A view from the trenches of Australian telecommunications. As the name implies, it’s a two-way conversation and we ask you not to pull any punches ... we won’t.
Australia’s first-world economy relies on first-rate IT and telecommunications innovation. David Braue covers its challenges, successes and the lessons learned as it uses ICT to assert its leadership in the developing Asia-Pacific region – and strengthen its reputation on the world stage.
Somewhere along the line, it became assumed that xDSL technologies -- which run over the last-mile of wiring so tightly controlled by Telstra -- were the only way forward for Australian broadband.
It's been 345 years since physicist Robert Boyle published the experimental results confirming what is now known as Boyle's Law, which to paraphrase is: a gas will spread out to fill any available space.
When broadband providers offer packages that you think look to good to be true, you're rarely disappointed.
There are times when the tone of Australia's broadband discussions makes me want to laugh, and others when it just makes me want to cry. The past week has been one of the latter, after two very different broadband-related stories made their way across my desk.
There must be something in the water in Canberra. After years of measured inaction, the Coalition is taking long-overdue steps towards universal broadband and working around Telstra's continued domination -- after 10 years of deregulation -- of the country's telecommunications wholesale markets.
Just a few days after the Australia Connected program was launched Communications Minister Helen Coonan was selling the initiative to the TV talk shows.Senator Coonan made a good defence of WiMax technology -- which, I should say right now, is great stuff and really shouldn't be lumped in with flaky and low-powered Wi-Fi.
The government's Australia Connected program, it appears, is no longer an altruistic and long-overdue investment in Australia's infrastructure, but a political football whose primary purpose seems to be to send a massive "nyah-nyah" to the Labor party.Such is the price of progress in an election year.
Steve Jobs' backflip on a key aspect of the iPhone stood out from a normal day -- broadband furore, antagonistic marketing, personal attacks and government inaction -- in the world of Australia's telecoms market.At this week's Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) Jobs said the iPhone, that oh-so-cool gadget set to make its mark on the US later this month (and on Australia, whenever Apple gets around to it), would have the ability to run third-party applications.
I'm sure we've all written e-mails, or other things online, that have come back to bite us.With its pointless and, frankly, bizarre hate campaign against the government, Telstra in particular must have been suffering post-email regret.
Is your telco taking security seriously? It should be.