79.95 for my connection, over 3 years this comes to $2878.20, and as you can see, this isn’t considered metro comparable, thanks Telstra Wholesale for putting Netspace on the highly priced list.

Of course, that’s not reality, in reality I get 1.5Mbit down (3 times faster than the 512k) and I also get a puny 256k up (2 times faster than the 128k) – interesting point, why is the downstream 3 times fast, and the upload only 2 times fast? Never mind, Telstra at its finest again. I also get (and use in excess of) 40GB of data. The Broadband Now initiatve seems to list 512/128, with a minimum of 1GB (that’s right Bigpond, 1GB, you know, GB, not MB, get with the times).

This is now officially (government) labelling Bigpond’s retail plans as expensive, and not metro comparable.

The next favour they can do for us all stuck with Telstra’s rubbish, is get this site out there, a nice mailout to everyone. Not just a boring old government mailout, but one that users will actually read, and not use for toilet paper. Get some attention to just how poor value Bigpond’s plans are, insult them, just not directly.

With the customers informed and understanding just how not metro comparable the service offered is, and just how better off they’ll be with any other ISP except Bigpond, they will eventually speak volumes to Bigpond’s marketing area, and make some noise.

The noise that currently came from Bigpond’s Craig Middleton, furiously screaming that DCITA has been lazy and sloppy, mis-using a database that was put together for another program entirely.

He then happily claimed that most broadband users enter via a 256kbps plan, as they find their feet in the online world, and move up.

He claims that 256kbps is metro comparable as half the population is using it.

Well, Craig, perhaps you need to revisit why they are using that. Many can’t afford much better based on Telstra’s greed. Do you think that if you offered 256kbps as 9.95, 512kbps for — 14.97 –, 1.5Mbps for — 30.00, and 8Mbit for 50.00, where do you expect most customers to be? I imagine they’ll go for the 14.97 scam (it’s got the right three numbers, a 4, a 1, and a 9).

In the later news surrounding this, the plans from Bigpond, will not be forgotten (dang), instead, they will be listed, with hopefully a prominent “non -metro – comparable” tag next to it, to alert users that this plan is very expensive by general standards, and such prices should only be considered in third world countries.

I think the demand for faster broadband will continue to grow, more and more technology will demand it, and prices will drop enough that every user will want it.

In fact, I get several users asking not for 256, but 512. However, I generally sell most users 256, as this is the “cheaper” entry level that most are prepared to pay for Internet access, this echos the same results in dial up, where many want unlimited for around 30.00, and have come to expect unlimited to be much less than 30.00.

Enjoy!

When you look at the behaviour of many businesses, they all have a common goal, among many of them:

To capture marketshare, and to make a profit.

Now, if you look at just these companies: Telstra, Optus, iiNet, Internode, AAPT, and We’ll throw in Netspace as well.

Telstra: A sold off government fuelled monopoly that is now a private company, and has to meet the interests of its shareholders, and those interests are to bring financial growth to them.

Optus: A smaller company owned by a singapore based holdings company. This company has been attacked repeatedly for being “foreign”, yet Telstra is managed by foreigners and owned by foreign shareholders. Optus started to invest in Australia many years ago when Telstra was first privatised, and began to rapidly target growing its market share. It did this through a number of ways, but the considerable one is that both Telstra and Optus had common goals, to make money, so Optus decided to buy from Telstra, and supply services from Telstra at a profit (while helping Telstra make profits).

iiNet: A smaller company started by an Australian, started as a dial up ISP, went to the broadband resale model, got fed up with Telstra’s greedy antics, and moved to set up its own network (despite the “lost keys” scenario that occurred a little too often). iiNet pioneered a larger part of the industry to start investing in its own network equipment, realising large potential profit from providing customers services themselves. They still like to be a good corporate citizen, they pay ULL and LSS fees to Telstra Wholesale, to help Telstra make a profit.

Internode: A smaller? company, started by an ?Australian. Is still a privately owned company, and also followed the previous two, providing services via Telstra Wholesale, helping Telstra move their barely sellable product to many more users, and rising the profits for Telstra Wholesale, who is Telstra’s top 3 listed profitable companies. Internode had enough also, and ran their own microwave backhaul, and provided their own ADSL services in areas Telstra either didn’t dare go, or were too greedy and priced the services out of reach. After Internode did this, Telstra dropped their prices for some services for THAT area, and that area only. They still are a good corporate citizen though, renting backhaul over to Tasmania, and paying for ULL and LSS, just like the above.

AAPT: Another company who is owned by a foreign company (Telecom New Zealand). The funny twist here with AAPT, and Telstra though, is that Telstra, here in Australia are fighting to keep its monopoly. Telecom New Zealand is the monopoly in NZ, however, is yet to be attacked for being foreign owned, despite having a comparable market share in Australia to many other providers. They provide generally Telstra Wholesale services, helping Telstra sell it’s generally unsellable product, and making Telstra Wholesale even bigger profits.

Netspace: A company that is .. well, another company. They resell services from Telstra Wholesale. Netspace currently have issues with pricing on backhaul to Tasmania (who doesn’t have a problem with backhaul pricing at all anyway?), but indeed the effects are drastic that they must stop selling to customers over in Tasmania, it costs them more than 2 pretty pennies to get the data past the big bully that is Telstra (via a wholesale provider, likely XYZ (Optus)). While Netspace have issues with this, they still like to maintain a good corporate relationship, and move Telstra Wholesale’s some what unmovable product, and help this company to be yet, the next best profitable company in Telstra.

So, with all those examples in mind, they all share a common ground: They alll in some way contribute to Telstra Shareholders profits, and Telstra Wholesale being one of Telstra’s key profitable businesses.

Looking at the reactions the other way, it doesn’t look as well:

Telstra -> Optus: We realise you move a lot of our wholesale product and contribute to such growth within our company, and we thank you, we do this by being racist pigs and slagging you out for the location of the holding company that is Optus’s parent company. Thank you, come again.

Telstra -> iiNet: Thanks for being great purchasers of our wholesale product over recent times and buying our backhaul products and contributing to increasing our Wholesale market share success. For this, you can have higher, and much more anti competitive prices. Thank you, come again.

Telstra -> Internode: Thanks for being fantastic customers of our wholesale product line up. Rather than give you a discount for the amount of business you do with us, instead, we’ll wait for you to make a more measureable move. We will rise prices to areas you find key targets, and make it affordable for you to build your own, and when you do, we’ll lower our prices in that area alone, to cut your prices by around 10%. Thank you, the company that loves “making life easier”, Telstra.

