"I invite interested parties to provide their views on the legislation covering the access regime for the National Broadband Network and governing the operations, ownership and control of the National Broadband Network company," Senator Conroy said in a statement this afternoon.

The government will hand submissions to the soon to be selected lead advisor for the NBN implementation study.

Views sought include how it should implement the new telecommunications regulatory framework that was raised in its recent reform discussion paper. It's also seeking views on the process for defining services to be offered by the company, how and for what period it should set price and non-price terms and conditions, and how the company should deal with pricing and access equivalence to the NBN.

Ownership caps will also be covered. Conroy has flagged that private investors should own no more than 15 to 20 per cent of the company, but he now wants to know what those restrictions should be to ensure equivalence. The government is also seeking views on how it should sell its 51 per cent stake in the network.

Written submissions are due by Thursday 30 July 2009.

Today's call for views follows 120 submissions the Department of Broadband Communications and the Digital Economy received in response to its telecommunications regulatory reform discussion paper.

Responses from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, Optus, and the Competitive Coalition of Carriers had recommended Telstra's structural separation, amongst other regulatory changes.

Telstra advised against functional separation, and suggested a new telco adjudicator be established that was partly funded by Telstra but run by the government. It also wanted an independent auditor to evaluate the worth of its copper network.

Conroy today said the NBNCo is planned to be overseen by the current regulator, the ACCC, with a reminder the company will operate on a wholesale-only, open access basis.

The call for papers comes as the Senate Standing Committee on Environment, Communications and the Arts has launched an inquiry into Conroy's first piece of NBN legislation, which will attempt to expand the government's information gathering powers from solely telcos to all utilities.

The committee will look at whether the confidentiality provisions under the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (National Broadband Network Measures No 1) Bill 2009 are enough to protect privacy of the utilities. A report is due by 17 August.

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• Conroy calls $250m backhaul tender
• Conroy lands first NBN legislation
• Conroy: NBN won't be an eyesore
• Conroy praises Telstra diplomacy

SmartGate uses ePassport data and face recognition technology to perform the customs and immigration checks usually conducted by actual officers. The system aimed to make border crossing simpler and easier, but still maintain border integrity, Home Affairs Minister Brendan O'Connor said today.

Regular Australian and New Zealand travellers amongst the five million who use Sydney's airport each year would notice the advantage SmartGate, it is claimed. The system was first introduced at Brisbane airport in 2007 and is now also available at Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide and Cairns international airports.

To be eligible to use SmartGate, Australian and New Zealand travellers need to be the holder of an ePassport and be aged 18 or over.

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• Custom to finally deliver SmartGate
• E-passport fraud no threat to SmartGate
• UK airport begins biometric ID trial
• Protecting our borders: IT stands guard

The company will supply the department with 9000 Hewlett Packard 6350b laptops, although the potential exists to increase the number to 15,000, a spokesperson for the department told ZDNet.com.au this week.

The state's program, which started in 2007, will see every permanent state school teacher or TAFE lecturer who works at least two days a week (around 39,000) with access to their own laptop by 2011.

Over 29,000 Lenovo/IBM Thinkpad laptops were supplied via Queensland-based CoreTech for the first two phases of the rollout. ComputerCorp bought Coretech last year.

The department hoped to have the new round of computers in schools and TAFES by the middle of September. Aside from delivering laptops, the program will also pay for new IT infrastructure in schools, including wireless access. The teacehrs will also get the option of undertaking professional development to get the most out of their computers.

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• ComputerCORP buys S Central, Synergy
• Tasmanian Govt appoints hardware panel
• WA, NT pick PC revolution suppliers
• Qld Education uses old PC panel

The jobs it claims Telstra has planned to cut, but is yet to execute, are mostly from Telstra's support divisions, including financial and business administration staff. Telstra has not confirmed the redundancies. "In their Melbourne Global Operations Centre alone, Telstra looks to cut almost 100 key personnel," the union said on its website today.

The jobs proposed to be cut were included in a leaked list detailing 600 other jobs the union claims Telstra has cut in the past three months. Roles included administrators, engineers, technicians, installers, designers, project coordinators and technical specialists. The cuts are Australia-wide, with the majority coming from Melbourne and Sydney.

The list, which does not reveal individuals' names, includes the suburbs, job titles, and business divisions of staff it claimed Telstra has made redundant. The disclosure comes just days after several unions and Telstra reached an agreement on the principles the two would stick to in upcoming enterprise bargaining negotiations.

Telstra has, after facing repeated industrial action, accepted the role unions play in negotiating work conditions. The Labour Government's Fair Work Act ushered in yesterday, which replaced the former government's Work Choices program, goes some way to setting rules of engagement between unions and companies.

The union said it was still keen to "work positively with Telstra" and to secure a new enterprise agreement. The union conceded that some jobs would be surplus as a result of Telstra ushering in its to-be-completed transformation program, but criticised the telco for being short-sighted.

"Telstra simply isn't thinking long term — where the National Broadband Network build will place enormous demands for skills through the requirement of 25,000 employees," the union wrote.

Telstra did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication.

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• Thodey effect: Union suspends action
• Customers king, Thodey tells Telstra staff
• Thodey's pay: at least $2m per year
• Telstra CEO: Who is David Thodey?

New Zealand's Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union (EPMU) and network engineers from Telecom contractors Downer and Transfield staged a series of drive-by protests through central Auckland. EPMU national organiser for the telecommunications and power industry, Joe Gallagher, said some 450 vans took part in the demonstration.

