TOCPCs – The Elite Geeks Blog

This Christmas-New Year period on Australian roads has been better thus far then previous years, with the road toll down to 2 from 7 last year in New South Wales.

That’s great news in the face of the busiest period on the roads, but perhaps the rush will be on the way back home?

Or has Kevin Rudd’s “Don’t end up like my dad” message had some effect?

Is Kevin Rudd more of a Celebrity Prime Minister and having an appeal on people?

As at 10pm, news.com.au reported the national road toll standing at 17, with the recent crash, one at Noraville where a 43 year old met a 19 year old driver.

His ute was found on the wrong side of the road, and police quoted alcohol as being suspected as contributing to the accident.

“If you drink and drive, your a bloody idiot”.

“Wouldn’t you rather arrive alive?” – comes to mind as a bumper sticker. Might stop some of those who like to ride your arse despite doing the speed limit.

The accident report at 10pm brings the road toll to 3 for New South Wales, still better than the 7 last year.

Though I must admit, traffic has been thin on the roads, so perhaps that’s the reason there is little in the way of accidents. We still have a stack of tourists climbing our way, but the traffic isn’t TOO bad (it’s manageable, you see an idiot, call them a tourist (or terrorist, as the nickname goes), and try and anticipate the stupid move they’ll make next.

Such as slowing down to a crawls pace, or driving down the wrong side of the road, as we have seen in the last day.

It is always in the anticipation however, even in regular driving, anticipate what the next idiot is likely to do.

Maybe people have caught on and started doing this more, and as a result less fatalities have occurred?

It’ll be interesting to see the national results for the entire period, last year 61 was the magic number, and if everyone takes the same care going back in to home, as they did travelling out from it, hopefully the count will be in the low 40s as a maximum. That’d be a great relief for the nation as a demonstration that safe driving can be done.

As a side note however, in the face of a low road toll, there have been thousands of charges and fines applied to motorists for speeding, and drink driving related offences, which is where the alarms are focused no doubt.

And perhaps next year the market will be more on lowering the number of arrests police make, as opposed to reducing the number of deaths?

Seems like sense to me. Make it lower than 3000 and you’ll get a $2/week tax cut because we don’t think we’ll need to pay as much overtime next year.

That’d work well actually. The users reward themselves by removing the need for police on the roads and letting them take some holidays.

It’d probably work too good then. And the government would then need to find ways to make the replacement revenue.
That’s another issue, but safety on our roads should become a priority, and rather then focusing on the death count, focus on the arrests / fines issued.

In doing so, and placing a reward for reducing them, we can see that many will take it more seriously, and drive safely (and not stack up thousands of fines). Remove the extra policing, and will the death toll rise ?

We can be sure that a combination of safe driving, safe roads, and safe cars, will result in general, a safe trip. And maybe that’s another factor to consider here as well.

Enjoy!

I feel like I have driven 150Ks in just 1 day.

Oh wait. I did!

None the less, the trip today was a safe trip to a nearby location celebrating Christmas with much of the extended family (as is the tradition).

This year however, it is realised more that my little one is growing up. He enjoyed playing and socialising with other members of the celebrations, and had a rather fun day chasing them around, except for some small bruising on his little knee, he was pretty much entertained. He is only 2 and a bit more, yet seems to behave much older, he was playing with a 8 to 10 year old (I still don’t know much of the details about my partners family).

Anyway, it occurred that he was growing up, he was opening his own presents, saying thank you, please, Merry Christmas, and enjoying the day (and night).

I caught up with the Aunty In Law’s Husband, who is somewhat into technology, and we got talking (only generally) about broadband, and we both came to the same conclusion: The government should never privatise public infrastructure. This included power, telephone etc.

The reasoning behind that is, when you have a business at the helm, they want to increase income and returns. The goal of the government on the other hand is not one where profit is paramount, and if there is such a goal, the tax relief is seen anyway. Governments are not run for a profit. And neither should they be.

We plan to celebrate New Years there, but theres no definite confirmation of that.

The older relatives (Grandma), seemed to have also commented on how much my little one has grown, feeding himself, and so forth.

It’s amazing how fast a child can grow, at 2 years he really is very well educated, and is very independant (not that we ever trust in his independance to support himself however).

Which sort of brings me back to a story I only touched on last night, and wanted to come back to again.
The parents of the 2 year old girl who was left in a car for 2 hours, as the parents drove to Fremantle.

I consider the actions of the parents to be somewhat negligent, they had planned to leave the child at HOME for 2 hours by itself.

My little one is pretty good for himself, but under no circumstances is he left unsupervised, with no parents around for 2 hours.

I’m amazed they didn’t take the child with them, even more so however, is my complete disgust at the WA Police and DPP for protecting these parents from the consequences of their actions by not placing criminal charges against them for at least the premeditated neglect of the child. They planned to leave the child at home for 2 hours unsupervised. That alone is plenty to charge them for a crime.

Their failure to do so seems to suggest that WA Police consider themselves above the legal system. They aren’t to decide who has or hasn’t broken the law, they are to act based off facts alone, and the facts in the media suggest at least one offence has been committed, and such an offence needs to be bought before the courts to let a judge and jury decide on the fate.

I don’t believe they deserve jail, they aren’t hardened criminals and jail would serve them harm then good. However, I do believe they should be held accountable for their actions, and that means charging them, getting a plea from them, placing the matter through its due process, and concluding with either a punishment or proven innocence.

Doing nothing, is somewhat giving others a clear cut opening for them to say, well, they didn’t charge these parents for neglect, so I assumed it was legal to do so.

That’s not the message the public needs in the face of several child related deaths in 2007. It needs a strong message sent that the children are to be protected, and parents are to be mindful of their children, accepting responsibilty and piloting the child into a successful future.

Their failure to monitor the child in a 2 hour timeframe is a failure of their responsibility as parents, and falls to criminal neglect.

The solution to the problem is to bring them in front of a court and let the court decide guilt and punishment.

It’s disgusting the fact that they aren’t going to be bringing criminal action against the neglect of the parents involved in that case.

Anyway, enough of that topic. Hopefully the other action required here determines that a criminal charge is required, and they are bought forward to account for their actions.

Christmas day is a great day, one of giving, one of receiving, but more to it, one of family.

Family unfortunately still didn’t seem to get one message however, and tried to use another form of emotional abuse on my partner to get her to play into the problems she is associated with.

The good news is ignorance is bliss, and in doing so, I think the situation can only maintain, if not improve. It’s the desperation that should drive the situation to a better footing then it is on now. But things can never go back to being perfect, simply too much damage is done to be repaired. So, ignorance is equal to increasing desperation, desperation drives a further want for a solution in the other party, the other party calculates that the moves they took, and the actions they did were completely incorrect, and they work on a plan to correct their own actions.

At least, that’s the plan from what I can see. Fuelling a solution by simply ignoring the creator of the problem. Sounds like it might work.

Christmas this year I must say has been a enjoyable Christmas Day. The year is made so much more better in realising the goals acheived, and the family environment that was associated with the day.

I can’t believe we spent the entire day out though. We planned to be back home by around 3 – 4pm. Due to my child’s fantastic behaviour, we didn’t bother to leave until later during the night. A fun day and night.

Merry Christmas.

Enjoy!

As we start to apporach the end of 2007, a few things occurred to me.

