TOCPCs – The Elite Geeks Blog

The issues facing broadband providers is the costs that go into the pockets of the pigs at Telstra, for access to the network. Telstra’s repeated claim is that they cost a lot to maintain, but with Sol, himself confessing to 18% of lines having faults, I doubt that they are spending much money in the [...]

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I think a real question the broadband / telco industry should be asking itself right now is “Do we need FTTN” ? The implications of FTTN are favoured by both sides, you can imagine being in Optus at the moment, with the G9 project possibly coming ahead, and all that fat profit that they’ll get [...]

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There was three seperate topics I wanted to write about tonight. Problem for me is, writing three seperate topics would take considerable time that I could be doing other things with. I’ll do short recaps of the two items I was going to do this post on, and focus primarily on the next Telstra scam [...]

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Participating in a whirlpool thread recently, as to whether a Linksys WRT54GP2 is better than a Billion 6404VGP, I chose the Linksys over the Billion, for a few clear reasons. 1. Many Linksys devices have Open Source firmware available, so you aren’t pestering the manufacturer for a fix, and you can customise the firmware as [...]

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Image Article is here Sol Trujillo, Telstra CEO above, seems to be sizing something up, using his fingers. Some thoughts on what it could be (and no, I don’t think I’ll take the cheap shot that is blindingly obvious): Sizing up future profit forecast? Perhaps Sol has started to realise that his role in Telstra [...]

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I suspect our bandwidth usage will continually increase the more thirst we get for technology in our lives. We already have come to enjoy the benefits given to us throughout the innovation cycles in technology. This includes the benefits of the web (web pages), the benefits of long distance real time messaging, video messaging, realistic [...]

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Why bother with FTTN if we are just going to have to run cables to homes in the near future anyway? Essentially, our bandwidth demands will increase as our technology cravings increase, and more bandwidth intensive ‘crap’ is released. YouTube is just one recent example of ‘crap’ that uses a lot of bandwidth. Add on [...]

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Both technology ministers in our government are near, if not complete, luddites. Joining Richard Alston, as luddite IT minister, is Helen Coonan, who recently went on the public record with the ABC, stating: “The technical limitations are of course that the fibre doesn’t go beyond 1.5 kilometres of a telephone exchange or a node.” Which [...]

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One of the more difficult items in relearning how to drive a manual car is getting clutch control perfect. What was never really explained to me by.. anyone.. was that with the clutch in, the engine disconnects, thereby making the driveshaft freespin. Essentially, with the clutch in, the engine will simply sit and spin, with [...]

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I’ve started with day 1 of my own production windows hosting box. So far, the results have been great, with specific regard to spam management. One of the domains hosted is a huge spam target, and gets spammed continually with hundreds of spam emails a day. The host they were with had various issues, these [...]

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Tonight, I was watching with amazement (or lack thereof) the great debate between JHoward and KRudd. Unfortunately, for me anyway, I still am undecided specifically on someone to favour for the election. It really does suck to be me, because I really, honestly, cannot determine who to pick for at least the next 4 years [...]

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Thinking recently about the announcement of tax cuts by both sides of government if elected, the result would be around $1,700 back in the hands of taxpayers a year. That’s a bit of money, sure. Will many miss it should they simply spend that money elsewhere? No! They probably wouldn’t. Tax cuts are useful to [...]

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Thinking more about connectivity methods available in rural areas.. .. actually, let me clarify what I define as a rural area.. I define a rural area as a area of land where the population density is very light, so much so that in any 50 KM area, there might be a maximum of 40 residential [...]

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Senator Conroy in all his wisdom (or lack thereof) has recently claimed the government’s plan to invest in the OPEL network, with a $958 million government grant is not going to fulfill the proposed 99% coverage of the nation. 1. OPEL never committed to that level of coverage. That was a Coonan announcement, and wasn’t [...]

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I was in the middle of a driving lesson today (don’t laugh, I really have just been uber lazy in getting my license – or is that licence?), and realised something. There is entirely double standards involved between learner drivers, and that of regular road users, and its rather silly. For example, as anyone on [...]