The van protest streaming through Auckland (Credit: Alain Russell)

The vans featured the livery of Telecom New Zealand's network arm, Chorus. Gallagher said the engineers were angry at being forced to become owner-operators instead of employees as a result of Chorus restructuring the contractor deals between the three Australian-owned companies.

In the past, Transfield and Downer EDI Engineering were contracted by Telecom (and later by Chorus as operational separation was mandated). Gallagher said a new company, Visionstream, will now serve the populous Auckland and Northland regions, a move announced last week and brought in, he said, "with great secrecy".

As a result of the restructuring, engineers that were employees of Downer and Transfield will now be expected to become independent owner-operators. This means, Gallagher said, that they have to buy their own expensive vans and gear, which must meet Chorus' specifications.

All in all, Gallagher said around 900 people would be affected by the changes. He believes there would be no benefit to engineers as a result of the changes, and said it was unfair to shift costs to his members in a recession. "It's not like our guys are earning millions as it is — most are on NZ$18 to $20 an hour, and have been on that money for the past 20 years," he said.

Gallagher added the collective agreements with Downer and Transfield had now expired, but believes it's necessary to make a stand to stop Telecom from "destroying the industry, like they seem to do every five years". He would not say if any further action by the union is on the cards.

Chorus spokesperson Melanie Marshall said her company was a little disappointed with the protests, but disputed the turnout was as large as the EPMU claimed. Marshall estimated there were only 80 vans in the drive-by action, and noted that the engineers were back at work at 11 o'clock.

It's not like our guys are earning millions as it is

EPMU organiser Joe Gallagher

According to Marshall, the changes are necessary for Chorus to meet its commitments to customers. "We need more flexibility with time," Marshal said, as customers want to be able to book installers and maintenance engineers outside working hours.

The changes are part of a 10-year contract that Chorus is signing with the three Australian companies. In total, Marshall said the contract was worth NZ$3 billion, and that it would help provide certainty for everyone over a long period of time.

Marshall said Visionstream's owner-operator model was already in place in Australia, and that the company had "processes" to help engineers shifting from being employees and needing to finance vehicles and equipment.

She said that Chorus had been consulting with the union and its members over the changes, holding "meet and greets" with Visionstream and providing information on the plans. A Visionstream spokesperson said the union was being disingenuous in saying engineers will be worse off under the owner-operator model.

The company will provide training on how to run a company, as well as financial support, including interest-free loans to purchase vehicles and equipment, the spokesperson said.

According to the spokesperson, the owner-operator model has worked to the benefit of Telstra network engineers in Australia, with no ex-employees regretting the move to independent contractors. Saying the union was fully briefed on the changes, the Visionstream spokesperson said his company was happy to continue to engage with engineers and that it is keen to retain the skilled workers.

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• Telstra, unions agree on bargaining principles
• Telstra freezes executive pay
• ANZ spends $10m to offset offshoring
• Thodey effect: Union suspends action

Initially, the Howard Government's assumption was that competitive forces would spur private-sector investment that would generate untold momentum for technological progress. While the cities ended up awash in bandwidth, however, many rural areas were only kept online at all thanks to the pressure of the Universal Service Obligation and related Digital Data Service Obligation, and their paltry 64Kbps minimum connectivity standards.

Did rural Australia fall behind in Australian telecoms as a result? Does a bear do his business in the woods? With 12 years of deregulation having delivered minimal investment into areas including Emerald, Longreach, Geraldton, Darwin, Broken Hill, Victor Harbor and Victoria's South West Gippsland region, the government is finally picking up the baton where the private sector dropped it — not back of Bourke, but somewhere well short of it.

This is the sort of discretionary investment that only the government can justify, and it's a surefire sign that a government-backed NBN was the only way to recover from the deficient and disastrous state of Australia's rural telecoms

This is the sort of discretionary investment that only the government can justify, and it's a surefire sign that a government-backed NBN was the only way to recover from the deficient and disastrous state of Australia's rural telecoms. This concession is borne out by the cautiously positive initial responses to the tender.

It's also one of the first firm commitments made during an NBN process that has proved to be as ponderous, vague and non-specific as Parliamentary Question Time.

Even Tasmania, which was supposed to have fibre going into the ground by now based on the PM's original schedule, is still wondering what the heck is going on. The situation is hardly helped by delays in switching on the Basslink fibre-optic cable, which are contributing to time slippage that's making the Apple Isle look like it may be related to the island in Lost.

The conspiracy theorist in me would like to believe the government is working with Aurora Energy to introduce the NBN in secrecy — flipping the switch in some large-scale ceremony like Telstra did with its Next G network, ideally (for Rudd) about a fortnight before the election. The realist in me is pointing out that delays are business as usual when it comes to government, and is currently beating the conspiracy theorist over the head with a fresh salmon.

The sceptic in me, meanwhile, has latched onto the suggestion that these rural areas were simply a bald-faced play for votes: four of the six regions in Coalition electorates and the other two in marginal Labor party seats. I've questioned the NBN as a political stunt in the past, but in a pragmatic sense can we really expect anything less from Labor or, indeed, from any government?

This line of thought seems supported by the fact that neither Emerald, Longreach, Victor Harbor nor Gippsland were named in the government's initial April announcement about the funding. Rather, they were added in at the expense of independent-leaning Mt Isa, Liberal-leaning Mt Gambier and National Party-leaning Mildura, all of which were named in the April list. Make of this what you will.