Telstra -> AAPT (Telecom New Zealand): We thank you for being great Wholesale customers. We would like to invest in your country also, but we don’t want you bargaining for the same offer back in our country, as that’s unfair. We want to buy your copper tails from you at a reasonable rate, otherwise we won’t be investing at all. Oh, and if you think about investing in our country, we’ll hold you in court for 10 – 20 years or more. Thank you, we love having your busines s, come again.

Telstra -> Netspace: We thank you kindly, for the amount of backhaul products you purchase, espiecially over our Tasmania link (it’s a beautifully aging link isn’t it?), anyway, we want to inform you that for no apparent reason, we wish to put our prices up for you even further. We find your money is good money, and want you to give us more of your money, so please, accept this 400% rise on your fees, you are our number 2 customer. Thank you, come again (or not).

As you can see from the above, the companies involved all contribute to Telstra’s success in many ways.

Telstra on the other hand, don’t like the success these companies bring them, so they make their lives that much harder in any way they possibly can.

To put Telstra on the scale of corporate citizenship behaviour, we have:

Excellent
Great
Good
Average
Below Average
Poor
Bad
Pathetic
Horrible
Terrible
Terrifying
Telstra

Telstra is far from a terrible corporate citizen, as you can see from the post above, and the scale above. Terrible for Telstra in its current state would be a huge improvement.

The current management team have really lost the plot, do go look at the share price, dropped nearly 30c in just one week! That’s grade A management for you.

They don’t seem to be doing anywhere near a good job of looking after the interests of shareholders, if they did, they’d take the success that Wholesale year in, year out brings them, and expand upon it, and make it very worthwhile for companies to sign more customers up. Give them commercial incentives to stay a loyal Telstra Wholesale customer, and not roll out their own, or buy from competitors, or get on in with OPEL when they roll out.

They very well could offer more wholesale incentives to ensure they keep marketshare, at least on a wholesale level, because once FTTN and OPEL are moving, Telstra are going to wish it was more co-operative and favoured all the dollars Wholesale chucked at them. An earnings downgrade for shareholders is very likely in the near future, and it’s all Telstra’s management fault, for not realising where the business had the most value.

They destroyed the retail arms as much as possible when they walked in the door, with many being heard that they won’t support Telstra just on the poor experiences from the american management team, but who can blame them. They really are not very good participants in the australian community, attacking the Australian government, the ACCC, racist slurs to Australian hiring companies, hypocrisy, attacks against Australian companies, etc.

They aren’t going to get far doing that, they will destroy the Telstra brand, and it won’t take them much more to do it.

Well done Telstra, World’s Worst Corporate Citizen Award.

Enjoy!

… at least, if the TV networks have anything to do with it.

You see, illegal downloading of TV episodes affects TV Networks because they have no viewers to show the ads to.

Now, if you take a popular TV show, like, uhh, Prison Break, off the timeslot it is in, and don’t show it, and instead, put something like, heh, the National Press Club in its timeslot, do you really think the TV network, which is generally funded by advertisers dollars, will reach the same target audience, and therefore have a nice dollar value on that timeslot, due to having a high number of viewers?

I don’t think so.

On the other hand, if you put Prison Break on, in say, Midday on Wednesday, you might expect the number of people reducing their workdays to exclude Wednesday, so they can watch it, or, the more likely, people will program their VCRs, TiVo’s and DVD Recorders to record the TV show instead, and skip the ads by fast forward or crop.

And beside that point alone, if you show something in NSW before you show it in QLD due to a time delay, like showing in QLD on Tues, and NSW on Saturday, do you expect people to be waiting patiently for the Prison Break dose, or do you think they are more likely to, instead, ask their friend in QLD to record and mail it for them?

Or, in the real world case, where TV shows are actually shown months ahead in the US, for example, Prison Break is expected to reach Season 3 in the USA very soon.

Australia is still finishing up on Season 2.

So, of course, if you can get something sooner (months sooner), by using a internet connection, and .. well, similar argument, people could not be torrenting it, and instead, get their friends to express post it over, and still have it here before the networks get the show back up again.

The issue for many is, we want to see the rest of the story unfolding.

The networks, until recently, have ignored the issue, believing the downloaders aren’t placing too much of a dint in the viewing numbers, and therefore can maintain the same dollars, even with piracy.

Of course, this seems to be changing rapidly, with a few networks keen to instead, offer viewing with the ads in tact, at, or around the same time as US showing.

This is great news, we no longer need high speed internet connections with fatter uploads, as the networks are going to start syncing to USA’s networks (not 100%, but of course, in a manner that is reasonable).

So, this should be great news for those who might be mailing Video cassettes from the USA to Australia with titles like “Family Home Video”, and the like.

It might have a follow on effect on to broadband services, with no need for the extra data due to the TV shows starting to align, I predict bandwidth demands might decrease for some to many users, as the TV networks will do the downloading for you.

ISPs might no longer have a need to have higher priced services for heavy users, as the contention ratio for many ISPs is likely to change. Prison Break, Lost and Heroes being very popular TV episodes by world standards, I do think that if the TV networks aligned to a more reasonable (in 24 hours) time slot, the users torrenting the episodes would decline, and therefore, the load on ISPs will reduce significantly, and while the short term, not all users would reduce their quotas, many will reduce over the longer term, as the quota becomes not as necessary.

That would mean short term, higher profits, less stress on the links means that they can downsize. Long term, lower revenue, and therefore lower profits.

That is all assuming the networks sync up more TV episodes, like animated Family Guy and American Dad, which no doubt do still attract a fair bit of P2P users.

TV is it really the problem and the profit for ISPs?

Enjoy!

Today, on ABC, was the National Press Club.

I don’t generally sit there and watch politicians and the media argue on TV, and it’s not really that entertaining. I’d rather waste time explaining to some Whirlpool users exactly why Telstra is doing them no good, or in recent times, well, drahcir, a Whirlpool user who feels that paying $250 to have a WiMAX service installed is “outlandish”, compared to Metro areas, where generally speaking, a user will pay $145 for the service to simply be activated, and they have to buy their own modem ($60+) to use the service.

He seems to be clearly uninformed, when he, in this post declared: There are free setup ISPs around, why pay for it?

