Broadband News
Thu, 15th May 2014
Thousands of seniors lose their phone number
Potentially thousands of elderly Australians have lost their phone number for good, with the new receivers of telecommunications company ONESeniors announcing existing landline numbers will have to be terminated.
Source: iTWire
Optus boosts yearly profit despite tough quarter
Optus has managed to lift its net profit for the full fiscal year by 10 percent to $835 million despite a tough last three months, thanks to its ongoing efforts to cut costs and restructure the business.
Source: iTnews Australia
Telstra claims world first 450Mbps network speeds over LTE
Australian telecommunications giant, Telstra, has hit network speeds of 450 megabits per second (Mbps) by coupling the 1800MHz and 2600MHz bands on LTE Advanced Carrier Aggregation.
Source: ARN
Wed, 14th May 2014
Senate extends life of NBN committee
The Senate late today voted to extend the life of a select committee investigating the national broadband network for up to two and a half more years.
Source: iTnews Australia
Budget 2014 - NBN funding goes private after FY2017
The National Broadband Network will have to rely on private funding after the 2017-18 financial year, according to the 2014-15 budget released last night.
Source: Computerworld
Telstra makes $A561m profit from $A2.03bn sale of CSL
Telstra has made $US1.99 billion for its 76.4 per cent stake in CSL, having completed the sale of the Hong Kong-based business to HKT Limited on May 14.
Source: ARN
How Optus left millions of customers' mobile voicemail accounts exposed for months
A security flaw in the way Optus handled its voicemail allowed for anyone to access any one of its millions of mobile customers' voicemail accounts without a PIN using caller ID "spoofing".
Source: SMH
Canberra's tech projects handed expiry notice
Treasurer Joe Hockey has taken a knife to some of the Australian Governmen's most ambitious technology projects in his 2014-15 Federal Budget, with looming funding deadlines now in place for the National Broadband Network and National ICT Australia.
Source: iTnews Australia
Tue, 13th May 2014
NBN Co calls for telco guarantee shakeup
NBN Co wants the Government to abandon the customer service guarantee (CSG) on fixed-line voice services, capping months of concerns over the company's lack of support for the standards.
Source: iTnews Australia
NBN Co buys VDSL2 vectoring gear from Alcatel-Lucent
Alcatel-Lucent has revealed NBN Co is one of the customers for its VDSL2 vectoring products used for fibre to the node (FTTN).
Source: Computerworld
NBN Co releases medium business services
Business customers waiting for improved speeds and service levels from the national broadband network have been given more options to choose from, as new plans are released to service providers.
Source: iTnews Australia
Mon, 12th May 2014
Telstra trialling 4G in the skies
It's long been the bane of existence for business travellers wanting to do business in the skies - a lack of Internet for doing business - but that all could change with a new Telstra trial.
Source: iTWire
$100 million submarine cable planned for NT, WA
Natural gas projects in north-west Australia will soon get a boost from a new submarine cable system connecting Darwin in the Northern Territory and Port Hedland in Western Australia.
Source: Computerworld
Microsoft strikes cybercrime agreement with ACMA
The Australian Communication and Media Authority have formed an alliance with Microsoft to fight cybercrime.
Source: ARN
Turnbull's pride the NBN's biggest problem
Malcolm Turnbull has published a detailed rebuttal of the Senate's criticism of his plans for the NBN. It contains an admission that he is committed to most of Labor's spending.
Source: iTWire
Fri, 09th May 2014
Regional Western Australia lands $45m for mobile coverage
As part of the Western Australia state budget, royalties from taxes on the resources industry will fund mobile phone towers in regional parts of the state.
Source: ZDNet Australia
Thu, 08th May 2014
NSA director praises Australia's Huawei ban
Australia made a "tremendous" decision to block Chinese owned telecommunications provider Huawei from competing for work on the NBN, according to a former NSA director.
Source: iTWire
Level 3 accuses major ISPs of forcing internet traffic into the slow lane
Slow internet? According to Level 3, it could well be that your ISP of deliberately throttling your traffic.
Source: ZDNet Australia
Wed, 07th May 2014
NBN Co to spend $1.4bn more on regional rollout
NBN Co will need to allocate up to $1.4 billion in additional funds to its fixed wireless and satellite rollout in regional areas after underestimating demand for the services by almost 400,000 users.
Source: iTnews Australia
NBN Co to ramp up fixed wireless
NBN Co's current plan to deliver broadband services to the 7-8 per cent of population outside the NBN fixed line footprint woefully underestimates the demand in those areas according to a report released today by the government-owned company.
Source: Computerworld
Vocus picks up ONEseniors, iBOSS, One Telecom
The businesses and customers of iBOSS International and One Telecom including the ONEseniors customers, have been acquired by the Vocus Communications group.
Source: iTWire
Vocus cannot guarantee service reactivation for iBoss, One Telecom customers
Telecommunications company, Vocus, is rushing to reconnect services interrupted by the court-ordered administration of iBoss International last week, which subsequently hit sister company, One Telecom, but is not promising that all services can be reactivated.
Source: ARN
Virgin apologises for weekend outage
Optus subsidiary Virgin Mobile Australia has issued a statement apologising for the major outage it experienced on the weekend.
Source: iTWire
Attorney-General George Brandis should back Privacy Alerts Bill : Labor
The federal Labor opposition has urged Attorney-General George Brandis to support its data breach notification bill following his "call to action" to combat identity crime.
Source: ARN
Vocus buys iBoss, One Telecom customers
Telecommunications provider Vocus has swooped in to purchase the customer bases of fellow telco wholesalers iBoss and OneTelecom, after the two companies entered administration late last week.
Source: iTnews Australia
Tue, 06th May 2014
'We messed up': Virgin Mobile Australia chief
Virgin Mobile Australia’s chief has issued a statement to its customers saying that the company had 'messed up' and offered his 'sincerest apologies' for an outage over the weekend that left hundreds of thousands of post-paid customers without mobile service for hours.
Source: ZDNet Australia
NBN Co cannot offer FTTB in TPG-serviced buildings: Morrow
Technical restrictions mean that NBN Co will not be able to offer its pending fibre-to-the-basement (FTTB) product in buildings where TPG Telecom has already installed FTTB services, NBN Co CEO Bill Morrow has confirmed. The alternatives? FTTP to the apartment - or no NBN Co service at all.
Source: ZDNet Australia
Mon, 05th May 2014
Telstra using ID checks for targeted ads
This week's National Privacy Week and it's been welcomed in with news that Telstra is reportedly using its sensitive customer data, including your drivers licence and credit card information, to send you targeted advertising.
Source: iTWire
AFP asst commissioner backs metadata collection
Australian Federal Police assistant commissioner, Tim Morris, has backed the collection and storage of telecommunications metadata by telcos in a bid to combat cyber crime.
Source: ZDNet Australia
Virgin's weekend from hell a social media disaster
Virgin Mobile customers have taken to social media and the company's website forum to vent their frustration over a major outage over the weekend.
Source: iTWire