Pipe Networks CEO Bevan Slattery opens up on the risk the credit crunch posed to its Sydney-Guam pipeline and reiterates his opinion that the National Broadband Network builder had to be Telstra or no one.
2008 was a cracker year for telco in Australia, with so many huge events happening that those at the beginning of the year have been drowned by the importance of those at the end.
Telstra's proposal to build the government's $4.7 billion national broadband network has been accepted as a bid by Communications Minister Stephen Conroy, who late yesterday said it would be passed it along to the expert panel in charge of the process.
Telstra this morning submitted what appeared to be a non-compliant mini-bid to build the National Broadband Network, in what appeared to be a 'middle-ground' approach after receiving no certainty on whether a successful bid would force it to separate its operations.
Australia's third-largest ISP iiNet said yesterday that the government's $4.7 billion national broadband network was "doomed to be a monumental failure" despite the fact that iiNet itself is a member of Terria, a consortium bidding to build the network.
Many Australians are drooling at the prospect of 100Mbps broadband, but Trujillo seems to have a bigger endgame in mind. As Telstra poaches customers from the PSTN and NBN, he'll leave more poison pills than we've seen since Phar Lap.
Rejecting Telstra's proposal, after all, is the only conclusion Conroy can reach: as someone whose entire philosophy is built around transparency and process, he simply cannot keep Telstra as part of the NBN bidding process anymore.
Labor's policy of socialised broadband has certainly proved much harder than the party believed it would be back when it was in Opposition, but it is Telstra that stands to lose the most from the NBN - and that applies whether it loses the NBN contract or wins it.
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.
Telstra's decision to upgrade its cable definitely now means that the National Broadband Network won't get built. This policy has ceased to be, it rests in peace. This is an ex-policy.
New Zealand's new Communications Minister Stephen Joyce has the gargantuan task of dragging New Zealand into the next broadband age, a labour which will take 10 years.
2008 was a cracker year for telco in Australia, with so many huge events happening that those at the beginning of the year have been drowned by the importance of those at the end.
WiMax, the controversial long range wireless broadband technology, is set to spread across rural Australia from next year -- but despite the outgoing Howard government's ambitious project, both fixed and mobile variants of the technology are already being deployed around the world.
When the government announced that Optus and Elders had won the bid to build Australia's bush broadband network, it provoked jeers and plaudits alike, but it was the ISPs' choice of WiMax as the bearer technology that has provoked the most furious storm of argument. Just how will the technology stand up to life in the bush?
The AirPort Extreme Base Station is a great wireless router for Mac or novice users who need something that's simple, nice-looking and works well for their homes. Savvy and Windows users will find many other alternatives that offer a lot more features for their money.
They're big and quite ugly, but there's no doubting that Netgear's WNHDEB111 delivers in the 802.11n speed stakes finally!
The Asus VW223B is acceptable for its intended audience those who need to add a second monitor cheaply, and are undemanding in its use.
As a basic wireless N kit, the Conceptronic Wireless 300Mbps Broadband Starter pack offers reasonable value, but like so many of its wireless N peers, it still fails to live up to the hype.
Here's a dollop of irony: the best Windows Mobile smartphone has been created by Palm! A bevy of OS enhancements and access to Telstra's Next G mobile broadband network easily make it the best Windows Mobile device we've ever used.
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