Really? Just how long do you want to be with the said “Free set up ISP” after they have slowed your connection, or in the case of the nations ‘icon’ telecommunications company, Telstra and Bigpond, after they have repossessed your home due to excess usage, and insist that you sit the rest of your contract out anyway?

The point here is, the connection to Metro ISPs for broadband is definitely NOT free, and in fact, it’s a very profitable industry for Telstra, charging $145 (ish) to ISPs to get lines activated for services, demanding the customer sits on the service for 6 months or face another $99 early disconnection fee, for a service that is easily supplied, generally in bulk, by a technician doing his daily trip to the exchange, wiring the connection to the port, thank you, see you later (or for your sake, hopefully not so soon).

So, it’s obvious the Free Set Up is a worked in price, and indeed is incorrect, however, when working on the baseline price, that is, the wholesale companies offering, they stated that Elders, as a retail ISP, would be selling installations at around $250 for the WiMAX technology, which is very metro comparable when you use the example I supplied above, with Telstra Wholesale broadband ISPs (currently the largest supplier of ADSL services in Australia, as I am sure many will tell you).

The National Press Club news was all centered generally around Fibre to the node, USO, and the WiMAX network. All of which have been very important aspects of Helen Coonan’s day to day job in recent weeks, and even months.

Some of the questions from the media were indeed targetted and spot on, however, despite my expectations, that she’d struggle and somehow bumble around them, she was very confident in her answers, and the tv was certainly worth the watch to hear her responses.

One question tackled the issue of pornography, with Labour proposing ISP wide filtering, and Coonan proposing Parental Control software for users.

Of course both can be circumvented, ISP wide filters are unnecessary, as some users should be entitled to view content, like Adult Shops and Porn if they so feel like wasting time doing that.

ISP filters can be circumvented by using a Proxy, which is generally very easy for many users to setup.

Parental Filters can be circumvented by the knowledgeable kids by simply ending the process task, booting into Safe Mode where the filter isn’t likely to be running.

Essentially though, the only control that will effectively eliminate underage exposure to unwelcome content is indeed user discretion in the adults, and certainly direct parental supervision in children.

Anything done at the industry level will have a negative impact on audiences that wish to use the content.

As well, Coonan raises a valid point, ISP filtering doesn’t necessarily stop the data arriving via P2P networks, something software on the PC will certainly do a better job at, if configured correctly.

She also agrees, there’s no single blacklist for porn, pr0n, p0rn, nr0p, p-r-0-n and p*rn. As a result, it needs regular updating, and that’s certainly something better managed by Parents, as they can choose what kids are exposed to.

It’s a mammoth task to administer, and take down notices are best placed at this time, until better solutions arise to counter the widespread issue, espiecially when you consider the negative effects its had to people in the NT areas, now requiring Federal Police intervention, and a certainly agreeable suspension or termination of family welfare payments to stop the alcohol and child abuse in those areas.

On the OPEL proposal, using both ADSL2+ and WiMAX to reach regional areas, a nice hot question was asked, which is, when can we expect work to start, and will the election alter the outcome?

Certainly not, as the contract is a commercial contract, so that’s very much a plus for regional australians should the majority get stupid and vote Labour in for some silly political promise without and technical or financial backing evidence.

Further the roll out to ADSL2+ exchanges is expected within weeks, and not months, and the WiMAX network is expected to have had started by September.

That’s great news for many of us Regional users, who would litterally come close to installing their own DSLAMs if the backhaul costs and equipment costs were cheap enough (no kidding, I thought about chucking my own small DSLAM unit in there just so I can have some equivilent service here, tired of the artificial 256kbps shaping!).

And in a final topic, the USO was a hot topic of the moment, many asking the top question of what plans will the USO review have effects with in the Australian telecommunications industry.

So, the USO review questions revealed the following:

1. That Telstra may not be the USO provider on the other side.
2. Telstra’s claim that USO is costing it as much as 2 times more than what industry contributes, and its supposed to be based off market share…
— Just a side note here, who has the largest market share, as Whirlpool user Tolmartyr will repeatedly tell anyone who dares question it ? Telstra.
So with USO rates based on Market Share, Telstra should have a big market share USO bill.
3. They plan to consider how it is adminstered, and if rates need changing, they will change.
4. She did raise this very accurate and agreeable point:
Telstra should not be responsible for USO in the Greenfields estates where another company is contracted bid winner for the telecommunications projects in that area, and the installing carrier should probably be responsible.
5. She did give some possible indication that perhaps the USO could be done by someone else, and the USO funds go entirely to it.

I do agree in part with the USO guidelines, but feel, things could perhaps be managed better for all industry players if a seperate body was setup, and anything to do with the USO went directly to IT, and as such the financials would be a lot more clearer, and market share could still play a stake in who pays what for the USO.

That makes logical sense all around, but the top question I think is:

If Telstra is a Wholesale and Retail provider of the copper network, that makes them the one with the largest market share, simply because they have the income coming in, and very profitable too, from Wholesale users, and as such they deal with Telstra for service provision, and can’t really do much themselves.

I think that therefore calls for anyone who provides the actual infrastructure subject to USO therefore be liable to pay for USO.

I mean, you can’t expect Joe Blow ISP down the road to pay for USO because he has all the locals on his ADSL2+ broadband service, can you? I mean, all those customers have phone lines on Telstra Home Line Budget, because Joe Blow’s ISP motto is simply: “Screw Telstra”, and as a result, customers do exactly that, with VoIP to ensure they really bend Telstra over and give them the royal rear scraping they so deserve?

Enjoy!

Firstly, I have no idea just how much money has moved under the tables with this news, as it certainly does seem someone is being paid to publish what could be rubbish.

It seems like they are happy to write what seem to be lies.

Here’s some of the lines from the article in question:

OPEL, which has no experience building or operating a WiMAX network, was chosen over competing bids from Telstra, the incumbent telecom, and the AUSAlliance, comprised of Austar and Unwired, who own and operate some 200 Mhz of WiMAX spectrum covering the extent of Australia.

OPEL have experience in wireless networks.

Think about it this way, did the first company to use a WiMAX network have experience to start with, using a WiMAX network? No. So how on earth would they get experience? Exactly. Deploy it, see how it works. If it doesn’t, they’ll find the bugs quick enough, or if need be, change technology used to the upgradeable WiMAX mobile.