1. The year is flying faster than most broadband connections.
2. The next year is going to be more interesting, but not as interesting as the one after.
3. Next year I should be finished my IT studies completely, ready for 2009, the more interesting year.
4. This year I achieved a few good goals, the most recent of which was my licence.
5. The year is one which has been filled with problems, some of which are very tragic.
6. The Australian people are for the most part, caring people, however, the nation still has plenty of crime.
7. The change in government is one which Howard will not forget, but also, the change in government is something that shows Australia’s processes work.

Looking at the last year, I can see a fair bit has happened in many areas of the nation, and it’s always interesting to dig past that, but I can still see a lot of bad news also, perhaps the more notable of the news is the fact that there is increasing reports of child abuse and negligent parenting, in the face of what can only be described as “highlighted stupidity”.

Back to the Merry side of Christmas, Santa will no doubt be speeding through the skys faster than a $15 internet connection, and will also be dropping presents down the chimneys of many houses. Yay.

Thinking more about Christmas however, a few years ago I wrote a peice on an old blog of mine (it’s over at MSN spaces), where I essentially described Christmas as the ‘retail’ time of year. And it is. It really is. But, it also sees a happier time of year. Family gets together, enjoys a good gathering, and buggers off for a year.

Considering this, I must also consider that Family isn’t always at the peak (and in some cases doesn’t find its way back to its peak). I look at the times I previously had with my family and can remember all the neglect and abuse that I suffered to get to where I am now.

Then, I consider a recent situation with the mother in law and simply wonder, why on earth did I ever consider her as a nice person? Some part of me still considers her as such I think. But then I take all the abuse we received over the last few months from her, unprovoked, and consider that its probably no longer worth pushing to repair. That said, we have tried, repeatedly.

Back to it, Christmas time is a time for family. They get together, they share the views of the last year, relatives get to catch up with kids, and everyone sees everyone. It’s amazing, because if you still look at the majority of people, they will no doubt claim Santa doesn’t exist. And yet, Christmas is still not celebrated for any one of its intended meanings, and simply rebadged as a gift giving get together.

And whilst many will be enjoying the happy times with family, I can see one recent story in the media worthy of only a slight mention, is that a 2 year old suffered locked in a car by the parents, due to sleeping. Around Christmas time, you can imagine they will be suffering, a lot, every Christmas will be a constant reminder that the little 2 year old girl won’t be able to play with the gift they had purchased for her.

It sucks really, because the parents failed in their duty of care, they are to some extent, possibly guilty of manslaughter, however, media articles say the DPP don’t plan to bring criminal action against them for negligence or manslaughter. I suppose when you consider that they might suffer year in year out, they paid the ultimate price for their mistake, but when will such issues gather attention so that the stupid people behind these issues actually realise a child needs to be checked on every so often, and not every 2 hours? Or left unattended, ever. A criminal sentence probably will do that, but it would unfairly single out the parents of that 2 year old.

Off such sad news, because the 2 year old certainly deserved a happier christmas then to be heated inside the car.

The Christian side of Christmas (one of its intended meanings) was something I noticed a topic on Whirlpool about, not specifically in Christmas, but rather, young people losing faith in christianity. That’s a probably correct.
I do however recall not so long ago a few people I knew that were into religion.

I think the Christian side of Christmas might still exist. It’s just many people respond to things differently, force it upon them, they’ll rebel. Put it there as an option to be considered, and the success rate might be higher.

I don’t generally have a specific view on the above topic.

We celebrate Christmas however, and so does many Australians, with a BBQ, or dinner between family, a large exchange of gifts, a splurge in alcohol, and a heap of cheers, Christmas, in Australia, seems to share the common place meaning of a family get together.

We see this all over, with many planning to get gifts for family, many planning on what they will do when family arrive, etc.

In fact, there’s not a lot of preparations for when Santa arrives, in my view.

That said, Christmas is a fun time of year. I’m certainly not the grinch, and even though I barely know many of the people at the family Christmas party (my partners family, I don’t really have one), they are all fun, and are great to know.

Kevin Rudd’s advertisement also says it best, when he states that you should drive safe on the road. We really should aim to better the road toll each year, and perhaps the media can get involved there, make it such like a “score to beat” style ad. Beat the 61 score of last year, and you’ve beaten “The Christmas Crash”. Hey, that might work. Better go put a copyright claim on that.

In all seriousness though, there’s no better way to arrive, then alive. Keep that in mind when you are sharing the road with everyone else. Not just at XMAS time either.

Merry Christmas!!

Enjoy!

.. and much more is likely to be possible in 2010.

This is a little old news (from IT Wire, Thursday), but I thought it was worthy to revisit, mainly because it’s all likely to be second nature to us when 2010 rolls around.

Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) claim they can get 173Mbps off a wireless internet connection.

WiMAX on the other hand, can theoretically handle 1Gbps a second on fixed, and 100Mbps mobile.

That’s pretty good for a no fixed connection style technology (there’s no wire linking you to the remote point).

Does wireless have a future in Australia? Yes.
How dominant is that future? There’s no telling, what we do know however, is that there is certainly a decline in users maintaining a PSTN line.

My source of that is not a public domain source, so I can’t really disclose that, but what I did find out was that an increasing number of users don’t have a home phone and simply rely on mobile phone for communications.

Sort of makes sense these days though, in a society where the person you want to contact could be in the middle of lunch at a Chinese Restaurant, to busy at work onsite in a town 100ks away, through to having some fun at the beach.

Essentially, the mobile phone is looking to become dominant, replacing fixed line telephones in homes (I’ve heard some that say they won’t get connected, and simply use Mobile Phone for calls, due to capped plans, etc).

Where is this demand for FTTN coming from then? I don’t see it coming from users who will use wireless technologies to communicate and get online.

I only see Telstra’s case for it being they can lock competitors away from using ADSL2+ to service customers at the FAIR price.

Phil Burgess said it earlier this year: A Telstra network will be charged at premium prices.

That’s really it. Let’s see how far wireless goes I think. Fixed networking certainly has a stronger, stronger, long, long, long term future over wireless based technologies, sure.

But, the user we know of today will struggle to saturate 100Mbps, let alone 173Mbps or even WiMAX fixed at 1Gbps.

And Telstra wants to charge MORE, for 512kbps under a FTTN arrangment? Who are they kidding? Themselves? I’m not sure they are even seeing how stupid the proposed pricing looks…

Enjoy!

Some fool decided to park directly in front of my house on my way back from a celebration tonight. There was a row of cars parked in front of our place, so I couldn’t get a park. Not even in the drive way (I know I should start towing cars for parking there heh).

Anyway, realising we’d have to probably go for a cruise for a bit and wait for the person to move (short of pulling over on the footpath and making some infringement notices, perhaps), we decided we’d go for a trip and discover what some of the local folk are doing for decorating the outside of their houses.

Must say, many don’t bother to put lights up.

Those that do however, certainly do a great job of contributing to Global Warming, and from that, a direct light up of the street and a nice display of Christmas cheer (not having a shot at them for turning them on, Global Warming is more of a “let’s find power elsewhere issue”).

Anyway, here’s some happy snaps taken today, just a selection of the best, and not those who slapped lights together to “hold their roof / tree up”.

Warning: Don’t hang around if you are on either Bigpond, Fraudband or Dial Up. I am NOT resizing these images. If you are with Bigpond, I accept no responsibility for any excess usage charges they may bend you over for.

1st one, perhaps the best I’ve seen:

Not incredible however, due to the trees shading most of the display from the street:

This one is slightly dark, but has a good setup around the front of the house:

The same house as above, this is a setup they had out the front that was playing music as well. Pretty good setup!