If we really thought Labor was digging for votes, we might expect the NBN Company headquarters to be put not in Sydney or Melbourne or Brisbane, but in a Coalition-leaning rural centre that's also well-serviced (or is soon to be) with competitive fibre backhaul. Time will tell

If we really thought Labor was digging for votes, we might expect the NBN Company headquarters to be put not in Sydney or Melbourne or Brisbane, but in a Coalition-leaning rural centre that's also well-serviced (or is soon to be) with competitive fibre backhaul. Time will tell.

Politicking aside, Rudd and Conroy need to deliver this initial rural broadband investment as quickly and efficiently as possible — and to bring it live as soon as practicable, so that rural Australians can progressively benefit the fibre as it comes online, rather than waiting until some arbitrary date when the whole thing can be switched on. Rural areas have already suffered the damage of 12 failed years of infrastructure policy, and the most politically astute thing Rudd can do now is to make sure they don't wait much longer.

There are concerns, however, even now: it has already taken the Rudd Government nearly two years to get to this point, after it was elected on a platform of revolutionising Australian broadband. In rural areas, this has so far been limited to the piecemeal programs like the Digital Regions Initiative and the provision of pay phones — yes, pay phones — to 300 remote Aboriginal communities. Now that's progress.

The government's track record in delivering this rural backhaul investment will be a much bigger test, particularly as it is challenged with the distractions of a looming election. This distraction will either sideline the NBN process as politicians get caught up in the usual sniping and character assassination, or it will bring the NBN to front and centre as a concrete example of Rudd's ability to get the job done.

And when it comes to the NBN, as we've seen, rural Australians just need to get the job done. If Rudd and Conroy can avoid getting caught up in a massive regulatory, broadband and political fiasco, perhaps the NBN can be their shining glory. The current rural contract will be their biggest test so far — and if they can deliver with something resembling timeliness, they might just prove that this NBN thing is more than a politically convenient pipe dream.

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• Backhaul tender cautiously welcomed
• NBN HQ decision will wait for board
• Conroy calls $250m backhaul tender
• NBN bill worries infrastructure players

Upside

From a distance there are loads to love about this new HTC Android-powered smartphone. HTC's previous Android, the Magic, was a fantastic phone in its own right, but with a few notable shortcomings: namely multimedia and storage.

The Hero should handle media better than the Magic, with early reports confirming the Hero will be capable of playing back MP4, H.264, H.263 and WMV video files, plus MP3, AAC and WMA audio files. It also includes a built-in 3.5mm headphone jack, which we sorely missed from the Magic.

The new additions go far further than media file codecs though. HTC will pre-install a new, unique user interface layered over the Android platform called Sense UI. People familiar with HTC's Windows Mobile TouchFlo 3D interface will see the similarities immediately, but the focus in Sense UI is on home screen widgets. At its launch event, HTC showcased a wide selection of widgets including weather, clocks and calendars. Widgets are the Android's major advantage over the iPhone, showcasing the lengths of customisation open to users of this platform. For a closer look at Sense UI check out the hands-on photo gallery from our friends at CNET UK.

Downside

Both of HTC's Android phones so far have had a gentle lip at the base of the handset, a subtle chin pointing the mic towards your mouth. Living up to its name the Hero has a superhero-sized chin, a huge Superman-like extension. We don't want to seem shallow, but it might be a little too extreme for many conservative phone users.

While HTC has ironed out most of our media woes from the Magic, the lack of internal storage is going to rub many media-lovers the wrong way. Compared to the iPhone and N97's 32GB of storage, and Samsung's Galaxy's 8GB of memory, HTC had better not forget to slip a microSD card in the box with the handset.

Overall

In the words of a great Australian, "I'm excited!". The Hero looks like an impressive touchscreen, especially with its screen lit and HTC's Sense UI on display. We loved tinkering with the Magic, customising the interface with the widgets available on the Android Market, and seeing HTC take this to the next level is fantastic. Look out for more news around the Hero's release in August.

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• New HTC handsets hit Oz
• Aussie phone for disabled wins recognition
• What's the best business smartphone?
• HTC brings a little Magic down under

The complaints related to delays in receiving the cashback from the hardware manufacturer, and difficulties in receiving consistent answers from HP or agents, according to the ACCC, which had looked into the problem last year.

"The ACCC received more than 190 complaints about Hewlett-Packard's cashback and gift promotions over the past year, primarily related to sale of personal computers and printers," ACCC chairman Graeme Samuel said in a statement.

The commission said that HP had cooperated fully, working with the ACCC to resolve problems. It had employed a new service provider to manage the cashback and gift promotions, as well as putting in a new claims processing process. With the complaint handling process improved, HP's website has included instructions for those consumers who had not yet received their cashback.

"Cashback offers are popular with consumers, so it is very important that companies making such offers treat consumers fairly and provide clear and straightforward information about claiming cashbacks," Samuel said.

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• Tech.Ed attendees get free HP netbook
• HP SkyRoom
• HP settles with CSIRO
• HP Australia bulked up in 2008

Despite being innovators and vigorous competitors, the ACCC believed Hutchison and Vodafone's services would have degraded over time, lessening their effectiveness as competitors to Telstra and Optus.

The competition watchdog allowed the merger to proceed under Section 50 of the Trade Practices Act, which prohibits a merger if it's likely to lead to a lessening of competition in the foreseeable future. The report focused on mobile telephony and mobile broadband markets.

The report reveals why the ACCC appeared not to support the merger when it said in April the merger would likely lead to higher prices for such services, but ultimately back-flipped when it approved the deal last month.

