The vision of the future BT portrayed this week at an Australian conference was so far removed from how Telstra's David Quilty has described the British telco that I wonder if they were talking about the same UK.
Fair is not what the National Broadband Network tender is about; it's bloodsport, and a fight for survival, and a challenge of the wills, and all the other sorts of superlatives you might expect from an Olympics announcer.
The Olympics are nearly over, and the Australian team deserves kudos for an excellent performance all around. Yet even as the Olympic sun sets on the Bird's Nest for the last time this weekend, millions of spectators around the world will be scanning their dials in the hope of finding something else to fill their viewing hours.
Although 3G phones have been around for years, it appears the iPhone 3G has successfully rewritten the rules of competition in Australia's mobile sector whetting the nation's appetite for data.
Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has welcomed "improvements" in ISP filtering technologies, but will a broad-scale roll-out make ISPs a thief's favourite target?
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.
So how many of you have bought a 3G iPhone? Do you feel like a sucker? If you don't, maybe you will once your first bill arrives.
We've all experienced that irritating feeling upon walking into a nearly empty restaurant, only to see little 'reserved' signs on the empty tables, and to be told by the matre d' that no tables are available even as other people enter and are escorted to their tables.
A while back, frustration with my inability to get online outside of the office drove me to invest in a 3G data service from Hutchinson's 3. For $30 per month, I get 2GB of data that's accessible pretty much anywhere I go (I do all my work in metropolitan areas).
With all the excitement over the iPhone, few people have noticed that 1 July was the 11th anniversary of the deregulation of Australia's telecommunications market.
Earlier this month, Telstra put out a press release trumpeting that it's come up with a new phone coaching service to help people who are "bamboozled" by their mobiles. Another excellent example of wrongheaded thinking from the mobile industry.
Sometimes, a well-placed and well-timed letter can make all the difference. Other times, it can make no difference at all and even hurt your case. This week's missive by the Competitive Carriers' Coalition, I would suggest, falls into the latter category.
Hillary Clinton's nine lives are not yet depleted and, despite allegations that her stubborn refusal to concede defeat earlier has fragmented her party, she fought her battle to the very end. By placing bets several ways, that battle may just turn into gold for her down the track. Has Optus taken a leaf out of Hillary's book?
For no particular reason that I can discern, a 1979 Kenny Rogers song popped into my head as I was considering the ever more complex morass that is the national broadband network tender which Senator Stephen Conroy defended in his CeBIT keynote speech.
Last week, I lamented the growing tendency to slam perfectly valid technologies as unsuitable for new uses, just because they prove to be unsuited for applications for which they are inherently unsuited.
Visa CIO touts new transaction technologies
Michael Dreyer, CIO of Visa, expresses what innovation means to him in different areas, such as their PayWave … Watch it now
Industry-leading performance and availability by HP and Intel
Driving Business Growth Through Enterprise IT Management
Achieve continuous availability with high performance NonStop blade technology
Download Your Microsoft Unified Communications Fact Pack now.
Microsoft Unified Communications - Take your Self Assessment Today.
Broadband speedtest
How fast is your Internet connection?
Calculate the speed here.
Superguide: Printers -- all you need to know
Looking to buy a printer? Our superguide rates the latest printers and shines a light into the industry.
Click here for more.
Storage and server superguide
Over the last decade the art of maintaining the datacentre of a large organisation has evolved into an art form.
Click here for more.