And here’s a close up of it:

This house here decorated really nicely:

And makes for a really good “flash off” image (note Santa and the reindeer at the top):

Another address had a nice big Blue Star highlighting the location (we couldn’t miss it):

Once we got to the Blue Star though, the presentation wasn’t as GREAT as the others, but a great display none the less (compared to our nothing- too much effort, expensive, renting, etc..)!

And that’s all I have to display HERE. I’m sure dial up users must be disconnected by now, and Bigpond users now onto their 4th Bigpond mortgage replacement payment.

Enjoy!

….so, Merry Christmas.

For those who are going to have one, and aren’t affected by the Chrisco problems, resulting in 30,000 Christmas Hampers being undelivered (yes, I know I’m a bit slow in catching up in the news, well, posting it here anyway).

I’ll be short on this topic, got more I want to catch up on.

Chrisco exists primarily to profit off those who can’t manage money. It’s that simple. If you can’t manage your money over a year to ensure funds are there for Christmas to arrive, you might need to seriously learn budgeting, or see a Financial Panther, I mean Financial Planner.

Sure, they provide a useful service to some members of the community, but overall, with $40 billion in credit card debt, the problems relating to budgeting for christmas lie solely with poor budgeting education, such practices should invarably be tought to youngsters from parents.

I don’t buy Chrisco, they have huge markups on what essentially is a fee for your suckerism and lack of budget skill.

End of Chrisco topic.

——

Sydney Lawrence paid a visit to my blog today and made a comment about my post attacking Optus for their snatching of the copper network.

I figured that’d be a good Christmas present for Telstra, considering all the negativity that surrounds them, and continues to do so.

Reality is, Telstra plan to charge premium prices for not so premium crap. I can’t simply sit by and let that happen, and I won’t.

But, Telstra has several points in their favour in SOME arguments, such include the ADSL2+ / ADSL regulation. Telstra shouldn’t be regulated for ADSL where competitors have ADSL2+, simple really, let the market sort THAT specific issue out.

Telstra shouldn’t provide Optus ULL lines where Optus have HFC cable simply decaying away. That investment money could be going to support more of the regional folk who are SCREAMING to get away from high Telstra port prices and artificially limited speeds.

End of that topic.

—

In the news the last two days, there was a topic involving a 41 year old, beaten by a letter box, and hit by a car, in Lisarow.

The tards involved used a letterbox on a metal pole to smack him around the head while he was on his way to work at a factory at 1AM in the morning.

A car pulled up and interupted it, and the morons fled, unfortunately, the 41 year old was hit by a car and lies critically in hospital.

What should these idiots get? Well, first, I hope a good mailbox attached to metal pole, smacked around their heads from their parents, further, left on a road, where they might find themselves severely injured due to a car running them over.

Finally, I expect a lengthy jail sentence handed out to them for what can only be described as a cowardly act. I expect the parents to also have some action bought against them for their lack of supervision of their negligent children.

Such actions are absolutely appaulling and shouldn’t be seen as part of our society. There needs to be a strong message sent to the community that no matter how old you are, if you act like an idiot, and act violently towards others, the system will act as harshly against you.

Let’s not bring the whip in from Singapore, that system is flawed.
Let’s punish people with a letter box around the head, from Australia. Such a punishment fits the crime, with some jail time attached of course.

The attack just seems so unprovoked, with the 41 year old walking to work at a factory at 1AM and getting attacked by delinquent children, with assumably just as irresponsible parents.

Bring both the children and the parents to court, make them explain the actions, and why they shouldn’t cop a letterbox around the head.

End of topic.

—

In other broadband news, I found this topic recently, titled “It’s Telstra or nobody”.
Have a read: http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,22956514-3122,00.html
The problem with the topic, in the news, is that Terry McCrann seems to be excessively pushing Telstra’s line, that only Telstra are able to do this.

Let me assure everyone that the government has many plans at its disposal, and don’t require to buy back Telstra to implement such plans.

One plan that can be implemented, assumably, is the Operational Seperation plan.

Through a stronger form of operational seperation, they can force Bigpond to buy from Telstra Wholesale at the same rates as other ISPs do, and Bigpond to be run as an independant ISP, paying its own advertising, backhaul, staffing costs, ie. Run Bigpond completely as an individual business out of its own pockets, but still owned by Telstra.

Then they can force wholesale access open to the network body where there is no other network access available (ie. If you can get ADSL2+, there’s no need to open up network -> wholesale arrangements).

And there are plenty more actions available, heck, if they really wanted to, they could withdraw the $30 billion / $40 billion in tax cuts planned, and simply use that to regain Telstra, split it up, refloat it.

So, I disagree entirely with Terry McCrann’s rather pro-Telstra peice. I question his credibility as well, as he doesn’t seem to have collected thoughts about how Telstra can be dealt with.

In all seriousness however, Telstra aren’t the only one who can do FTTN / FTTH / FTTS. There’s many, many options available. And as with any nation, if you don’t like the laws of doing such business in that nation, take it elsewhere. No one cares.

As for the Telstra is “Australian” argument, let’s just not go there. They are a company owned by shareholders across the planet, are managed by foreigners, and are behaving far from Australian, by trying to SCREW Australians into PREMIUM PRICES for PREMIUM CRAP.

Don’t fall for the spin. The truth is there, Telstra need to play ball, or lose to a competitor, or of course, we get nothing at all.

I doubt there’ll be much dispute from Telstra when strict operational seperation is placed on top of it, they will lose big time if they fight it, simply, no magistrate, no judge, no taxpayer, no politician will support paying more for a service that is of lesser quality and lesser value. It defies common sense.

Enjoy!

Telstra has approached the ACCC to legislate against Optus’s usage of ULL networks, where they refuse to connect buildings such as flats, units, etc.

Optus refuses to connect such customers, but will happily connect them to ULL based infrastructure where Optus supplies the internet service and phone line to customers.

Such a move means that Optus effectively doesn’t invest in its own network, and uses a lazy approach to expanding its network. Optus, by only handling the easier household connections effectively then uses Telstra infrastructure for purposes where it could easily satisfy connections using HFC Cable.

Personally, I think Optus need to stop being so lazy, and get the network spread out, even into flats so that they get the maximum benefit of not using Telstra’s network at all. They still would have to pay for ULL.

Telstra’s argument here is to try and get a decision to cut Optus off ULL where HFC services exist, and encourage Optus to use its own infrastructure, clearly Telstra doesn’t want its $14/line that it would get from ULL.

Or, perhaps Telstra realises the market is aware that Optus doesn’t connect Cable services to flats and instead, uses ULL, and where Optus will be declined ULL, they might see this as a move that means they can’t get Optus services anymore?

Either way, I do think Telstra is right. Optus have a complete HFC network running down streets. They have every oppourtunity to use that in flats, units and other style buildings but refuse ot.

They could easily have installed into flats and avoided Telstra completely. Optus could then use its own HFC network as the basis of providing its triple play services.

ULL connections are cheaper for Optus to connect, requiring just $99 for a technician visit to the exchange and moving the line over to Optus infrastructure, whereby the customer then accesses phone and net services solely from Optus.

Will they succeed in this endeavour with the ACCC to get them to block Optus for access to Telstra copper where Optus has HFC capable of servicing premises?