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BigPond seems to be set on trying to gain customers in a market where they are losing them, with a new push involving a networking your home angle. BigPond traditionally don’t support networking at all, and limit support of the customer internet connection to the first and only internet connected machine, refusing to get involved [...]

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Yet again Helen Coonan disappoints fans with another bad decision. The DCITA recently awarded $98 million to the pigs at Telstra for installing ADSL services in Regional exchanges. 211 of them. Unfortunately, however, the list demonstrates that many of the exchanges Telstra are choosing to deploy into already have government funded, and competitively priced, services [...]

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It has finally, finally been announced. John Howard finally got the balls up to call the election, on November 24. I guess this has a few key issues to consider, but the more important one is, who will we be calling our Prime Minister? John Howard – Liberal Kevin Rudd – Labor Both are capable [...]

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I did a transaction with a seller a while ago, and the transaction was a relatively poor transaction, with the seller starting with the wrong delivery details (correct details provided on the transaction), and sending the wrong item. The seller was left a negative feedback because of both, the item being sent incorrectly, and his [...]

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Yesterday, it was revealed Telstra lost in its attempt to drag Coonan through court, in a desperate attempt to gain access to OPEL’s bidding documents (and therefore straegic business documents). I think that Telstra might have lost more than it thought it would in setting this case up. They first lost what would seem to [...]

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Telstra yet again wastes more shareholder funds after the court case launched against Helen Coonan was thrown out of court. Telstra’s case had no real grounding from the get go, and documents from Telstra show that they intended to launch action against Coonan, even if the outcome wasn’t going to go Telstra’s way. Telstra’s reasoning [...]

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Telstra launched a prepaid offering of its NextG product. But the prices displayed on APC website, by editor Dan Warne (here: http://www.apcmag.com/7323/telstra_launches_unplanned_broadband) shows that the plans start at $5 for 5MB, and go to $59 for 200MB being the top of the range of plans. The usage is only good for 30 days, making it [...]

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Is our broadband future fixed? Or are we going to move towards alternatives? I thought I might cover a few possible outcomes! 1. Nationwide WiMAX The possibility of Nationwide WiMAX networking immediately sparks up with the consideration of the Unwired sale to Channel Seven, and its keen interest in investing Unwired into WiMAX networking by [...]

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Tonight I thought I’d look at structural seperation, the advantages and disadvantages of tearing a Telstra’s thorax away from the rest of its body, and what that might have as flow on effects.. Now, I’m not a corporate pro (far from it), so as is always welcomed, comments on any missed item will be both [...]

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I’m not sure what percentage of the population this applies to, but I think a percentage of people might recognise what I am saying here. Bad money management. People who live OFF debt. Litterally. They feed themselves not off the paychecks, but off debt. They house themselves not off paychecks, but off debt. How do [...]

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Sydney Lawrence recently commented on my blog and I thought I’d base his comment as tonight’s post, since it really has been a slow news week in broadband, with just a few points to cap off from the week: Senator Coonan suggests structural seperation possible. Senator Coonan announces the rebadging of a Woy Woy Optus [...]

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Need we say anymore but that statement? It says a lot about Telstra’s actions with regard to competition. Everything from pricing retail lower than wholesale through to the current mash up we have now are all a direct result of Telstra’s complete dislike of competition. Competition means they have to compete, they have to work [...]

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Here’s a little rewrite of the NextG ad song, they use to mislead customers into thinking NextG is “everywhere”. It might not be entirely funny, but it is almost certainly true! I’ve been everywhere, man. I’ve been everywhere, man. I’ve got no house any more man. Telstra robbed me bare, man. I live a life [...]

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Here’s a reply to Christopher, who completely ignored the issue of the profits Telstra Wholesale makes in response to his argument that Telstra’s competitors are getting access below cost. He didn’t really have an answer for the profits they make, and decided to raise the old “level playing field by no regulations argument”.. Completely misleading [...]

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Solution 1 would be to take the licenses off them, and jail them where they might learn how to speed while walking! But seriously, that’s not a entirely realistic solution, as all it will acheive is more people in prison, but the roads will obviously end up “less dangerous”, purely because speeding would be removed [...]

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