After Bruce Billson, Opposition spokesperson for Communications, claimed yesterday that the federal government is planning on cutting subsidies to rural and regional broadband providers, a number of industry sources have cast doubt on whether the policy axe has been raised over the Australian Broadband Guarantee.
Broadband providers Internode and iiNet have hit out against the Federal government's ISP-level content filtering initiative a scheme that could cripple Australia's high-speed internet access, according to one exec.
Communications Minister Senator Stephen Conroy has issued a new set of guidelines for ISPs servicing rural and regional Australia, on the back of the Federal government's decision to extend the Australian Broadband Guarantee as part of last Tuesday's budget.
Uncertainty reigns about whether Stephen Conroy's Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy has received Enex Testlabs' report into the feasibility of ISP-level content filtering.
Experts have warned broadband prices may not be on their way down, despite the opening of a AU$200 million cable link.
Pretty soon, the government will be screening and filtering our email as well as making blogs like this one disappear.
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?
Optus' involvement in the controversial government blacklist project could fall on either side of the fence. In kissing the ring, is Optus conceding that censorship is inevitable or hatching a scheme to discredit Conroy's folly from within?
Communications minister Stephen Conroy today announced the controversial web filtering blacklist will be scrapped and be replaced with a whitelist-based filtering regime, to be administered by viewer voting through a family-friendly digital TV-only show called 'The White List'.
I have seen the NBN, and it looks a lot like Christina Aguilera. Or, at least, it looked like her when I dropped into Ericsson's Melbourne headquarters recently to see a live demo of their NBN solutions. Yet behind the streaming TV, one question lingers -- and not even the government seems able to answer it.
The Federal Government's committal to spend up to $43bn of taxpayer funds without rigorous and detailed analysis and economic modelling of the National Broadband Network is simply extraordinary.
Loosening the regulatory controls on Telstra might actually make it easier to attract customers away from its copper network and onto the new and shiny National Broadband Network.
The level of ignorance from Australian politicians about technology can be staggering. Here's some of the worst examples we've seen, and a short recipe for resolving the issue.
Optus CEO Paul O'Sullivan had it right when he said that the new National Broadband Network would be a commercial failure unless there was only one network that included Telstra's fixed-line assets.
Mike Quigley and Doug Campbell's long-standing relationships with Telstra and few of its rivals will lead Australia's telecommunications industry to question privately whether Telstra will receive a phenomenal level of access to the NBN decision-making processes.
Shadow Communications Minister talks about key issues in his portfolio: the National Broadband Network, the ISP filter and more.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt
Google's chief sits down for an extremely rare, wide-ranging interview and discusses Google's two operating sy… Watch it now
Telstra shareholders fear break up
What do Telstra shareholders think of the telco's new CEO David Thodey? And would they support the government'… Watch it now
The Change Program changes its Agenda
What happens when you change the agenda of the ATO's Change Program, or program in some changes to the Agenda?… Watch it now
Can not-so-smart meters help the NBN?
Can the Telco Reform Act be win-win?
Has New Zealand's smiling assassin delivered?
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