I sort of hope so. Optus clearly don’t need to invest in ADSL2+ technology in metro areas, they can provide all 3 services, phone, TV and internet off the HFC network. The only problem they have with connection is the higher cost of flats, but once installed the profit can easily be ongoing.

The dollars spent on ADSL2+ duplicating its own HFC network could easily have been put into Regional areas and its own (completely own funded) broadband network.

They could have ran Fibre, and started WiMAX and ADSL2+ services in Regional areas with $0 from the government, and then got subsidies for the hard to reach areas.

I find myself agreeing with Telstra a deal here. Optus have the technology already in place to provide services, there’s no point taking the easier way out and using ULL to supply a service they could perhaps profit more longterm off by providing it off the HFC network.

Enjoy!

In a move that might see rapid deployment of WiMAX technology on the Unwired network, Seven has finally finished its takeover of Unwired.

They reached the 93 percent threshold where they could perform a compulsory acquisition of the remaining 7% of shares, and have done just that.

Seven’s ownership of Unwired will result in at least 2 objectives being carried out (it’s certain they plan to proceed with a WiMAX rollout, the reason for taking Unwired out in the first place).

1. They will deploy WiMAX to use as a content delivery platform (ie. TiVO / IPTV type services).
2. Broadband. There’s dollars in mobile broadband, and in setting up a WiMAX network, they’ll be able to get down and dirty in broadband.
3. Telephony. With Broadband gobbled up, they can complement all offerings with Engin VoIP.

.. all the while not even breathing in Telstra’s direction, and in fact taking more away from Telstra.

By setting up customers with WiMAX connections for Internet Access, IPTV and also VoIP, Telstra will effectively go from their so called “cheerful” $50 ARPU, down to exactly $0 ARPU for those users who engage in take up of Seven’s offerings.

Wouldn’t it be sad for Sol to fail in his objectives of increasing ARPU. Well, I know one thing is for sure, he isn’t getting a single dollar more out of me. No ARPU increase at all.

This change isn’t likely to mature into the market until mid 2008 at the earliest (the same time certainty around FTTN should be starting to FORM). If we look at the landscape, and the future look of the industry, and changes likely to occur, 2009 is where most of the fun is happening.

1. OPEL will have its network completed by mid 2009.
2. PIPE will have its international cable in the ocean by 2009.
3. Seven, moving aggressively will have WiMAX on the Unwired network in a near timeframe.
4. Google’s Unity project might take off and also see similar.
5. Telstra’s own international cable will be laid.
6. FTTN will likely have been decided and built by 2009.

It’s all happening in 2009, so don’t forget to mark it on your Calendar :).

Enjoy!

The ACCC decided today to reject the G9 proposal of offering FTTN at realistic prices to the Australian public.

The rejection wasn’t due to prices.
It wasn’t due to technology.

It was due to a simple issue identified in the Special Access Undertaking, they didn’t commit to any auditable process for the medium and long term of the undertaking, which leaves prices uncertain.

I agree with Graeme Samuel here, he is doing a great job at protecting consumers, although I would certainly trust the G9 proposal over anything from Telstra, I believe that if the G9 left prices in the medium term open ended, they would have the oppourtunity (but likely not follow it through) to raise prices excessively.

The ACCC strongly agreed with the G9’s pricing, so that sets a strong point for Telstra to basically follow from. If Telstra want FTTN, under a Rudd government, who have consistently said the ACCC would be deciding price and competitve terms, then they’ll have to come down to reasonable pricing such as that of the G9 proposal.

Ideally, we’ll see movement on a replacement G9 proposal, one which shows the prices as fair and commits to an auditable process in the long term for ensuring the medium and long term prices remain fair.

And we’ll see an alternative proposal from Telstra.

Surely they both won’t wait for the governments calls for tenders on a broadband proposal, which will essentially go past the ACCC first anyway, and get decided on for the same points.

If anything, its a speed increase on the proposal to determine if it is indeed worthy or not, before being subject to the panel when Conroy kicks their collective arses into order, the panel will contain the ACCC, as well as experts from telecommunications. Not a bad approach.

The broadband market is going to soon enough take some sharp turns and see a even more competitive market take place.
This will hopefully start mid 2008 and just get started for the lead up to 2009 where even more activity will take place to generate a competitive market.

Enjoy!

Ever had a McDonald’s Big Mac? – What a stupid question, I’m sure you’d have had one by now.

Anyway, McDonald’s Big Mac has been increasing in price, repeatedly.

One thing remains to increase, and instead, sees a decrease, and that’s the actual burger.

A Big Mac used to be fairly large when they first came out. They shrunk to a medium sized burger in the 2003 – 2005 years.

It’s now 2007.

I swear, after getting one today at the local McDonald’s, I’ve seen much, much, much bigger cheeseburgers, then that of the alledged Big Mac that we purchased today.

Further, the Big Mac, years ago retailed for just $4.95.

Now, it’s selling at $7, and has shrunk so much it’s hardly BIG at all.

I didn’t take the camera with me, but it was one of those Kodak moments where you just wish you had a camera to take a photo to clearly demonstrate what I am talking about.

A BIG MAC was BIG. It’s now small.

They’ve downsized the product dramatically, and there’s been no downsize in price, which is completely poor. The prices of products haven’t risen that much.

Other products seeing downsizing include the rather funny Domino’s 3 cm ‘Large Pizza’ downsize.
Eagle Boys launched an amusing attack against Domino’s for doing that, using the RTA ad theory and applying it to Domino’s Pizza.

Domino’s argument when asked by News was: “Pizza Hut did it”. Funny. How is it Pizza Hut’s fault that Domino’s are doing it..?

Hungry Jacks said it best when they said: “The burgers are better at Hungry Jacks”. Truly, there is no better burger, than that from HJs (when it comes to ‘Fast Food’ burgers, local shops probably better them all, but that’s another story).

Enjoy!

Exetel have come up with a great idea to help an endangered bird from hitting extinction.

The bird being the Gouldian Finch, is currently facing extinction, to remove the threat, it would cost an approximate $100,000 a year in donations to assist, over 3 years.

$300,000 over 3 years. Seems pretty easy to generate that sort of dollars.

The plan seems so far, to have 50c off each customers monthly fee donated to a wildlife conservation fund to save species from Extinction.

When you consider a lot of extinction threats are introduced / caused by man, it only makes sense that man makes up for it.

But, I’m not saying this poor bird should simply be left alone and unhandled, our planet faces heavier ‘extinction’ related problems. And in the sum of things, if we have a choice between saving a bird, or the planet we call our home, I’m more than certain we will want to save the planet.

That said, it would only take $10,000 in donations a month to contribute to saving the bird. 50c off 60,000 users is a lot of USABLE money (I say usable here, because charities have high costs in processing individual donations, one aggregate donation is cheap). Over the course of a month, they would raise $30,000 off just 50c off each users fee. That money would do a lot of good among many charities who are managed right.

Think how many trees could be planted to combat carbon emissions? Or better yet, think of what sort of research those dollars would buy in several different senses, such as research into medicine, or research into saving animals, or even saving our planet of course.

Then, if other ISPs also followed suit and simply took as little as 5c from a lot of users, the aggregate level would be something really tangible and usable to charities across Australia and the world.

Then again, many other businesses could do the same as well, and do a lot of good, such as Telstra and it’s near 9,000,000 odd customer lines it collects dollars off. Just 5c off each of those would do a lot of good to some very worthwhile causes on this planet.