Vodafone and Hutchison were "vigorous competitors" in each market, forcing lower pricing from Telstra and Optus, but still the ACCC said their absence as individual players would unlikely lead to a lessening of competition in the foreseeable future. Key to its finding was the view that constraints on Hutchison's and Vodafone's network capacity, resulting from a failure to expand existing networks, would ultimately lessen their effectiveness as competitors.

"Without this network expansion, Hutchison would suffer a significant competitive disadvantage — in particular, the speed of its [mobile broadband] and other data services would slow down and the quality of its voice services would degrade," it reported.

"It is highly unlikely that Vodafone would have continued to make the investments necessary to remain competitive in MBB across Australia in the absence of the merger," the regulator said of Vodafone.

The ACCC acknowledged in its report that the merger would lead to a significant increase in concentration in the already concentrated markets. It also noted that Telstra and Optus may behave more competitively during the integration period of the newly merged entity VHA faces, but it said this would likely be short-lived.

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• ACCC approves Voda/Hutch merger
• Voda, Hutch plans to stay post-merger
• Hutchison confident Voda merger will proceed
• Voda sues Telecom NZ over 'interference'

David Bartlett
(Credit: Tasmanian Government)

Due to low retention rates, the state government decided in 2007 to do something about its system for students after year 10. It proposed a three-tiered system: a Polytechnic, Skills Institute and Academy catering for students who favoured practical learning, employment skills development and academic learning respectively. The program kicked off in January across 14 campuses, with another four or five to be added later.

ICT services were being standardised with shared ICT support, including centralised help desk, single or consistent sign on for all corporate applications, a single backup solution for files, and access for all student and staff to shared labs across campuses.

In budget estimate hearings two weeks ago (23 June), independent member for Rosevears Kerry Finch pointed out that since the new system had begun, there had been IT problems.

"I am informed that since secondary colleges will become part of polytechnic campuses their computer services have entered a disaster zone — that's how it has been described to me. There are long waits and lack of access. Is there a response to that?"

"I think 'disaster zone' is a bit harsh, to be honest," Premier David Bartlett said. "I know from my own background that bringing together nine campuses in a short period of time to operate on disparate systems, two different enrolment systems, a whole range of things, is an extremely complex task and I think the shared services unit in the Polytechnic and the IT area did a very good job in doing that."

He admitted that not all the services which teachers had previously had access to were not online for day one, but he said that he had been told there had been significant improvements. "Partly it is about finding something that is wrong and partly it is about trying to bring old systems together with new systems and the normal migration issues."

Finch said that the feedback he had heard was that students had been unable to configure their laptops into the polytechnic area network service which meant they had to go home to access their email and other services.

Bringing together nine campuses in a short period of time to operate on disparate systems, two different enrolment systems, a whole range of things, is an extremely complex task

David Bartlett

General manager of the shared services unit Tony Luttrell responded to that, saying he understood those issues had now been resolved. "But in talking about that, it's worthwhile understanding that we've inherited about 3500 computers ranging in ages from current 2009 models to ones which are seven years old, so some of the computers in the labs have limitations... So there is a real mixture of capabilities across the 19-odd campuses and this will take some time, as the premier said, to all be on the same age or fleet of current technology," he said.

Aside from fixing migration issues, Bartlett also believed that the IT systems in the newly formed institutions needed upgrading, since despite the new schooling model, students and staff would still be using their old systems which had the same problems they'd always had.

"I have a clear view that we need to invest much more in both student systems or support systems like HR and finance, but much more in teaching and learning systems in IT as well and we will be doing that ... but that will take months and years to invest in; things don't change overnight," he said.

Although the students might have access to new systems in the future, whether they'll be able to use Facebook on the network is still in question.

"There is an educational debate around social networking and it is one that is not resolved," Mike Brakey, CEO of the new Tasmanian Academy said. "With things like Facebook, the question that educators would raise is where is the inherent educational value in social networking?"

He said that having students chatting to their friends on social networks might not be the best use of resources.

"So I think in a sense we've hung back from some of that technology until we can get out heads around that debate because we want to be able to use things like Facebook for those educational purposes; in other words, to facilitate better learning communication on campuses rather than just social networking."

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• Tassie tips $12.7m in Aurora's NBN
• Suppliers wanted for Tassie's e-health revamp
• Minter Ellison wins Tassie NBN work
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• Slick NAS admin UI
• Highly featured
• SMS alert support
• High transfer speeds

• Cheap display on the NAS
• "Stations" need to be overhauled

Design

QNAP's TS-509 Pro, like most NAS units, is a big box. In this case, it's a gun-metal grey chassis with a black plastic fascia. A silver power button, activity lights for hard drive, USB and network access are on the front, with a USB port and a programmable quick copy button situated at the bottom. Five lockable, quick load hard drive caddies are included, with grilles at the front for airflow.

A status screen is featured at the top; however, it only turns on when you press a button. The display lags and ghosts heavily, indicating its cheapness — it's certainly not as easily laid out or informative as the ReadyNAS Pro's screen, but by and large does the job. By default it displays the NAS unit's name and IP addresses. A configuration menu can also be entered, under which TCP/IP settings can be viewed and configured, and disk, volume, temperature and fan rpm stats can also be viewed.

On the rear, two gigabit Ethernet ports are supplied which support load balancing/failover, four USB ports and an eSATA port. The latter should be extremely useful for quickly dumping files to disk, should you have an eSATA external drive lying around. There is also a serial port on the rear, and interestingly a DB9 port for which its purpose is only listed as "reserved", usually meaning it has some sort of internal testing purpose.