Following the government announcement, OPEL admitted that in fact it would use a combination of WiMAX and ADSL technologies to build the network. The joint venture also will invest some US$775 million of its own money in the project.

It plans to use ADSL2+, and not ADSL technology. Further, it plans to use WiMAX where ADSL2+ coverage is not feasible at all. That makes logical sense.

However, the plan set forth by OPEL will not use standardised WiMAX, which relies on licensed radio spectrum in low frequency bands. The OPEL plan calls for the use of unlicensed spectrum in high frequency bands (5.8 GHz and 28 GHz).

They plan to possibly use 5.8Ghz. Nothing near 28Ghz. Further, the usage of 5.8Ghz shouldn’t be much of a problem for MANY, because neighbours in the city live right on top of each other, and you don’t see any issues with differing or same cordless phones, and home wireless networks don’t interfere with cordless phones, despite using the exact same 2.4Ghz network.

Although room for interference exists, it’s not likely to be a problem for the many, and for those that it is, well, it’ll be more likely they have issues with FM radio than it is with 5.8Ghz.

The choice of radio spectrum in this plan has been criticised by many in Australia as grossly inefficient because the cost is more than double of what could be achieved using lower frequencies.

Sure that might be the case, but what lower frequency do they have to use, at the same time realising that this is a government and private funded project, and as such they need the dollars to go as far as they can go. So, using a spectrum they don’t have to pay a bill for is .. well, smart!

ADSL technology requires an existing network of copper telephone lines, which is convenient for cities that have an installation. However there is no such network in rural Australia. The time and cost of laying thousands of miles of copper wire that connect to far-reaching areas is a technological step backwards.

There is a copper network in regional australia. They plan to lay 0 copper wires, as they plan to use ULL or LSS in existing areas with copper phone lines in place.

Where on earth they pulled that rubbish from is beyond me. If it’s somehow a paid for comment post with Telstra involved, this marks a new low of stupidity for them, they have no idea what the assets they have are!

The url of the article is here: http://www.wimaxday.net/site/2007/06/21/us15-billion-and-on-the-internet-no-one-knows-i%e2%80%99m-a-kangeroo/
You might notice that Telstra decided to jump on it to discredit OPEL even further, but the deal is done, they’ll get the towers up, and the technology in, and worst case scenario, they change technology either now or down the track to a technology that is just as capable, if not further, with minimal change to customer side equipment. WiMAX Mobile comes to mind, which is a upgrade from the fixed WiMAX anyway.

On the other hand, it could just be someones uninformed and uneducated post, in which case it still should be given minimal credit. They’ve done bugger all research to come to the conclusion regional australians don’t have copper at their doorsteps.

Enjoy

.. Are the questions I want to ask Telstra’s Now We Are Talking.

They will seemingly be happily racist about Singapore, despite the fact that Optus is an Australian company, employing Australian people, and is owned, not as they want people to believe, by the Singapore Government, but as fact shows, a Holdings company in Singapore.

The FTTN debate or struggle, is now getting more competition around the tender process, with the G9 consortium and Telstra, now having to welcome Deutsche Telekom to the bidding board.

This does a few things.

It’s almost certain Telstra won’t be building FTTN, they are too expensive, and with two other proposals that should state exactly that, we’ll see either a G9 proposal, or a Deutsche Telekom proposal on the drawing boards for approval.

However, consider this, Telstra have been very vocal about Optus being involved in a consortium of 9 Australian companies, stating that giving dollars to the Singapore Government is a bad thing.

With this in mind, what happens when the dollars aren’t going to a Singapore based Holdings company, but instead, to a German Telecom company?

Is that as bad? Or is that good? Or do we simple shut our big racist traps on the issue? Nice hot topic to ask those American Telstra Racists!

With FTTN competition heating up, things are looking good all around for Australian consumers. Telstra is about to shave a heap of revenue off, and that will equate to lower profits, and that’ll equate to a company transformation, with Telstra likely wanting to get in on the action.

Deutsche Telekom have also been in contact with G9 members, and apparently would like them to manage the network should they be successful in their tender for an FTTN network!

With all this in mind, as well as the Australia Connected announcement, Telstra is being put in a very strategic position, more of a government based Strategic Positioning outcome.

With Telstra stuck in a corner, unable to compete with newer technologies due to regulation, the positioning would soon realise something, very, very important.

Telstra has the last mile, and will continue to whinge and whine about how it can’t compete due to regulations.

They’ll keep that up all they can. However, what will the end result be?

When shareholders start losing value, they’ll want more of the moolah, so Telstra will have to reposition itself.

In order to compete, and for it to be able to compete effectively, without the issues it currently has with regulation, it needs to remove regulations.

The government have stated that regulations are here to stay where a monopoly exists (and will exist while Telstra owns the last mile copper).

The solution, which has been staring them straight in the face, and even echoed through New Zealand, and recently, in the UK, BT’s CEO claims the success was cooperating with regulators, and the government to split BT up.

A demerger.

A common misconception about demergers are that they will destroy shareholder value, due to the loss of the big asset, but in reality, they actually cause financial markets to improve, why?

Easy, Telstra have said this for months now, Regulations are stopping them investing. They also recognise that Regulations exist to promote competition.

The missing link in all that was: Competition needs Regulation. Regulation promotes Competition. Therefore, for the ACCC to do their job of protecting consumers and competition, they must ensure regulations remain.

The solution to the problem?
Easy. Telstra prices its infrastructure services at a reasonable level, and regulations start to back off (not likely).
Telstra does as BT CEO said recently, “Divide and Conquer”. That is, lose the reason for regulations, invest, and see some shareholder value released.

At this very minute (and every minute Now We Are Talking remains online) Telstra are very quickly destroying shareholder value, so much so to the point where shareholders will need to speak up, or Sol will do what happened at US West and accounting records will somehow get falsified, or, he’ll open his dang eyes and see that he is running the company into the ground, and therefore needs to divide and conquer.

Relax, a second company can have regulations, and they can be a competitor.

They can finally see what its like to be forced to start paying bills at ridiculous prices, but more likely, the opposite will happen, prices will come down across the industry, because the network infrastructure body will want to make a return, as well, will want to do its own infrastructure rollouts so it doesn’t go broke when the copper network degrades away at a rate beyond repair.

