wonk v4.0

Archive for March, 2005

ACCC to monitor ISPs

Mar 30, 2005 Australia, ISPs

ACCC weighs up ISP regulation (ABC News)

From the article: “The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) will monitor the activity of Internet service providers (ISPs) for the next three years as some smaller providers push for greater regulation.

The commission wants to assess how Internet providers connect with each other and whether the current fee system is fair to all providers.

[..]

It noted that “ISPs do not have formal contracts, do not know their traffic flows, and have great difficulty in specifying their revenues and costs”.”

While some of the above line is true, I think it is also a case of the ACCC being interested in data which the ISPs would not normally need in the day to day running of their businesses.

ADSL2 in The Age

Mar 29, 2005 ISPs, Internet, Telco

The need for speed (The Age / Adam Turner)

The Age has some coverage about the soon to be available ADSL2 standard which demonstrates some of the uses for the much higher bandwidth which will be available.

Renault F1 team uses clustered Linux

Mar 17, 2005 Internet, Motorsport

Linux drives Renault Formula 1 (ZDNet / Ingrid Marson)

From the article: “The main reason for choosing Linux was performance rather than cost, according to Verdier. “Formula 1 is not driven by cost but by time,” said Verdier. “Ultimately the metric is time per lap — to have the fastest car. We are trying to design the best car in the shortest time.””

Renault are certainly off to a good start in the 2005 F1 season. It’s amazing how much behind the scenes work goes into building and maintaining the F1 cars. According to a short documentary I saw on the Toyota F1 team they employ 600 people to work exclusively on F1 related projects.

It’s official, Victorians are lousy drivers

Mar 15, 2005 Australia, Current Events, Melbourne

Driven to despair (The Age / David Morley)

From the article: “There’s an old saying that there are two things you can’t tell an Australian bloke. One, that he’s no good in bed; and two, that he can’t drive well. While we’ll draw the line at any assessment of prowess in the boudoir, we’ve some bad news on the latter front.

Australian men (and women; let’s not be sexist) in general, and Victorians in particular, are some of the world’s worst drivers. Unskilled, uncharitable and just plain uninterested, they adopt a standard of driving that falls well short of the mark.

[..]

According to the survey, one in five drivers believed that aggression made them better drivers. Forty-five per cent admitted to making illegal U-turns and right-hand turns when they thought it was safe to do so.”

I’ve only been driving in Melbourne for a few years and I’m amazed at the lack of regard for the road rules that most drivers display. It seems to be impossible to make even a short trip without witnessing drivers:

* Tailgating.
* Speeding.
* Changing lanes without signalling.
* Failing to stop at stop signs.

The motivation for the above seems to be to get from point A to point B quicker, even at the expense of other road users safety. While speeding is regularly targeted by the police I have rarely seen any of the other road rules being enforced. Perhaps if they were people would think twice before choosing to drive like a maniac.

Telstra to upgrade ADSL network

Mar 10, 2005 ISPs, Internet, Telco, Telstra

Telstra to spend $210m on ADSL upgrade (The Age / AAP)

Telstra has allocated $210 million to upgrade their DSLAM network to the ADSL2+ standard. I find it a little odd that they’re spending so much money on this project when they don’t utilise their current ADSL equipment to anywhere near its maximum throughput. The ADSL1 specification allows for speeds of up to 8Mbps downstream, however Telstra cap speeds at 1.5Mbps. It will be interesting to see if they allow greater speeds under the new standard.

Fisichella wins Melbourne F1 Grand Prix

Mar 10, 2005 Australia, Melbourne, Motorsport

Renault’s dream start (Formula1.com)

It was a good day for the race in the end, and a fantastic result for Renault and closer competition in this year’s season.

ACA to consider new number range for VoIP services

Mar 4, 2005 Australia, Telco, VoIP

Telcos debate new VoIP numbering systems (ZDNet Australia / Renai LeMay)

There is some discussion going on within the Telco industry at the moment to decide whether VoIP services in Australia should have a separate call prefix to the regular PSTN, as is done with mobile services. At this stage the ACA is accepting submissions on the topic with no time frame set for a final decision.