Features

Our TS-509 Pro arrived with version 2.1 of its firmware installed — a powerful but somewhat dull interface. We updated to version 3.1, and wow, what a difference! QNAP seems intent on not only challenging Synology, but beating them in the AJAX stakes, with a flashy and attractive menu system now in place and making it easy to use.

The web interface starts on a basic menu selection screen that "borrows" from Apple's Cover Flow, acting as a gateway into the NAS administration page, web server administration, web-based file management and providing links to customer service, the QNAP wiki and QNAP forum. While it looks fancy, it slows down the entry to the administration menu by adding a needless step and all options are present on the NAS administration page anyway.

The initial web UI home page provides quick links to commonly used tasks — creating a user, group or shared folder; FTP administration and backup scheduling options. A nice touch is the news panel down the bottom, which tells you not only when new firmware or utilities have been released, but when third-party extras have been as well. Annoyingly, the latter are linked to QNAP's forums, of which you have to register to be able to see. Ultimately this is of benefit though, as the forums are well populated and QNAP representatives appear to be quick to respond to users' queries.

Configuration options are otherwise provided on the left in a typical tree view, the right side acting as an information pane, making it easy to find anything you need. This is important, since as a NAS it's heavily featured and managing those features can be a nightmare without a good interface.

On the networking side, the QNAP supports whitelist/blacklist access through either IP or domain, can block IPs based on failed log-ins, supports SSL certificates, offers CIFS/AFP/NFS protocols, UPnP discovery, wake on LAN, dynamic DNS server support and allows email alerts as well as SMS alerts — although for the latter you'll need to point it towards your own provider, and often this service is not free.

System options include fan configuration speeds, scheduled power up/down, recycle bin functionality, NAS configuration backup, user/group management (although share folder permissions are not as granular as sub-folders, only top-level), backup options including remote replication, printer sharing and USB volume support. QNAP also includes a performance monitor to see how your NAS is doing on the bandwidth front, and an incredible set of stats and logs to help you analyse any issues.

On the storage front, single disk, JBOD (called "linear volume" here), RAID 0, 1, 5 and 6 modes are all supported in an easy to manage fashion, and you can choose to either format with EXT3 or EXT4. You can create encrypted volumes, it can act as an iSCSI target and supports virtual disks. SMART diagnostic information is available, although only one drive at a time — we'd prefer an at-a-glance view of all drives.

For servers, the usual FTP/HTTP (with PHP and MySQL support)/SSH/iTunes/UPnP AV quintet is present, although just like the Synology DS209 extra functionality is offered via "stations". The included Multimedia Station is a misnomer — it's just an image viewer for pictures dumped in the Qmultimedia folder on the NAS.

The Download Station is a bit more interesting, allowing the NAS to manage HTTP, FTP or BitTorrent downloads. While you can pause or queue downloads and prioritise that queue, there is no way to schedule them. The system does allow you to right-click an entry to choose extra options, however, none of those options worked in Firefox 3 — forcing us to choose from the menu on the left.

There's also a Surveillance Station, should you have some IP cameras set up in your network. All of these "stations" look quite old, aren't consistent design-wise and haven't been overhauled like the NAS administration section. You also can't just return back to NAS administration — you have to go back to the useless start screen again, and most annoyingly, you're required to log in again.

Extra applications can be installed to the NAS via QNAP's QPKG package manager, offering CMS suites such as WordPress, a news group downloader and even an eMule client.

Performance

The TS-509 impressed with its performance, able to write our 1GB test file at a maximum of 85MBps over our Netgear GS108T, and read back at 101MBps while set to RAID 5 using five 1TB drives. No doubt this was helped along by its 1024MB of DDR2 RAM, and 1.6GHz Intel processor.

Despite the fancy hardware, the NAS remained quiet throughout use. It was definitely audible, but the slow rotation 40mm power supply fan and 120mm fan cooling the rest of the unit on the back keeps things within acceptable limits.

The QNAP TS-509 Pro comes highly recommended — it's a flexible NAS with an interface that's gaining usability as time goes on. Its weak point is in its add-ons — the Multimedia and Download Stations could do with a complete rework, just as the main interface has been. If you aren't deterred by these shortcomings, the TS-509 should definitely be on your list if you're looking at five-bay NAS devices.

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• Netgear ReadyNAS Pro
• Netgear ReadyNAS RND4250

In a statement, Squiz managing director John-Paul Syriatowicz pledged to keep Funnelback trading as a separate company, with its own brand. "There will be no changes to company structure, staffing or strategy," he said. However, he noted that Funnelback's search solution would be closely integrated with Squiz's MySource Matrix content management solution.

Syriatowicz said it made sense for the pair to come together.

"As organisations continue their inevitable move towards browser-centric information management, powerful, fully-integrated search will play an increasingly important role," he said. "I believe 2010 will herald a fundamental shift in the content management systems and search marketplace as clients and vendors realise the two are inseparable. Trying to treat them as discrete solutions simply doesn't work."

Squiz did not disclose how much it paid for Funnelback, which was spun off as a CSIRO-owned company in early 2006. The search group boasts the Federal Government, Oxfam and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation amongst its customers.

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• Funnelback holds fast to australia.gov.au
• Aust govt plans revamped Web search
• CSIRO births new search company
• CeBIT: Nairn talks up govt blogs

(Credit: Apple)

If you queued for your iPhone last year, or even a week ago, you might be peeved to know that Apple will now ship your shiny, new iPhone 3GS while you wait (im)patiently on your living room sofa.