Exetel have shown they don’t have greedy intentions in running an ISP, which is great, because it shows they have a conscience, and they have at least seen part of this world and want to do something towards helping it.

My idea is for them to setup an aggregate donation site, where donations are aggregated and users can vote for their percentage to go to some particular cause (such as the Gouldian Finch).

Aggregate donations will do more than a door knock, more than those employees being paid to sign up shoppers to a ‘charity’, more than those charities who can afford to telemarket, and get donations.

The aggregate donations when managed in a low management manner (such as just 50c off all customers) attracts better results for the charity, they no longer have to pay accounting staff to account for the millions of donations if they are just getting it in one big donation.

I begin to ponder whether there is a service out there already to do something like this to assist charities in raising money, without high overheads. Just one big aggregate donation, instead of millions of small, ‘enter this data’ style donations that end up costing a lot of the donated money.

Back to the topic, Wildlife / Nature conservation is a smart move, the obvious return on this move would be perhaps additional customers, seeing the support of such causes as being ‘normal’.

Exetel haven’t started yet (its only just come up for public discussion on the Exetel forums), but assuming they do, I can imagine they’ll get a fair bit of good results for both the charity, and themselves from being seen as a positive ISP.

Enjoy!

It seems that no matter what is dangled in front of Telstra, they won’t have a part of it.

And whatever moves are taken to control Telstra’s unlawful actions in the industry, they simply push harder for more.

They seemingly are declaring war on everything.

– ACCC: Apparently they do the job of protecting consumers very well. Too well for Telstra.
– Coalition government: Apparently they were the blame for Telstra’s regulation.
– Helen Coonan: Apparently, she can’t decide a tender process, despite Telstra’s own admission that they would go to court over the tender regardless..
– Labor government: Won’t be able to roll out its broadband plans anytime soon due to Telstra’s unwillingness to accept that Labor want downward pressure on prices.
– Consumers: Consumers recently rated Bigpond, Telstra’s ISP, the worst value for money ISP in Australia. It’s true. One person even made comment about how Bigpond overcharged by $16,000 (read here: http://www.news.com.au/comments/0,23600,22885016-5014108,00.html), and others describing it as “Bigripoff”, and many other responses that make me laugh at Telstra’s arrogance.
– Staff: Apparently, forcing them to sign AWAs.

So, with the only one missing in that equation being management and shareholders, they nearly have a war on everything that surrounds them.

Is it just me that can see clearly that Telstra’s plans are not going to be successful long term due to the negative reputation building against them? ie. No younger user is going to use them, because many of them know Telstra’s expensive and will shop around for the best deal anyway?

That mentality will carry on for the years that follow and cause Telstra huge problems.

Not like they seem to care however, waging war on everything (and perhaps even shareholders by ignoring their mass rejection of Sol’s pay packet), what on earth do they expect to gain from this?

Nothing’s going to budge for them, they’ll have to level, or be forced into seperation, or forced out of business.

Enjoy!

It’s almost certain that sooner or later, the ISP market will cave in on top of itself and pave the way for a stack of consolidations. Companies buying other companies, and building up huge customer bases.

A recent false news announcement stated that Soul was planning on selling, it was later revealed that is not the case, and that Soul is not for sale, but they do believe consolidation of the industry is likely, and they’d like to be a part of that.

Much of the consolidation over the last few years has been targetted towards iiNet, with a lot of buying up happening, such as iiNet’s biggest buy, OzEmail.

That would have been seen as a big boost to iiNet’s profits as it rolled out infrastructure in Sydney and began realising profits off its eastern investments by pushing the ‘ii’ brand.

The remaining consolidation might perhaps be a buyup of the few smaller ADSL2+ ISPs, or a merge between TPG and Soul perhaps to gain a good foot hold on ADSL2+ in NSW in competition to the others.

Optus obviously aren’t interested in buying, Internode are almost certainly not for sale, iiNet I doubt would ever contemplate selling, the consolidation, if any was to happen would almost certainly be between the smaller ISPs. The goal there would be to become another dominant supplier.

Telstra, Optus, Chime, TPG, Primus, Agile are almost certainly not likely to want to have any sale action or consolidation (though Agile might want to do some buying?).

These ADSL2+ ISPs however have small investments, and might be of interest to someone looking at adding a few customers on ADSL2+ as well as ADSL2+ exchange(s) to their inventory Amcom, AdamDirect, Soul, OnTheNet, TSN.

In other similar news, Channel 7 has reached critical mass to buy out that beast known as Unwired. They have 90% shareholding and can compulsory acquire the remains off the protesting shareholders.

It looks like Channel 7 might have a metro WiMAX network to roll out afterall, to push its TiVO box and then perhaps retail ISP services on the network as well (more bucks in the bank).

I’m curious on Austar’s moves, and whether OPEL are gonna buy its spectrum, or whether there will be a bidding fight between Optus and Seven for what amounts to the regional areas of coverage.

Surely Seven will want to go national with its offering, and OPEL want that spectrum to get its WiMAX network up if it decides against the 5Ghz band.

The alternative could be they work together, with OPEL building the nework, and Seven using the network for its services as well. Makes sense.

Interesting times lay ahead with the sparks that are going to start a fire for 2008 and 2009.

Enjoy!

Telstra has publicly confessed to its dirty tricks that it tried to play against the Howard Government, and in a pure demonstration of its clear greed to rid the industry of competition and charge its own excessive prices, which would essentially push telecommunications prices up, beyond their wildest possible levels.

A recent news article (that has appeared in many areas of the web and beyond), has that fat loudmouth Phil Burgess stating:
“We’re not going to do consortiums and equity with government and things like that”.

They don’t want to provide services with government funds, the way the government wants to.

Specifically, Phil also stated:
“We’re not going to do it if the government’s going to be an equity holder and a decision maker in how things get managed”

Interesting. They don’t want to be involved in a project that secures the companies future as a telecommunications supplier for the next 50 years or more, if the government has control over decisions, but they will happily take the governments money and spend it..

Why, I ask the fellow consumers, do they not want to be involved where the government might have a level of control over the tax payer money they are putting into the project? Why have they been on the public record, before, stating they planned to charge $59 ex GST for a basic 512 kbps connection, wholesale (does not include data, and everything else you need to make an internet connection)

Current 512kbps services supplied to customers, reach all customers well and truly, without hassle, and are retailed (that is, available to buy to customers) at a rate of just $35 a month, with everything to connect you to the internet included.

So, why do they plan to raise double that price on the wholesale level (and end up with retail prices at the $85 mark)?

Telstra’s plan here is definitely to raise its margins on its products to near 50 percent margins, which is bad for the consumer, bad for the economy (because consumers will be going poor paying for what amounts to a bit of shit for a broadband connection, provided by the masters of junk, Telstra).

I don’t really need to demonstrate the effects Telstra’s FTTN plan will have on competition, just look around, you see where there is competition available, the prices are cheap. Where Telstra is the only possible supplier, the prices are extortionate.

And before the argument is raised why don’t competitors invest in the areas where Telstra has priced the network expensively, well, that’s been done, and the results have been that Telstra simply drops its own prices to below cost levels to force the new out of business.

Or, where the competitor uses Telstra’s network, the prices are so expensive, that they might as well as just buy retail services from Telstra anyway (the backhaul pushes prices through the roof).

It seems clear that if you remove Telstra, you remove the problems.

So, act 1 for the new government in fixing telecommunications in Australia is clear. Remove the problem, remove Telstra. All the problems of regulation will magically disappear, by simply getting rid of the cause of problems!

