Broadband News

Wed, 23rd Sep 2009

Blacklists should be given to vendors, not ISPs

The testing company that conducted the Federal Government's controversial ISP filtering trial claims any blacklists should be kept away from ISPs.

Source: ARN

Tue, 22nd Sep 2009

Blog: Is Conroy backpedalling on separation mandate?

Now that Minister Stephen Conroy has played his hand regarding Telstra's separation, the hard part begins.

Source: ZDNet Australia

Internode talks up PPC-1 after packet test

Internode has successfully conducted end-to-end packet flow tests between Australia and the US using Pipe's PPC-1, Australia's latest international fibre-optic link.

Source: iTnews Australia

NSW students tear through 40TB a month

Armed with Government-funded netbooks and unlimited access to the internet, students at New South Wales public schools are tearing through 40TB of downloads a month and heading fast for 100TB territory.

Source: iTnews Australia

Pipe's Guam cable carries first packets

Last month, Pipe Network's PPC-1 cable from Sydney to Guam carried its first light. This time, tests run with early customer, Internode, has seen the cable carry its first data packets.

Source: ZDNet Australia

SP Telemedia plans set-top box & phone service

SP Telemedia (the ISP/telco formed in April 2008 from the merger of Soul and TPG) has announced plans for a set-top box to enhance its IPTV offering and plans to launch a home phone service.

Source: iTWire

TPG, Soul bump up ADSL subscribers

TPG and Soul added a combined 88,000 broadband customers in the financial year ended July 31, pushing parent SP Telemedia's results into the black.

Source: iTnews Australia

ACCC leads blitz on Internet scams

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is leading a global initiative to find and eliminate Internet scams.

Source: ARN

Internode tests Pipe's sub cable, promises early customer benefits

Internode has become the first customer to test Pipe Networks' new PPC-1 fibre-optic cable, ahead of its official launch and is promising to revise its access plans to reflect PPC-1's lower connection costs to the US.

Source: iTWire

NBN Co in talks on purchase

Canberra broadband and pay-TV provider TransACT is likely to sell assets into the federal government's national broadband network.

Source: Australian IT

Telstra to finish cable repair

Telstra will today make the final repairs to the copper cables damaged in a construction mishap six days ago that left thousands of customers without phone or mobile services for almost a week.

Source: Australian IT

Mon, 21st Sep 2009

Internode datacentre suffers outage

A storm has caused an outage at Internode's Adelaide datacentre, which affected services in South Australia.

Source: ARN

Tasmania completes NBN design

Aurora Energy has gone to market for equipment to link up the fibre cables to be used for Tasmania's leg of the National Broadband Network.

Source: ZDNet Australia

Minchin claims Conroy and Tanner at odds over Telstra break-up

Shadow communications minister Nick Minchin claims that communications minister Stephen Conroy and finance minister Lindsay Tanner are at odds over the government's determination to wrest the HFC network and Foxtel stake from Telstra's grip, but the rules are set out in black and white in the bills now before parliament. Or are they...

Source: iTWire

Analysts: NBN Co the winner from any Telstra split

While the initial shock of Senator Conroy's plan to corner Telstra into accepting structural separation was met with outrage from Telstra shareholders, there is a growing field of analysts that see the legislation working in Telstra's favour.

Source: iTnews Australia

NBN: Australia's $43 billion iPhone

The National Broadband Network will provide an iPhone-like boom in online applications and services when complete, Federal Communications Minister, Stephen Conroy, has said.

Source: Computerworld

Telstra to roll out set-top box

Telstra is believed to be planning to launch a personal video recorder and set-top box, likely to be called the T-box, as early as December, in a bid to shift the entertainment, news and sport content it offers under the BigPond brand from people's computers to their televisions.

Source: Australian IT

Crossed lines on Telstra in ministers' mix-up

Federal government ministers yesterday contradicted each other over whether Telstra would be forced to sell its stake in Foxtel as part of the plan to break up the telco and bring more competition to telecommunications.

Source: Australian IT

Sue Trujillo

The story of how Telstra lost its network is one of hubris and bungling, of misreading the play in Australia by men from the US who thought they knew everything already. Shareholders should never forget this.

Source: ZDNet Australia

Tanner's 75pc off broadband

The cost to taxpayers of the government's new high-speed broadband network could be just a quarter of the initial $43billion estimated price tag, Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner says.

Source: Australian IT

Sun, 20th Sep 2009

Telstra pay TV role 'dreadful': minister

Key cabinet ministers have given differing views on Telstra's ownership of Foxtel, as the government prepares to carve up the telco giant.

Source: The Age

Welcome to the brave new world

What a week for Telstra shareholders. One minute they were proudly milking monopoly profits from their national copper wire network, next they found out that the same people who had sold them this monopoly at up to double the current share price were going to rip it away from them. What meanness!

Source: SMH

Sat, 19th Sep 2009

Alcatel-Lucent unveils converged backbone

Networking firm Alcatel-Lucent has developed a converged IP optical backbone designed to help service providers cope with accelerating demand for network capacity.

Source: iTnews Australia

yARN: Leave Telstra alone

As the Communications Minister, Stephen Conroy, launched into his morning press conference announcing the Government’s move to divide Telstra by force, voices of celebration rose up across the land.

Source: ARN

Fri, 18th Sep 2009

Telstra: Gotta keep 'em separated

ZDNet.com.au takes to the streets to see what opinions the public has to voice regarding the Telstra separation.

Source: ZDNet Australia

Consult with NBN users: Deloitte

The federal government needs to engage with consumers and the business community about how they plan to use its $43billion national broadband network if the ambitious project to ever succeed, advisory firm Deloitte says.

Source: Australian IT

Telstra behind broadband network: Livingstone

Telstra is still firmly behind the federal government's push for a national broadband network (NBN), according to the telco's chairwoman, Catherine Livingstone.

Source: Australian IT

For what the NBN will mean tomorrow, look are AARNet today

Australia's academic and research network today provides bandwidths well in excess of what the NBN will deliver, and cutting edge applications that exploit that bandwidth. CEO, Chris Hancock says they provide a foretaste of what the NBN will deliver to consumers and other users a few years down the track.

Source: iTWire

Telstra's monopoly meant mediocrity for consumers

Sol Trujillo was the George W. Bush of telecommunications. For both, the American way was the only way. Being the biggest meant you did not have to do diplomacy, and both were better at starting wars than finishing them. Both used patronage and punishment to ensure a like-minded leadership group that made worse decisions more harmoniously.

Source: SMH

Thu, 17th Sep 2009

Samuel hails new pricing powers

Competition watchdog Graeme Samuel yesterday hailed as a telecommunications revolution the strengthened powers that would enable him to impose pricing settlements on Telstra, ending two decades of "repetitive strain injury" litigation pursued by the company.

Source: Australian IT