Apple has updated its Australian online store to include unlocked iPhone 3Gs and 3GS', in all capacities and all available colour options. The outright prices are as we reported on iPhone launch day: AU$719 for 8GB iPhone 3G, and AU$879 and AU$1040 for the 16GB and 32GB iPhone 3GS models respectively.

3 Mobile continues to build momentum on its planned iPhone launch, announcing that the handsets will be available in its stores on 17 July, but are still yet to confirm plans and pricing.

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• Carriers in a tether over iPhone capabilities
• Apple closes Sydney store to browsers
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iiNet, Vodafone, Optus, NextGen and Internode have welcomed the government's plan to build backhaul transmission links to the six regional locations announced yesterday. All agreed the build should improve competition to areas that are either under-serviced or monopolised by Telstra.

The two companies known to be lodging bids, Leighton's fibre subsidiary NextGen and Optus are keen to accommodate the government's plans, according to its spokespeople. Chief of fibre company NextGen Phil Sykes told ZDNet.com.au its parent Leighton's core business gave it a natural advantage and said the proposed September start was "very do-able".

Optus' director of Government and Corporate Affairs, Maha Krishnapillai, said it was already rolling out fibre in some areas and had the workforce for a quick deployment.

Internode chieftain Simon Hackett told ZDNet.com.au that the ISP and its carrier company, Agile, was considering responding to the tender too. "Anything that serves to create competitive alternatives to unviable monopoly backhaul pricing from Telstra is a good thing for the country — anywhere and everywhere that this occurs," he said.

Telstra has not responded to ZDNet.com.au's request for comment.

Key criteria the government wants to find out, according to the tender documents, is how soon construction can start, a completion date, and when services will be available. While both NextGen and Optus plan to bid for the entire project, Optus' Krishnapillai conceded the government's desire to have the project completed quickly could mean multiple companies will be allocated work.

But Ovum telecommunications analyst David Kennedy has questioned the government's plan to roll the network into the NBN Company. The tender documents reveal the government is planning for the backhaul builder to manage, maintain and provide third-party access to the network for the first five years after its completion. After this, either the NBNCo would take over ownership or the builder could be retained as a contracted service provider.

"If the government wants to put backhaul infrastructure into the NBN that raises the prospect of the newly funded fibre and Telstra's fibre being rolled into the same company in the future," Kennedy told ZDNet.com.au. "If that happens then the whole drive of this — to promote competition — will be null and void."

"There needs to be care taken that we are not funding competitive infrastructure that will be rolled into a monopoly in the future," he said.

The government, however, has insisted that, given the company would be a legislated, wholesale-only monopoly, it would, unlike Telstra, lack the incentive to give itself a good deal on access prices.

Still, whether competition is delivered depends less on the regulatory regime, but the economics of the new links, according to Internode chief Hackett.

"Competition isn't dependent on the fibre, it's dependent on the fibre access cost being low enough to make service delivery viable. It's not sufficient if the access cost is a little bit lower than Telstra backhaul prices; the data links have to be made available at metro level wholesale dark fibre pricing," said Hackett.

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Michael Coates, general manager of Basslink Telecoms, had flagged the 30 June self-imposed deadline for when the cable would commence carrying customer traffic.

Missing the deadline means little in the broader context of the cable's deployment, however, with it having already shifted back months, in part because of third-party relationships with Victorian utilities that it needed bedding down before the cable could be used.

Coates was unavailable for comment today, though Basslink customer and internet service provider Internode hasn't complained, and is looking forward to reducing its reliance on Telstra in coming weeks. "Basslink is in final link-testing before our part of it is handed over to us. It's all going well as far as I'm aware," Internode supremo Simon Hackett told ZDNet.com.au today.

Internode too will need to run tests before pushing production traffic through the new fibre cable. Hackettt said the cable was technically live.

"I expect Internode will in turn do its own internal testing for a week or two before putting the link into service alongside our existing exorbitant-cost Telstra link," Hackett said. "Basslink and Internode [are] ensuring the brand spanking new service is stable and error free before we start moving production traffic," he added.

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(CERN Datacentre, CERN, Geneva image by Cory Doctorow, CC2.0)

The datacentre, located on the campus of Herston hospital, is believed to be one of three datacentres Queensland Health operates. It only lost power for a fraction of a second, when two flooded Energex transformers failed at around 5:00pm on that day, according to a source close to the incident. Uninterrupted power supplies kicked in to keep servers up.

However, the brown-out tripped the chilled water system, cutting chilled water to the hospital campus. As it wasn't monitored, the datacentre support team didn't notice the loss of the chilled water. A datacentre employee came on scene to check everything was running, but being happy that there wasn't anything wrong, he left.

Only two of 10 air-conditioning units within the datacentre were able to use refrigerated gas if chilled water wasn't available, meaning that although the rest of the units were operating, they weren't cooling. The temperature in the datacentre began to rise.

Although people were called in to investigate the temperature rise, the cool water problem wasn't found. Due to a DNS change the day before the problems began, there were no messages being sent to tell staff of server problems. Four hours after the brown-out, services began to suffer. On-call hospital staff were affected and complained. Soon after, a server shut down.

The whereabouts of the air-conditioning specialist who had been called in was unknown to many staff members and he didn't answer his phone. It had taken the engineer three hours to arrive on site. Five hours after the systems failed, the fact that the chilled water pumps had not been operating was discovered as more servers shut down with temperatures over 50 degrees. It was believed to be fixed.