Back to point 1, when Deutsche Telekom submit, are we going to see racism out of Telstra? Or a reason why Germany is better than Singapore? I’m keen to see this. Very entertaining! I’m sure the shareholders will ask the same thing, why is Germany better? Or are we racist to everyone?

Enjoy!

.. That’s right, I am now ready to announce the winner of the poorest journalism yet.

The choice was indeed difficult, with choices from Alan Kohler, who seemed to think undecided on the broadband scene, despite being a financial reporter, had made several comments, that were simply incorrect.

We had the author responsible for the trash that is wps.

Certainly a few others to list here.

But the cream, the absolute Poorest of all Journalism reports, must go to this lucky winner: http://www.crn.com.au/story.aspx?CIID=83740&src=site-marq

The article is about a Report that says broadband is not critical. The report is fine.
The investigative reporting by the “Staff Writers” behind the article is not.

The below is the part of the article that immediately discredited the entire article, so much so that the rest of the content can only be assumed to also have came from the same arse cheek the below did:

If Telstra wins, the Government will pay over $4.5 billion for four million Australian households to be supplied with VDSL broadband that can reach maximum speeds of 50mbps (upgradeable to 100mbps).

Optus’ G9 opposition proposes a $3.6 billion investment to supply ADSL broadband to four million Australian households, providing them with maximum speeds of 24mbps (upgradeable to VDSL, or 50mbps).

The problems with those paragraphs are easily identified.

The Australian Government have repeatedly stated that the private sector will fund any FTTN roll out, because they are willing to, the government doesn’t believe they need to see any dollars for such a rollout, they are indeed capable of doing so themselves (with some regulation help).

Telstra’s network cannot supply 50Mbps on FTTN, there are no allowed VDSL standards allowed to be deployed in Australia yet.

Optus and G9 are two seperate things. Optus are Optus, and Optus are a member of nine companies, with no controlling interest in the G9 consortium. Read that. No Controlling Interest. Therefore, it’s not Optus’ G9. It’s the G9 consortium. Get it right.

Telstra’s proposal isn’t for 4.5billion, it’s for 4.1billion. 4.5billion isn’t mentioned anywhere from any source related to FTTN, another figure pulled out of the arse?

And further, both networks are upgradeable, but not just to 50Mbps for the G9 and 100Mbps for Telstra, both are indeed FTTN, and as such are upgradeable to FTTH, and therefore speeds unheard of yet.

I thought, that’s just lazy, piss poor, reporting.

You don’t have to be overly close to know those facts outlined above.

But, it seems Staff Writers believe they didn’t have to do any investigative reporting at all, and just pull facts that they wanted to out of their collective arse, and turn a report from an IT Analyst into a .. well, article without any credible information at all due to the incorrect and misleading information of just those two paragraphs.

I contacted them about it, I have had enough of piss poor journalism. If you are going to actually report the news, at least grab FACTS and make a report based on facts.

Anyway, it wasn’t just a few hours later I got a reply late last night.

They had said that the entire article, was provided by the IT Analyst, Guy Cranswick. (Note the winner of Poor Journalism Award doesn’t even show consistency in their typing abilities, spelling Guy’s name incorrectly at least once in the article, or again in the email (or both)), they suggested that if I believed part of it incorrect, I should contact Guy and forward my comments onto him.

And, I certainly did do that.

Guy replied, after receiving my email indicating to him that if he really wants to be an analyst, he should do more analyzing, and less false reporting.

His response to me after he read the article was that the items in question were not even in his report, and his report was not only related to Productivity gains in faster broadband, which makes sense, an IT Analyst is checking as to whether a fatter pipe will make staff work faster, obviously not, but it has cost reductions and other better incentives for business.

Anyway, the bottom of it was that he hadn’t wrote that at all, and the article didn’t even indicate this, however, Staff Writers did.

So, CRN appeared to have been dishonest with me. That wasn’t good, considering I did indeed tear into Guy’s Analyst skills in an email, and he received a rather critical email, for which I apologised to him for, and certainly sent along a copy to him of CRN’s Staff Writers response stating that he had supplied those paragraphs.

With that clarified, I emailed CRN back, asking for a Please Explain, and further outlining that they can’t go about spreading incorrect information in the media, those who read that article could indeed get several items that are important around the FTTN debate incorrect, the most important of which is of course the fact that they state the G9 network can only go as fast as 50Mbps, when in reality, right now, with Fibre Line Cards and Fibre to the home, customers could have 10Gbps at their houses, and even more!

It creates Telstra’s proposal as better because its upgradeable to faster speeds, when it indeed is not any different to the G9 proposal. And further, they take on the similar line Telstra does, and places ownership of the G9 in Optus hands, when in reality, none of the 9 members will ever have any controlling ownership. They never can, it’s in the proposal.

It’s not the SingTel Optus G9, it’s not Optus’s G9, it’s not the SingTel G9, it’s not the Optus G9, It’s not the Singapore G9. It’s just the G9 consortium. What’s so dang hard to gather from that? Nothing.

Anyway, well done CRN. Your journalism standards are piss poor, I’ve seen better reporting from Today Tonight, and anyone familiar with certain events will know just how poor Today Tonight is. And CRN, you are below them.

Congratulations, keep up the .. poor work. (Don’t really, it’ll do more damage than its worth).

Enjoy!

Found a spare ten minutes today to have a sticky in the In The News forum on Whirlpool (and I don’t normally hang out there at all), but I saw this rather appealing topic, the topic of the young not able to afford something so important as Home Ownership.

Anyway, as I normally do with long, In The News threads that I do read, I skim through as much off topic or repeat, or useless arguments as possible, and get to see as many posts containing fact based opinion. I came across one post, which caught my eye, he didn’t say much, but the link he posted said millions (litterally).

An article by David Van Der Klauw on what can be only seen as the closest to the truth on the Housing Crisis in the Sydney area.

I don’t take anyone for an idiot, so I’m not going to dumb the article down, you can go read it. What I will do is, when that article loaded, it was huge. I thought, it’s gonna take me a fair bit to tear this apart, I was ready to hit the close button, but I started reading to see if it was worth more than face value.

What I found was both eye opening and certainly gives a great point of view on the housing issues.

Of the most interest was the Orange scenario, titled Reality Bites Oranges.

It basically tells a story of how several boys had to get oranges with money given to them to buy from the school canteen, all were told to buy one orange a day.

However, the canteen owners enjoyed toying with the supply, and therefore raising demand, which meant prices would rise due to lack of supply, and same demand.