Telstra is the problem. In nearly everything that is done, the problems all come back to none other than Telstra. And its not because they own the major network, not at all, because Optus own a network too, and there’s little to no problems with them.

All the problems stem back to Telstra, all the problems with competition, problems with regulation, problems with government, all, belong to Telstra.

Just imagine how better off the world will be without Telstra?! Must we wake up from that dream?! Imagine the services being provided as being the fastest they can be, and the best quality they could be. Imagine having that service provided for prices which are fair and reasonable. Imagine having no more racism seen from Telstra targetted at Optus due to its Singapore origin. It’s drool worthy.

We simply need to trust and ensure that Conroy does the right thing by consumers here, and doesn’t give the money to Telstra on the wrong terms. They must indeed ensure the prices will be at the current metro comparable levels, or lower. And I don’t mean Telstra metro, I mean the competition metro prices.

They must consider the G9 proposal. They must consider all other proposals which focus on a network of quality, open access, and low prices for the consumer.

They must fix the OECD reports that show we have expensive services compared to many of the OECD nations.

They simply cannot give in and let Telstra get the upper hand here for the next 50 years or more. Doing so is basically screwing us to Telstra prices.

The alternatives are definitely what need looking into and supporting. Let Telstra be the big baby they are being, fund up a competitive network, and then you can ensure the survival of it, and when that’s done. The issues sort themselves out through natural competition. Something Telstra are very scared of, which is why they are pushing for FTTN. Though they seem hell bent on getting those much higher prices locked in as well.

Enjoy!

I’m not sure if I posted it here before, but a while back, we lent someone some money to get himself out of strife (get his licence back, get himself out of crap with his real estate).

Essentially we lent the dollars to this person on the condition that it’d be paid back over time, either progressively for the fines related one, and within a month for the real estate issue.

We persued that in writing, by SMS and by phone numerous times with the person involved, and essentially got nowhere. We got numerous broken promises, excuses, and delays, and nothing in the way of progress towards paying us back for the favour we did to pull him out of the ditch he was in.

We could almost certainly have left that person there, and considering the fact he got his licence back and as of around 12 months ago, still acts like an idiot on the road, committing crimes against people, it only seemed like we were helping him be a wanker.

So, we left it sleep a little, until he established himself in a new rental property, at what point this person told us they’d start paying it back after they got settled in. Fair enough. Moving is a big cost, certainly not cheap.

But none the less, we got nowhere in the months that followed that move. It’s been a complete problem getting even simply $5 a week, which would near settle the debt after the years the dollars have been on loan for.

So, earlier this week, we decided it was time to live up to what was promised over the course of several months, in writing to this person. We promised that we would take legal action against them to recover the debt, and such costs would be likely passed onto them.

We didn’t want to play hard ball, but there’s a line you must draw. When you lend a sum of money to someone, on 30 day terms and 12 months later it still isn’t being progressed, you need to immediately attack the issue and get the money back to demonstrate they cannot go through life, expecting everyone else to pick up after them.

The process proceeded this week, and initial unconfirmed information suggests that repayments will start in a timely and agreeable fashion.

It’s amazing what spending $100 of someone elses money will acheive. That of course was the fee for the courts to persue it, and was added to the debt.

The person involved is understood to have doubted the claim presented in a clearly marked local court envelope, and actually contacted them to confirm that the documents were legit. Obviously didn’t expect us to take the action we did, but now, should certainly see it is costing him even more money to ignore requests for payment and dish out broken promises.

It’s unfortunate for him that we had to waste $100 of his money to get a resolution he could have come to directly with us. But then, there’s that fear aspect involved when legal action is started against some people, who immediately fall back into line when the fire starts burning underneath them.

The good news for us (unconfirmed) is that he apparently will begin payments after Christmas, which is good news, we get our desired outcome that we’ve been pushing for, for a while now.

If the person involved actually grew a brain, and some money sense, and started using it, he’d never have got into a position where he’d need to borrow the money. But then again, if he had half a brain in the first place, he’d value his driving career and accomodation a little more so that it isn’t put at risk, due to poor self management.

Enjoy!

A problem that is identified with Labor’s broadband plan is they plan to use FTTN technology. So, the government has chosen a technology to deploy.

FTTN isn’t the best technology for providing services to users. In fact they might have chosen a technology that limits the service availability to those who decide not to get a fixed phone line installed.

The best technology, nation wide, for broadband will more than likely be better off with WiMAX based technology, so that there’s no path issues for installing a cable, they simply place a tower up and users much like they do with TV, contact a nearby tower.

WiMAX technology will be cheaper to deploy in that sense.

This issue, that they don’t seem to be calling on providers with any technology to provide services in any way possible, is a problematic issue.

Why on earth limit the nation by a cable if you can get good results out of spending a combined $8 billion in WiMAX (which will reach a HUGE mass of the land (and not just the population)).

Or why not ease the pain on the taxpayer? FTTN isn’t required for Australia, and more than likely won’t be required for sometime when you think seriously about it.

$8 billion would get you plenty of towers to ensure every man and his dog might get strong levels of coverage, and the speeds being cell driven, well more towers, more cells, more bandwidth. Plus it doesn’t really take a lot to add more cells to the network on the same tower even.

If OPEL with a combined total of $2 billion can roll out ADSL2+ and WiMAX technologies to reach around 98% of the population (after metro areas are removed), then you can see $4 billion being plenty to do much more than just WiMAX and ADSL2+ in regional areas. Such a network can easily be deployed in the cities, and get penetration where some phone lines just can’t go, such as caravan parks, and other forms of accomodation, or new housing where the owner might not want a phone socket at all.

The flaw is there, they want to limit themselves to FTTN needlessly. HFC could do the same deployment at a cost effective price. Why go with FTTN?

It limits competition? Is that the drive behind it? It hurts the consumer? Perhaps the only real motivation here for FTTN from Telstra when you consider the thesaurus of technologies they have available to them to deploy the speeds they keep claiming they want to give the nation.

No one is holding Telstra back, they’ve had the ability to roll out HFC or FTTH using power poles, or .. any technology they like.

They focus on FTTN because LSS / ULL ADSL2+ technologies are hurting, and the battle is just getting started.

Enjoy!

There’s two key providers lined up to get involved on the bidding for FTTN.

Those two are none other than Telstra, the company that expects a extremely high margin from what is essentially a VERY basic communications service, and the other company being G9, who are a consortium of companies specialising in providing network technologies, much more advanced than that of Telstra.

The question I think we need to ask our potential FTTN supplier is, do they see the entire company as a true communications supplier, who innovates and has the technology and national interests at heart, or are they a media company, who should perhaps be printing newspapers rather than delving into the world of FTTN (and consumer, business and government grade services).

When I say media company, I’m referring to none other than Telstra who seem to prefer being a media company over a telecommunications company.

So, if they prefer being a media company, why not go ahead and do that, and leave telecommunications to the professionals, those who know what they are doing and don’t really have an interest in anything else but providing IP connectivity to users of a service?

Of course, we can’t rule out the next ‘media’ company diving into telecommuncations, and that is none other than the king pin of Australian Television Entertainment, Channel 7.

They plan to have a network build based on WiMAX technology after buying out the Unwired company, with plans to use that network as a network for its television based products.

Now, that’s a good idea, but the potential for more revenue lies in selling a broadband internet connection across it at the same time as running the TiVO service on it as well.