In the face of a severe weather event, the IT staff involved were outstanding in their response to minimise the impact of this incident.

Ray Brown, acting CIO Queensland Health

Because the remote access system wasn't working, staff had to wait until they arrived at the datacentre until they could begin shutting down servers. When they arrived, they started to move systems over to an alternate datacentre, which in some cases caused brief user inconvenience. Some, however, could not be moved since their servers had no ability to failover and Queensland Health's architecture for virtual machines didn't allow moving it over to a second datacentre.

The hospital's Cerner electronic medical record (patient administration) system was shut down by the hospital staff.

Six hours after the brown-out, the air conditioning was still not working. Although staff believed they had found the problem, more systems including iPharmacy shut down until 75 per cent of applications were down and the datacentre reached 45 degrees.

Eight hours after the brown-out, chilled water was finally brought back up. Nine hours after, the datacentre was back to normal and the services could be restored. By nine o'clock the morning after the brown-out, all services were restored.

Over the course of the problems, 12 applications caused significant impact, with another 12 having minor impact. Three years ago the datacentre was forced to shut down for the same reasons. Afterwards, the team had been told it could not happen again.

When queried on the incident, Queensland Health acting CIO Ray Brown did not respond to a question on what facilities around the state the downed applications provided services to. However, it is believed that Queensland Health's three datacentres provide services around the state to multiple locations.

He denied that there had been more than one incident over the past three years at the datacentre.

According to Brown, since several applications were relocated to the other datacentre, there was "minimal disruption" to services. "The majority of services impacted were available by 2:30am and all Queensland Health systems categorised as critical remained operational during this incident," he said.

"In the face of a severe weather event, the IT staff involved were outstanding in their response to minimise the impact of this incident. The ability of staff to physically attend the site was severely hampered by flooding in the area."

Lessons had been learned, according to Brown. Queensland Health was exploring options to remove reliance on chilled water. It also intended to replace the remote access system by the third quarter of this year. It is undertaking a review of management tools and is examining the crisis management plan.

Queensland Health has lost several chief information officers over the past several years. Long-time CIO Paul Summergreene had his contract terminated by the department in July 2008. Dr Richard Ashbury filled his shoes for a short time, before leaving the chair vacant, with Brown currently leading the department's IT function in an acting capacity.

The news also comes as the Queensland Government flagged in the last state budget its intent to splurge hundreds of millions of dollars on health IT systems to support its e-health capability.

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An equipment fault at TransGrid's Bayswater Substation in the Hunter Valley at 10:50am this morning knocked out power to the Equinix facility in Mascot, as well as electricity in several cities and states, according to state-owned energy wholesaler TransGrid.

Equinix spokespeople have been unable to respond to ZDNet.com.au's questions. Large datacentre providers usually have back-up generators available to cope with such power outages.

For example, rival datacentre operator Global Switch confirmed it was also affected by the outage; however, its backup generators kicked in and spared any disruption to customers, a spokesperson for the company told ZDNet.com.au.

"A joint effort from staff in NSW transmission and distribution organisations ensured that power supplies were progressively restored within an hour of the incident occurring," TransGrid's general manager of Network Performance and Operations, Lionel Smyth said in a statement this afternoon.

AAP contributed to this story

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(Credit: Audinate)

The tangles grow exponentially when connecting up live audio in massive venues such as concert halls and stadiums, where hundreds of so-called XLR or cannon connectors connect the microphones, mixers, amplifiers and other equipment. A single drum kit can have up to a dozen microphones, each of which has its own cable running back to the mixing desk.

Sydney-based start-up Audinate is hoping to bring order to chaos by scrapping traditional analog cabling in favour of the same TCP/IP-based networking technology used to hook up office computers.

According to chief technology officer Aidan Williams, it's not just as simple as just plugging the mikes, amplifiers and mixing desks into a networking switch, as IP networks were never intended for real-time transmission. While it doesn't really matter if an email gets delayed by a few milliseconds here and there, for audio and video signals, the disruption can be significant.

"We are talking latency that is 20 times less than is acceptable in Voice over IP," Williams says. "When I talk to you, you don't mind if there is 10, 20 or 200 milliseconds worth of round trip. But if you were singing, or a drummer, that would freak you out. Or if you had a bunch of speakers in a stadium and they weren't properly time-aligned, the sound would be really muddy."

Converting an analog signal into a digital one suitable for transmission over an IP network takes time — albeit a very small amount — and keeping those signals synchronised across dozens of different inputs and outputs has been one of the problems that Audinate has solved.

Often analog signals are converted to digital anyway for modern mixing equipment, and then reconverted back to analog again, adding noise and delays. Audinate ensures that digital translation takes place only once.

Audinate's IP technology, dubbed DANTE, means one cat-5 networking cable can do the job of 500 analog connectors, removing tonnes of cabling from large installations. Williams says the deployment of an IP network based on DANTE is a tenth of that of an analog network.

He says another goal of DANTE has been to ensure that it is easy to use. "IP networks are typically run by IT guys, and your average installer in the AV space is not usually an IT guy," Williams says. While DANTE currently operates on switched networks, the company is extending the technology to work across routers, meaning it could handle the audio requirements of an entire campus across a wide area network.

Commentary
Audinate's DANTE has been in development since 2003, starting as a research project within NICTA before being spun out as a separate company. It has also received funding from the venture capital firm Innovation Capital.

The technology has already had a number of hefty work-outs, being used for distributing audio at the premiere of the latest Star Trek film at the Sydney Opera House, and for the various events for World Youth Day, including an address to 200,000 spectators at Randwick Racecourse.