So, what the result was, was a lot missed out, except for the richer kids who continued to get oranges, despite being priced at where bananas were a few months back!

The mothers of the boys stormed the school and found the source of the greed and.. well, fixed it. All oranges were back to sane prices after supply was increased again.

Essentially, when you put this view over the Sydney housing issues, you clearly see a greater part of the problem isn’t to do with not having money to afford houses, or houses all of a sudden being worth a bit.

That’s right all you Sydney Homeowners, you own a house, but its not really worth as much as you think it is, because you have to obviously sell the house to get the value out of it, and you have to also sell it quickly before everyone else does, otherwise demand might slow, or supply might increase, and all of a sudden, you lose value.

Of course, you could quit work (assuming you own in Sydney because you live in Sydney), but what do you do to pay the mortgage on a new house, further out, where industry might not be at its highest?

Essentially one thing really does need to happen to satisfy not just the housing issue, but also, the critical infrastructure issues, such as housing, telecoms, etc.

Supply doesn’t really need to speed up with demand.
Demand shouldn’t have to drop to support supply.

Industry should expand out into the not so densely populated areas of the country.

What this will do is a few things.

Industry moving out into more areas creates more jobs, moves the housing demand to areas with more supply, and will essentially force infrastructure changes such as that to housing and telecom to support the new growth and demand.

It creates jobs for those capable, but just not in the right area.
It creates housing demand for the areas where housing is just in high supply.
It expands industry to areas where there is only a low industry level.

It basically solves several issues!

On the other hand, our government could indeed help out. They don’t even have to spend a dollar.

Remove the First Home Owners Grant, or at least, apply it in a manner that doesn’t mean prices rise as a result of it.
Zone more area. That’s right, create more supply to satisfy demand.

From my talks with David by email, he indicated the root of the problem is entirely the fact that there is just not enough houses to cope with the families in demand for them, and as a result the Greedy Pigs (I should say home owner, right?), are milking it for all they can. Which is OK I suppose, considering its a free market.

The other solution is obviously, instead of zoning out land, and using up another resource, and as well, changing industry, the new developments, should all start looking at being apartment buildings, except, use the air space, so one house each level, that way land is not just given out like its going out of fashion, demand is satisfied due to increased supply out of the one spot, and the dream of young home (apartment style) is indeed fulfilled for many.

Sure it doesnt’ have a big backyard, but that’s not the real issue, the real issue is densely populated areas are simply choked with not enough houses to cope with demand, and no where to build more of them.

Read the article, it doesn’t say all I have said here, and I didn’t find time to read all of it.

I read the best bit I found, Reality Bites Housing, and immediately felt this article is something incredible. If you are also a Sydney Greedy Pig, or home owner, certainly have a read of it also, and just realise how low valued your house really is.

When I look at this issue, I realise something is going to give soon. Either the government will zone more land, or a lot of people will become bankrupt, and something else will break, essentially, SOMETHING IS GOING TO BREAK.

Just as is the case with the Telstra, G9, FTTN debate. Sooner or later, something will break, and the path will become clearer. The government stuffed it up, by selling Telstra with infrastructure, the fix is certainly something they can help work out, whether its stronger regulations, or they go the other way, and just pay for FTTH and let Telstra squirm as it struggles to maintain market share.

Enjoy!

What a surprise.

She’s been evicted. I had her flagged as one most likely to continue right on to the end of Big Brother.

I wonder if the poll had “issues” of some sort? Nah, Big Brother wouldn’t risk the negative media, would they!?

Anyway, with Emma gone, Big Brother is starting to take a different shape.

Aleisha doesn’t have Emma, someone she spent a great deal of time with, and as such might fall over and be somewhere on the next eviction list, that is, unless she is more independant on her own and forms more friendships with others.

Emma being a big personality also will have an affect on a lot of the house, for example, Jamie now needs a new nomination target, as she isn’t there for him to plant his votes on, and he might be voting more strategically now anyway, in the leadup to the finish.

I would have expected the evictees to be Rebecca and Daniela, mainly because Daniela is an intruder and hasn’t been set up as a big personality in the house, and therefore an easy target, as well, Rebecca hasn’t been a favourite housemate really.

The expected Rebecca was saved, however, of all the nominees, I would seriously have thought Emma to be one of the few that would remain.

Andrew might be getting a little more confident in his stay in the house now too, considering he has survived so many nominations.

The bigger question is that Emma doesn’t seem to have done anything different in the week to trigger a eviction vote, so perhaps a few factors came into play.

Such as, the fact that there were a lot of housemates up for eviction, and everyone else assumed like I did that a lot of people would just vote out the boring housemates, Daniela and Rebecca.
Perhaps the voting pool was smaller, and there was a larger density of votes for Emma, due to the lack of votes for others.

Or, perhaps the fact the nominations were based solely on strategy, and people wanted to change the outcome from Emma being a possible winner, after it was exposed that she does a great amount of influencing in the house that changes peoples decisions, and those in favour of Andrew or Jamie winning took the nomination as an advantage to get her out now?

I guess with Emma gone, the house could become a lot more boring, the current residents (aside from the new female entrant ) don’t really place much entertainment in the show.

Travis avoids an argument at all costs.
Jamie – “NOT CRYING”. 🙂
Andrew – Only if it affects him directly.
Aleisha, checking if Jamie is crying.
Zoran – Stuffing his face, a new evictee soon, I imagine.
Joel – Couldn’t make a clown smile.
Thomas – Any more time in the mirrors, he’d know exactly how many strands of hair he has on his head.
Billy – When he isn’t sucking up to Aleisha, I don’t see him much to create any conflict in the house.
Laura – Intruder, she’s safer staying low until she builds up some close relationships in the house to gain reinforcement

As you can see, the lineup of housemates are pretty boring, and they aren’t going to be at each others throats, unless they each provoke each other to do so, and even then, they are too quiet, or “NOT CRYING”, and that’s going to make the show a little more boring.

Of course the above comments are made from a more relaxed view of the show, I don’t watch it too much, but enough to catch any major changes, and the fun that is Friday Night Live.

The new intruders could stir things up a little, but that’d just see them evicted the next time they could be nominated, and with 3 nominees up, its likely that they will be somewhere in the top 3 to go!

