ACCC to force reduction in fixed-line to mobile call costs
ACCC recommends fixed-to-mobile fees be slashed (ZDNet Australia)
“In a final recommendation, The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has stuck with its draft recommendation that the termination fee be lowered from 21 cents per minute in step changes until it reaches 12 cents on January 1, 2007.“
Good stuff..
Telstra inflating line access charges for ISPs?
Internet providers back ACCC call on Telstra (ZDNet Australia)
“The ACCC last Friday rejected Telstra’s proposed LSS access charge of AU$15 and instead recommended it range from AU$7 to AU$8. ACCC pointed out that AU$15 will “not promote competition” and is “unlikely to encourage service providers to invest in their own facilities to provide broadband services.”“
Will Smith talks about I, Robot
Will Smith’s Secret Geek Life. (Wired News)
It’s an interesting read, including the little known fact that Will turned down the role of ‘Neo’ in The Matrix.
Fine Telstra AUS$100m, rival ISP demands. (The Register)
“Greg Wilson, the boss of Primus, said that Telstra should be fined more than AUS$100m to deter the telco from engaging in such behavior again, The Age reports.”
“He told an American Chamber of Commerce lunch in Sydney: “Boy, I’m hoping that a massive great stick will come down on Telstra. They need to be given a massive disincentives not to do this to the industry again.”“
I agree. Although ACCC pressure managed to correct the difference between wholesale & retail pricing (more or less) they did nothing to discourage Telstra from engaging in such conduct in the future. $100M won’t send Telstra broke, but it will cancel out any profits they made from engaging in anti-competitive behavior and make them think twice about doing it again.
It’s nice to see this pot is being stirred again after sitting idle for some time.
Added tally after round 12 and tips and results so far for round 13. It’s a little odd how they’re doing the split round this year with only a single game in the second weekend. I think I prefer it with the games divided equally over the two weekends.
Advertising - read between the lines
I just viewed a flash advertisement for Microsoft Windows Server System. I won’t reproduce the whole thing here, but the animation finishes with the quote:
“Windows Server offers a saving of 11%-22% over Linux in 4 out of 5 workload scenarios.“
It attributes the source of this data as being an IDC study of the North American market, and offers a link to “Get the facts”.
Let’s assume this data is correct and in 4 out of 5 workplaces Windows Server is the most cost effective IT platform. What this data would also saying is that in 20% of cases Window Server is not more cost effective than using Linux. If your business were to go out and install Windows Server without thoroughly evaluating the Linux platform there is a 20% chance you would be wasting money, and that is a pretty big risk to take.
So as they say, Get the facts, evaluate all options before making a decision.
Special drivers licence may be required for SUVs
Urban cowboys to face tough 4WD driving test (SMH.com.au)
The report on national road safety, tabled in Parliament yesterday, urges the Federal Government to develop a national licensing system, targeting owners of four-wheel-drives and caravans. “Driving conditions in these vehicles are sufficiently different from those in standard cars to warrant such an approach,” the report says.
The article also states:
Analysis published last year by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau found that over the nine years to 1998 the number of fatal four-wheel drive crashes rose 85 per cent.
I was going to go on a bit of a rant about SUVs which are purchased for city-only use, but I found a good one already written. Think a SUV is safer? Think again.
Why must cats stand on the keyboard?
What’s even more annoying is my cat likes to lick the keyboard too. I
guess that is why it’s important to wash your hands between eating and
using the computer.
Hotter nights ahead for city dwellers?
Global warming tipped to produce hot city nights (ABC News)
Bummer, I don’t sleep well on hot nights.
About a week ago I made reference to an Article written in PC Magazine about the open source PBX Asterisk. This morning while browsing through my web server logs I noticed the following visitors to my Asterisk post:
63.167.10.254 - - [15/Jun/2004:04:48:04 +1000] “GET /blog/2004/06/asterisk-article-in-pc-magazine.html HTTP/1.1″ 200 14133 “http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=asterisk+%22pc+magazine%22” “Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1)”
63.167.10.254 - - [15/Jun/2004:07:06:57 +1000] “GET /blog/2004/06/asterisk-article-in-pc-magazine.html HTTP/1.1″ 200 14133 “http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=asterisk+pbx+%22pc+magazine%22” “Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.0)”
63.167.10.254 resolves to mailny.ziffdavis.com, which would appear to be an external internet gateway in NY for Ziff Davis, the publishers of PC Magazine.
So hello to the good folks at PC Magazine! You may wish to note there are no huge advertising graphics in the middle of this text. I find the text much easier to read without them. Maybe you could try it too!