This afternoon Communications Minister Stephen Conroy described his opposite, Senator Nick Minchin, as a Luddite as he took questions from reporters on the Opposition's attempt to block the government's wide-ranging telecommunications industry reform legislation, which includes provisions to force the break-up of Telstra.
With legislation obliging telcos to share their network infrastructure details passed by the House of Representatives last night, it has been revealed that the government may compensate carriers for sharing their intellectual property.
Following the news a teenage boy has cracked the government's filtering software in half an hour, the Communications Minister has warned parents to be vigilant about their children's exploits online whether they use filters or not.
Concept Economics, the consultancy that recently estimated the costs of the National Broadband Network outweighed the benefits by up to $20 billion, has gone into administration.
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.
How well Stephen Conroy handles Telstra's challenge will determine whether we're hurtling towards a great new era in telecommunications, or fated to even more years stuck in the grip of Telstra's well-entrenched market position.
Like the engineers that sat down on day one with an empty blackboard and a mission to get man to the moon and back, building the NBN from the ground up is a daunting and complex opportunity that will present more than its share of challenges.
Rural areas will be welcoming the government's decision to put its money where its politicising is, funnelling $250m into a regional fibre upgrade to six rural centres. Remedying over a decade of near-neglect at the hands of telecoms privatisation, the investment could be the firmest step yet for Labor's NBN dream but with inevitable political questions and a looming election, Rudd and Conroy need to deliver, and quickly, to preserve the NBN's credibility.
Like the one ring of Sauron, the power of Telstra's copper loop twists the minds of its ever-scheming board, which hid in its Collins Street boardroom until it was wrenched from its grasp by the forces of deregulation and the undead armies of ACCC head Graeme Samuel.
Now that Minister Stephen Conroy has played his hand regarding Telstra's separation, the hard part begins.
This afternoon Communications Minister Stephen Conroy described his opposite, Senator Nick Minchin, as a Luddite as he took questions from reporters on the Opposition's attempt to block the government's wide-ranging telecommunications industry reform legislation, which includes provisions to force the break-up of Telstra.
Yesterday's report from the Australian Computer Society's Filtering and E-Security Task Force will be a handy weapon in Communications Minister Senator Stephen Conroy's battle over internet censorship.
The proposed regulatory reforms ahead of the roll-out of the National Broadband Network rely on a finely balanced carrot and stick approach. But will Telstra cooperate with the government's ultimatum?
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.
If mainstream media cannot be trusted to provide an objective, poison-free analysis of the issues of the day, then it is the responsibility of this government specifically, my department to come to the citizenry's rescue.
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Welcome to National Censorship Day
That sinking Tcard feeling
The challenge of government 2.0
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