So, it could turn boring from this point on, with evictees now receiving cars (Ozooma’s sponsorship expired in favour of Drive.com.au), or it could just become a lot more interesting.

Perhaps the two groups are going to clash together in to one with Emma gone, although, Emma did sort of hold an influential leadership role in the house, so with that gone, others might not be influenced any more, or the opinions change quickly.

The winners I have flagged to win now are in no particular order are Jamie, Andrew, Travis. The others are too quiet and don’t hold enough public attention to get the support required in the final weeks, so they need to spin off some action quick if they want to get some public support to win.

With an announcement from the government due soon about the changes proposed to the FTTN network idea, there has been plenty of speculation.

However a recent news article in SMH mentions that the federal government might be throwing money at a network afterall, but not billions.

Oi John, How about you just thank Labor for the idea, and copy the plan completely? You are basically following their ideas as it is anyway.

Of course, the catch is they will not be throwing billions at the fibre network, and instead will propose that government subsidies be used where appropriate to reach Regional and Rural areas.

I don’t agree with the idea of taking funds from the Future Fund, sure it gets me a fast internet connection, and the idea is sound in that the returns would go back in the Future Fund, but if they are only making 8%, where as the financial market can give them 15% or more, with only a marginal increase in risk, the money is doing better elsewhere.

They could in fact take some of the 15% instead to use in extending Regional Broadband services though, as the effect isn’t taking “all” the funds, and instead just reduces the returns bought into the Future Fund.

As for rumours they would be adding $300m to the $600m broadband connect plan, that really does sound like a great idea.

It also adds more credit to the networks idea that Optus, with Elders, and another company are both getting funds to roll out broadband services to Regional and Rural areas.

The expected purposes for the roll out would be a combination of backhaul, and customer services.

Doing this would reduce their Telstra dependance, and promote competition in regional areas removing the problem of high stupidly priced Telstra backhaul.

With competing backhaul, we can only see Telstra’s prices be forced down.

The same is the goal of Project Runway, PIPEs proposal to connect Australia with Guam, and offer more competing backhaul, forcing prices down lower.

And with Telstra planning to run its own $300m cable to the US, and remove the spending to Southern Cross cables and AJC, the pressure will be on those to price harder and compete better in the international transit market.

I think there are still more room in the areas of P2P caching before any drastic measures are taken with international capacity, as most of the P2P demands do actually flow overseas, and caching that data locally using packet matching techniques would certainly reduce the need for high capacity links to the US and the rest of the planet.

We do need faster broadband services, we don’t need to spend billions on duplication, however, we do need to take the regulatory change, and spend the dollars on removing Telstra’s private monopoly as a problem for most ISPs, and a problem for pricing in the industry, and instead, encourage the competition to invest, and have protection in investing in their own equipment.

We don’t need Telstra overbuilding, we don’t need Telstra threatening. The sooner Telstra loses its infrastructure, the better off we all are.

Phil Burgess attacking the ACCC and showing support for an ALP tax payer funded broadband plan was the last straw.

Telstra have now placed themselves in a dark spot.

The government is going to establish a committee to review and create a framework for faster broadband services and use this, as a sticking tool to guide proposals, and determine if they are what could be deemed fair in the area.

The review committee DOES consist of Graeme Samuel, among others.

Peter Costello was quoted by several media sources in a manner that would lead one to believe that he does his job, and does it well, espiecially with Telstra.

This committee has a few tasks at hand it should look at.

Costs of starting an ISP under any proposed model. Will it put it just out of reach for the fly by nighters, but definitely in reach, and allow for workable solutions for ISPs that mean business?

The differential aspect of ISPs. Sure, competition is great, but there’s no point if all 240+ ISPs offering the technology are restricted and are offering the same technology, it’d be pointless.

Competition model. The proposal should encourage competition, and move as far away from the current price squeeze we have with Telstra Wholesale right now.

Guaranteed Services. No point creating a network if its going to be torn to shreds by leechers. So, the proposal must allow for expansion, encourage innovation, and provide some guarantee behind services being provided, so that no one is going to get a “no” answer, to having a fault fixed, and more to it, everyone is going to be getting a service where it is commercially fit to do so.

With these in mind, as a minimum, they should create a governing framework around them which any proposal needs to fit within prior to be considered acceptable for a monopoly style service.

That’s saying that they should state the costs, and state them accurately, they should state any proposed regulatory requirements, and the effects they’ll have on competition, they should state exactly how the proposal satisfies the above, and agree to satisfy the above.

Essentially, the goal should be to outline all the factors stopping investment in this country, and identify ways of encouraging investment, as well, it should allow for investors in any company to not be out of pocket.

That is, not in support of Telstra, but it should allow prices to be priced at a level where the investment will pay for itself, and give shareholders some return.

In the case of a national proposal, they should state the areas they plan to cover, and the extent that coverage is going to cost, and take, and just how they will look after the areas they are in, as well, it should not restrict competition in other networks in areas where they have no intentions of extending to, allowing for two networks.

With all that in mind, the idea at the end of it all is to place a tender for the FTTN, allowing for price based competition on the price. So, we have $30 from Telstra Wholesale, $28 from G9, $26 from Elders, $22 from iiNet, $16 from Internode, $9.90 from DoDo.

And we all of a sudden can find the middle ground of what can be classed as an acceptable proposal in the $16 to $28 price bracket.

And with that in mind, they COULD allow for bids to be bounced off each other, in true auction style, and see who’ll do it cheapest, and the Government sets the criteria it must meet. Eg. Service all customers in a single area, Provide at least 24Mbps to those people, Service established by end of November 2007. With all those in mind, they could hold an auction for bidders to get the rights to do such a network!

That’d have Telstra out for sure. And we’d all benefit.

One common argument that people use to favour Telstra is they have experience building networks.

I’m surprised anyone can say that. Telstra limited ADSL1 to 1.5Mbps for 7 years, later, they gave us 8Mbit, but with a 384kbps upload.

Looking at JUST that, we can clearly see they lack basic network management skills.
iiNet and Internode have VERY happy customers on their ADSL2/2+ plans, with speeds in excess of 12Mbit.
Just that alone shows that Telstra are either very slow, or lack experience building networks.

They of course have had the copper network for years, and to add to the above, it’s got 18% of lines with faults.

Doesn’t look like great network OR asset management to me. The opposite would apply, its poor to say the very least.