Channel 7 recently stated that the telecommunications profits aren’t expected to be of high interest to them, they are more interested obviously in the capabilities of the TiVO unit, powered up with an internet connection so that they can deliver content from its huge collection of content on demand, assumably on a monthly fee, diving themselves into the Pay TV market.

The debate on FTTN is a more different debate. It’s Telstra, a self confessed media company (numerous times), and G9, a collection of companies specialising in communications infrastructure.

The winner for me is easily G9. For the sole reason its companies that specialise in telecommunications and don’t try and be a media entity. Further, they know what the technology truly is worth to consumers, and it certainly is preparing for that with nice low prices to reflect the service costs, and not the interests of the media company owner, as would be the case with a Telstra network.

For the Labor partnership to work, it needs to be more of a controlling interest by the government, which flies flat in the face of regulation, but that’s the way it needs to be. Labor need to push the hardline that they are boss in the partnership, and they dictate the rate of return, otherwise Telstra should then face structural seperation.

The G9 have a great plan for FTTN, and I do hope Conroy heavily considers the options here before he dooms the nation to yet another Telstra monopoly (although he has indicated he wants an open network to prevent the monopolisation that got us here in the FIRST place).

One can assume this government should be capable of topping the Howard effort. It’ll be interesting to compare them. Don’t bother looking at the economy, that’s not what we should consider at a government deciding level. We need to look at policies, the kinds of policies and the effects they have on the budget (which in turn effects the taxpayer and economy).

So, watch the policies, what them unfold, and if you strongly disagree with the policies, you’ll quickly develop a strong dislike for him and wish to vote him out. On the other hand, if you are like me and keep an open mind, the policies will draw their own picture and you’ll be able to see how things unfold.

Telstra are simply the most likely to build FTTN, but that more than likely will be under Labor’s terms, and not that of their own agenda. They’ll more than likely be forced with higher, higher levels of regulation if they don’t play ball, simply because the consumer and competition need investment in infrastructure. If Telstra are holding the country back, laws and legislation need to be drawn to stop such acts.

Which is what Labor will hopefully do and we’ll have much of the problems fixed for .. good.

Enjoy!

At least on climate change.

Kevin Rudd started work on Climate Change on Sunday, and we haven’t seen much follow on from there yet.

However, he does seem keen to get some action happening, trying to bring together his government as quick as possible to start acting as quick as possible.

No idea why he wants to move so quickly, considering he doesn’t actually have to start on anything until next year when they pick up again.

I sit curiously looking at Conroy, curiously wondering how he plans to get his network up and running inside of 6 months. It’s possible, no one is arguing that. What’s the problem is what the long term effects of his rushed, and poorly thought of FTTN plan are.

There’s not a big doubt in my mind that the builder of the FTTN network will be Telstra. Who will be pressured into lower prices through tougher regulation imposed upon it by the government should it take the hard road, and that will be bad news for Telstra, but good news for me, in fact I’d have gone out of my way to vote them in 20 times over if I was sure they’d screw Telstra.

There is however problems with the long term effects of rolling out FTTN. It will screw competition for now, and well into the future, at the FTTH level.

The ONLY solution is to get on with the inevitable. It’s gonna have to happen sooner or later, that is, splitting Telstra.

Keeping it together is simply a recipe for competitive troubles down the track, espiecially if they get to roll out FTTN, which will destroy competition in Australia for many decades to come, due to the upgrade to FTTH being a follow on effect from FTTN.

Splitting Telstra is going to happen. It’s got to, if we are to continue to support a competitive telecommunications industry, then Telstra needs to no longer have control of the national infrastructure. It needs to be pulled right away from them, the only way to do that is with stronger seperation, and closely monitored seperation.

You can do stronger operational seperation, or structural seperation, but either way, we will need a lot stronger seperation, and all of Telstra’s retail bodies must purchase via the wholesale bodies, or, they can purchase from the network body, so long as others can also purchase from the network body, and supply equal services (and setup competition to Telstra Wholesale).

Structural seperation gets the problem solved for good. There’s no point bothering with half arsed solutions at the national level. If you are going to do a job, get the job done properly first time. Spend them dollars, and over time, recoup them and invest in further infrastructure. Repeat that process until Australia is either world leading, or government funding projects would go against the national interest, whatever happens the first.

The simple point here is: There’s no point stuffing around with minor “fake” seperation. Split the crap out of it now, and save doing it later on.

And to anyone who disagrees, what year do they propose the split happens? It’s going to have to happen sooner or later for the good of the nation. Get a move on with it.

I’m keen to see Kevin Rudd move on with his promises. I’m keen for him to demonstrate the true costs of his promises to the nation.

When the nation has a debt, and he gets the rear end, I’m keen to hear a campaign as to why we should let him back in.

I do agree with one however, we do need to spend money in Australia, so Kevin has my support there, and also, not rolling out nuclear power, another win from me. In fact it was nuclear power that turned me away from Howard in the first place. Then the news that Labor would be crawling up Telstra’s arse pushed me back to Howard, and then I thought perhaps Telstra running with FTTN isn’t too bad anyway (I had that thought months before hand at least).

But now I do indeed put that position out there, that once you roll out infrastructure unnecessarily, with pigs on the board looking for fat returns, you should look at either turning back away on that plan, or looking to gain the upper hand to ensure the prices of the services don’t rise as a result of the poorly thought out plan.

Enjoy!

What on earth happened over the last week? Not heavily packed, but packed none the less.

Monday, we had to get my server back online, and change systems around, and set up my partners machine. That task carried over through Tuesday with software setup.

The changeover was a smooth change, and turned out to be a good change for performance, at the same time leveraging energy savings.

Tuesday, was spent continuing on from the system software configuration on my partners machine.

Wednesday, I got my provisional licence. Fantastic news. Extremely happy with that result after only 6 weeks of building the training up. The test environment was made a little more complex with two examiners, but none the less, I came out the other side a licenced driver, and very happy with Central Coast Driving School as a result of the efforts they put in, to get the results we did.

Thursday, I was still continuing the excitement from the previous day, and extremely happy getting my licence.

Friday, I was continuing Thursday, but we did have an incident on Friday, we laid a little paint on a Land Cruiser in a carpark. The lady driver wasn’t annoyed much at all, and more thankful for my honesty than concerned with the paint she’d have to clean up.

Friday was also a telling time as to what we were going to do with election votes. Considering the problems associated with Labor, and the problems experienced with the Coalition government in several areas, and the good aspects of the Coalition government. A polling decision was very hard to come to conclusion. Throughout the campaign, I was in support and out of support for Kevin Rudd, but the same is true of the Coalition. I was what you might define a ‘swinging’ voter. Completely undecided, and simply favoured maintaining the current situation for three years until either side decided to seperate themselves.

Saturday, Election Day. I drove over to the nearest polling booth, and didn’t really make up my mind until the vote was committed to the ballot box. That afternoon, we took the car over to a friends place to get a vacuum (power accessibility isn’t great) here.

The way home resulted in me doing something I shouldn’t have done, which was drive into two lanes of traffic, with a blockout situation, without first driving forward and checking.

The situation was certainly done at a safe speed, because I identified the approaching vehicle and stopped the car before we came close to an impact, but none the less, a careful lesson is learnt, always look past a blockout situation before driving into it. It’s been a habit of mine to try and guess the situation on the left if a vehicle is blocking the left, crossing two lanes, and its not good. I’m keen to break that ASAP.