While the technology is ideal for temporary installations, chief operating officer David Myers believes the bigger market is installation at new venues and refitting of old ones. He believes there are also opportunities in the broader construction industry, to carry public address systems and alarms on DANTE-based IP networks in shopping centres and office buildings, allowing telephony, data and audio to all be run over a single network.

The company has already signed an agreement with Yamaha to distribute its technology, and hopes to see manufacturers licence its designs to incorporate in their technology. It has already been incorporated into processors used by Dolby. In June the German company Bosch, which has a large slice of the public address systems market, announced that it had adopted DANTE as its strategic networking technology, with products to start coming out over the next year.

DANTE is a good example of how lateral thinking can see technology from one industry used to solve a problem within another. Audinate is not the first company to propose using high-performance IP in audio, but is the first to do so in a non-proprietary way.

Its biggest hurdle is to educate audio engineers to embrace IP networking, but the enthusiasm with which Yahama and Bosch have adopted it indicates that they see a strong potential market.

bootstrappr opinion: BOOM

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(Parliament House image by Ryan Wick, CC2.0)

This time last year, at least 40 lobbying firms had an information technology or telecommunications company as a client. This year that number has been pulled up to 50.

One of last year's most prolific hirer of lobbyists, Telstra, does not appear to have changed its spots with its new management. Around this time last year, the telco hired four lobbyist firms to push its agenda with the government. As of today this is still the case, although the exact firms have changed. The telco has dropped Enhance Corporate, which currently services Cisco and Novell, and has picked up Parker and Partners, which has Alcatel-Lucent and EDS as clients.

Telstra's partly owned subsidiary Foxtel has dropped its lobbying level slightly, only hiring two firms to push its agenda instead of three as last year. The lobbying done for Kaz Group last year is now also done in favour of new owner Fujitsu, not former owner Telstra.

Optus only employs one firm, as does Hutchison (now merged with Vodafone), which does not appear on the lists, to form VHA Group. Altogether there are now 273 lobby firms listed on the register as of today. This has increased from a level of 186 when ZDNet.com.au last looked at the register.

Satellite companies seemed to see the value of networking. Intelsat engaged the same number of lobbyist firms as Telstra. Earlier this year it won a $160 million three-year contract with the Defence Material Organisation to supply communications to the military. Inmarsat was the client of two lobby firms and Iridium Satellite, NewSat and Orion Satellite Systems all enlisted the help of one lobbying specialist.

HP and EDS as well as Sun and Oracle have gained lobby value from their respective marriages (the merger of Sun and Oracle is still pending). HP, which employed only one firm to push its interest, has now gained the added benefit of three that work for EDS, bringing it up to four like Telstra and Inmarsat. Sun Microsystems and Oracle Australia also both employed two, making for a combined total of, again, four. SAP holds its own with three firms.

Microsoft, Google and Dell only put their toe in the water with one firm each, while Apple has splashed out the cash for two. Australian software firms IBA Health and Mincom also afforded one. Of the services companies, Accenture had three firms pushing its line, while Dimension Data and Unisys employed two. ASG, CSC, CSG and Capgemini all had one.

iiNet and the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft faced each other off with one firm each. The Federation and the internet service provider are currently engaged in a landmark copyright case.

Telecommunications suppliers went wild, with Cisco continuing its love for lobbying from last year with three firms helping it with government relations. Alcatel Lucent, Ericsson, Motorola and Qualcomm all had two, while Huawei, Juniper Networks, 3Com and Polycom satisfied themselves with two.

Former National Broadband Network bidder Axia NetMedia, which has been quiet since the new $43 billion plan was announced, still employs a lobbyist. NextGen Networks and TransACT do as well.

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Conroy and the state ministers met on Monday at the Online and Communications Council meeting in Melbourne.

Robert Schwarten
(Credit: Queensland Government)

"I was advised at the meeting that the location of the NBN headquarters would not be decided until the NBN Company board was in place. I understand this process of finding a suitable chairman and board members is currently underway," Queensland ICT Minister Robert Schwarten told ZDNet.com.au in an email today.

The revelation comes as the informal battle to host the NBN headquarters is heating up behind the scenes, with state governments handing in unsolicited bids and Shadow Communications Minister Nick Minchin labelling it a "political auction".

Spokespeople for the NSW and Victorian state government ministers who have, along with Queensland, expressed interest in hosting the NBN Company, this week declined to comment on the process behind or progress of their bids.

NSW Deputy Premier and Minister for Commerce Carmel Tebbutt released a statement prior to the Monday meeting claiming that NSW had the most telecommunications skills and pointed out that the fibre-optic cables from major international markets ran through Sydney.

Victorian Treasurer and Minister for Information and Communication Technology John Lenders also recently pitched Victoria as Australia's recognised "telecommunications hub". The state is also home to Telstra's headquarters. Lenders also pointed out Melbourne was home to the telecommunication arms of regulators: the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC).

Schwarten also made a pitch to Conroy and has previously said the state was hiring a consultant to sharpen its bid.

Shadow Minister for Communications Nick Minchin, however, believes the states should not be directing their bids to Conroy and that the current debate was not the right way to handle the matter. "This process should not be subjected to some party political auction involving state Labor governments," Nick Minchin told ZDNet.com.au by email yesterday.

"If and when Senator Conroy appoints a board for this company, which is being established as a commercial entity, it should be that board which makes that decision, free from political interference and pressure," he said.

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