The tender process does seem like a good move for our FTTN network. Let’s just see if they get it up and going before the election, and that might encourage a change in votes. I don’t want to see our country destroyed by Labour again, but I don’t want to wait another 11 years for anything close to broadband to arrive here.

That’s right.

Internode have had to raise prices on plans, from around $5 to $40 to reflect the true costs in supplying those plans. That’s fair if you ask me. They’ve basically gone downhill for a while, and a rise to recoup losses from high speed abusive users is certainly in order.

Can’t be in business if you are giving products away, right?

Well, looking at some of the responses to the news, it seems a lot of users expect their product to be the same price, even if it is a loss making product!

I suppose they could do that. Leave it making a loss for a few months, and when they’ve made all the loss they can handle and have to close doors, leave the users stranded.

Stranded, offline, no ISP to go to that offers plans or service at the desired level they have come to expect.

That’d wash down nicely wouldn’t it?

The comment that I found most amazing was this:
i find it strange one of the g9 members raise their pricing and piss of a whole heap of customers when they are trying to win over the public ??

From a whirlpool user, named drahcir, located here: http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=753133&p=38#r747

The company wasn’t actually trying to piss off a whole heap of customers at all, in fact, I imagine the change would be happily accepted by a lot of customers affected, and those that are affected heavily will move to another ISP, who will either raise prices to cope with their bandwidth abuse, or become another Wild, or under provision links to the extent where customers can’t get full speed at all on their own ADSL2+ network, cough, Netspace, cough.

I think that Internode are leaders in the ISP market.

They provision links to cover capacity, and monitor links.

They monitor their equipment and rectify outages quickly, whilst keeping customers informed.

They don’t limit customers to Off Peak usage, although, I love this in ISPs. It’s a great value added feature, and I think Internode SHOULD take it up. So what if some don’t like it, others WILL, and it will help them balance the network better for those that don’t care either way. Should send that off to Simon for his 2cents.

I still don’t see a need for users to tear Internode apart for what is a “fair” increase. If you don’t like the changes, leave, .. if you can find a better deal from an ISP that is not likely to go out of business, and from an ISP that has technicians that know how to manage a network (no finger pointing).

I would be an Internode customer, if only three things, they give Off Peak usage, it’s a value added option for me, it provides cheaper prices and helps balance links, and they have free PIPE usage, and I wasn’t locked in contract with Netspace.

I would move on the free PIPE idea, because I know they have free streaming anyway.

I would more likely move to ADSL2+, when Long Jetty gets it. Seemingly still taking a fair bit of time to even get a mention in the Let’s Go PDF, and I know there’s some Whirlpoolians that want it too. And we still have 49 results in Google for Long Jetty +ADSL, so again, there’s want for it, it’s just waiting on an ISP to fill in the missing gap, a DSLAM in Long Jetty exchange!

Thinking about each technology, the advantages and disadvantages of each are pretty obvious:

FTTN (fibre to the node) works by moving the exchange, closer to the home.

All of Australia’s telephone exchanges are connected to each other with backhaul, in the form of fibre.

This fibre network carries data between Telstra exchanges (generally phone calls, as well as Telstra Wholesale and Bigpond internet data).

This is setup in a manner that applies QoS to all Voice traffic on its own private network, and the internet services provisioned use the rest (still generally the users line speed, and some).

Bandwidth requirements is a key thing to look at.

Let’s not be Bill Gates and state no one will ever need more than 640k of RAM, let’s face it, years later and I have 3024MB of RAM capable of running laps around the RAM Bill was talking about.

What we don’t really need right now however, is 50Mbps.

What users generally need is speeds in the range of 5 – 25 Mbps, with around 512 – 2Mbps of upload.
Those requirements are easily satisfied with an ADSL2+ network.

The speeds aren’t guaranteed from exchange to door, and degrade very quickly. A solution to that is to bring the exchange closer, they do that by placing nodes, in strategic locations.

But, what happens when FTTN becomes a dated technology? We could all still use it for 50Mbps+ VDSL, or investigate the UDSL standard and give everyone 200Mbps!

The issue with that all is, FTTN will eventually become a redundant technology. In around 5 years, the 25Mbps quoted above will leave users with a thirst for faster services, yet again.

The FTTN would likely be upgraded to VDSL2, costing millions, or billions more, and leaving us, 10 years later (or less) with a thirst for more speed.

As you can see, the pattern forming is, Australia will be chasing its tail on keeping up to speed, this is due to the slow rollout (first mention of FTTN was 2005, get it started all bloody ready) of technology, and the way innovation has previously worked (rather than bringing new technology in before we are needing it, we wait til there’s lots of demand).

Adequate forecasting says that with technology change, consumer change will be expected.

Second Life for example, is a virtual world game, it consumes a fair bit of bandwidth, chuck a child online doing their homework, and a few ulaw phone calls, and eventually that 512kbps is consumed, and we are running at limits.

What needs to happen is we need to provision enough bandwidth to satisfy the investment requirements of suppliers of the technology.

If we go with the G9 and its 12 year monopoly, we must obviously understand that they want to make a return on all they spend on the network, and obviously innovate and make some more off that network (makes sense).

If in 10 years though, FTTP for the majority of homes would cost something like 7billion, is going to FTTN even worth it?

Of course, let’s just stop there, and say:

FTTN is a workable network, they can stick fibre line cards in the nodes, and make more use of the nodes, this is done by replacing the ADSL2+ or VDSL2 cards with fibre line cards, and running fibre cable to the homes.

Therefore, the cost wouldn’t include the initial work that’s already been done to get the nodes there for the initial 12 years or so, reducing the cost for the same area to something like 3 billion for FTTP.

Once you reach FTTP (fibre to the premises), the bandwidth possibilities are endless, as the fibre cable and fibre network are very much expandable.

The important figure here, is not installation, that will always make a return for the investor.
Maintenance, however, is an expense, and is a cost to the investor.

Therefore, rather than maintaining copper wires, spending the money on FTTP would work out cheaper in the long run, with no need to maintain outdated copper wires.

If they did that now, they wouldn’t have to worry about Telstra at all, that’s right, they could keep the 14.89 Telstra is expecting for the ULLS services from FTTN to themselves, instead, make them get 0.00 from the cable, and put some fibre out.

That would leave Telstra scratching their head wondering why they didn’t keep their greedy, fat, pestering mouths shut and agree to 5.00 (ish) for the half copper wire.

Sounds like a plan to me!