Saturday afternoon was spent at home, watching the Sky News coverage of the election to determine how the polls were stacking up. Our seat of Dobell looked really close for a fair bit of the counting, and they narrowed it down to a winner.

Later that night, Howard conceded defeat to the Labor party and accepted responsibility for the party loss- incorrect if you ask me. Howard should have conceded defeat to the marketing movements by the Labor party, the marketing done by the Unions, and the constant me-tooism that was happening throughout the campaigns.

The election most certainly wasn’t a loss to the Liberal party, but rather a win for big spending marketing. The Kevin 07 brand for example would have been a big attraction to people, not because they agree with policies perhaps, but rather, because the brand simply stuck to them. Then, the years before hand, the “your rights at work” scare campaigns did not do much in the way of good to keep the vote uninfluenced.

Howard lost to third party marketing, not to the Labor party. That’s very clear and very obvious after you read some stories of what happened at some polling booths – one incident claims the voter beside him asked “which one is Kevin Rudd” .. a clear indication that the person had no idea what party they were voting for, and wasn’t voting within the community, but rather simply trying to vote on the national level.

Run an election again, the same election, restricted solely to campaigning by each party, and ban any marketing or political advertising, or political persuasion by anyone other than a political party, and we might see a different picture develop.

Then again, restrict voting to those who can demonstrate they know WHAT they are voting for, and you’ll get a different result.

Off the Saturday topic, moving on.

Sunday, we see in the news the aftermath of the cyclone that is Election 2007, and the cleanup that must follow the blow out of the Liberal government collecting what remains. We then see news that Costello now refuses to accept any form of leadership from the Liberal party.

I take his move to be done simply out of losing what might be described as a true friend in his career, John Howard, who has publicly stated several times that Costello and Howard share a very close working relationship, and that would have been torn apart by the marketing of third parties, due to Howard losing the election.

So the new opposition leader isn’t going to be Costello, as I predicted might happen yesterday.

I now see Turnbull as the next leader of the party, but things might change again, in the lead up to the next election, depending on the performance of Kevin Rudd.

I should add now, I for one welcome our new Labor overlords.

The results of the Senate aren’t fully understood, but the predictions seem to suggest a tie between Labor and the Coalition of 37, and the final 2 seats going to IND and OTHER variety.

And tonight, going out for a trip to fetch a few items from our local supermarket saw some idiot on the roundabout not indicating doing a U-turn around the roundabout, which resulted in me incorrectly anticipating him going straight ahead – and this is why you should always indicate your intentions – so other road users can use those as a tool to anticipate your actions, instead of nearly kissing your passenger doors. Stupid people drive on our roads. Incredibly stupid.

I revise my comments made earlier, that suggest Speeding causes accidents. That’s not 100% true, Stupidity causes accidents.
The smarter of the two are generally those who avoid them, and take evasive action to ensure impact is avoided.

I was definitely slowing down and anticipating his move, but I saw no indicator, and was ready to go, but certainly slowed to allow for him being stupid. And a good thing I did. He drove round the roundabout, with his intentions showing he wanted to go straight ahead – I read no indicator into a roundabout a sign that you wish to continue straight ahead. If you TURN, you indicate.

Anyway, no point focusing on the stupid people this nation has on its roads, lets focus on the future.

What will Rudd acheive in the first year ?

I imagine a bit, he’ll have made adequate progress on Kyoto (he started today!), he’ll have his broadband guidelines made known, so that the nation can hopefully anticipate his moves on this issue, and whether we are going back to a Telstra monopoly, or will competition prevail and common sense win?

And we’ll hopefully gather some idea over how much power the party will have in the Senate, and that’ll give us some idea as to how much opposition he’ll face if he tries to pass something unacceptable.

The budget is what I’d be keen to keep a pulse on, if they over spend, the next Election they should certainly be outed, we need a surplus government to start setting the examples for the rest of the nation to get itself out of debt and maintain a good surplus.

The state governments need to have a strong shift to Liberal as well, we can see how good they are at cleaning up debt mess by looking at how the Howard government fixed the national debt.

Enjoy!

The winner of this election isn’t the Coalition as originally anticipated (though I did indeed second guess Labor).

The winner of this election definitely isn’t the Labor party. They didn’t win the election, they might have got voted in, but they most certainly didn’t win.

The winners of the election are the Unions who spent up big to protect their own financial interests, by putting pressure and scare campaigns in front of voters on WorkChoices.

The majority seemingly fooled into believing that the unions are somehow doing some good for the country.

From my earlier years working, I’ve never gone into Unions. It never made sense. Pay out money for trying to protect conditions in a job that I more than likely could have easily moved on from anyway.

But none the less, scare campaigns work.

I must admit however, the Labor party did indeed come close to winning, because they had my support on and off for parts of the election. It was a close call on the winner throughout the night, and I did predict a close call for many areas, including Dobell, where it was close for a large percentage of the vote.

Howard was definitely graceful under defeat (by the unions). If anything, the election could have been made that much more closer with Howard already retired, and Costello in his place, so that the campaign effect of “Fresh Thinking” by the Labor party was quickly pushed aside so that Costello could also claim fresh thinking.

Howard’s own Bennelong seat remains a close call (though he seemed to already accept it as lost), Howard has a 0.8 percentage to gain to keep the seat of Bennelong. And that seems possible if you ask me. Around 300 postal votes and it all of a sudden will bring it into 0.1 percent of a win or lose.

Howard would really be shafted if he were to lose both the PM job and his seat in the one election.

On a related note however, Rudd won’t acheive much in the next three years, due to the diversity build up in the senate which will cause many of the items for them to pass to come under stranglehold, due to opposing views from many different members of the senate.

The election is indeed resulting in close calls that will almost certainly reflect the true state of the government, in that any decision might just narrowly make it through, or narrowly get rejected by those involved.

This will add inevitable delays, and cause the perception to many voters that he is indeed doing “nothing”.

What will happen on the other side? Costello takes the lead, he becomes leader of the opposition. We then see the arguments between Swan and Costello blow out continuously, and we see little in the way of progress on much of anything.

The next 3 years in my opinion will simply be a more ‘argumentative’ government, not really reaching many of the goals that others might oppose.

Moving off that topic, and onto other election related news:

1. A journalist slapped a labor candidate at a polling station.
2. A woman drove towards a reporter.
3. Chasers decided to take a jab at the leaflet incident.
4. Chasers decided to enter the Liberals quarters, dressed as a union member.

Interesting stuff to say the least.

This election is definitely more prominent then the 2004 election, for a number of reasons, but most notably due to the fact the campaign as become more about the future, and the views of each party, than what has been a “our government is better” type argument.

I think that, and Howard’s decision to sit in at the election cost the Liberals, and the campaigning from Labor and Unions, all mounted to a close call, but pushed Labor on top of the pile, narrowly.

The Labor party were not preferred by me, because the FTTN plans they have are severely undercosted, at $4.7 billion, they will either need to seperate Telstra and then do a deal with the network body, or admit that the $4.7 billion doesn’t get them much closer to the regional areas at all.

The cost of the network is forecast at $20 billion without infrastructure, so you can guess at $4.7 billion, the funds are targetted at one who has infrastructure already in place.

And besides that, the plans commit Australian’s to higher access prices unnecessarily, due to Telstra’s own ROI levels, therefore pushing competition out of the market, at the same time rising prices for consumers considerably.

Good thing I’m not going to be in the path of a node!

Enjoy!