wonk v3.0

Watchdog snaps at Telstra’s fees (The Age / Lisa Murray)

The ACCC has considered the $90 connection & disconnection fee Telstra charges on its Line Sharing Service (LSS) is “not reasonable”. Telstra are apparently calculating the charge on the basis that they have to send a technician out to the exchange to perform only this one specific task. The ACCC argues that technicians visit exchanges frequently to perform other tasks and could do the LSS work at the same time. I agree with the ACCC on this one - it’s not appropriate for other telcos to pay Telstra extra for inefficiencies in their business, false or otherwise.

Yahoo, ninemsn tackle telcos (Australian IT / Michael Sainsbury and John Lehmann)

From the article: “LOCAL internet joint ventures Yahoo!7 and ninemsn are gearing up to inflict more pain on the ailing $33 billion telco sector, with the launch of cut-price internet-based voice services (VOIP) later this year.

The two groups join eBay’s ground-breaking Skype service as the latest threat to fixed-line revenues that last year earned Telstra $8 billion.”

Customer VoIP uptake is a major threat to the revenue base of the major telcos, especially when the consumer accesses the internet via Wireless or other alternative technologies. The startup costs for a VoIP provider are tiny relative to a traditional phone service provider so I think we’ll be seeing a lot of competition over the next couple of years.

F1 fever grips drivers (News.com.au)

From the article: “In the latest incident, police say they intercepted a 23-year-old man from Belgrave, in Melbourne’s east, who drove at 168kph in a 100kph zone on the Monash Freeway at Glen Waverley shortly before 8am (AEST) today.” .. “A few minutes earlier, another man aged 33, from east suburban Blackburn, was caught allegedly driving his Mazda coupe at 173kph in a 100kph zone on the Eastern Freeway at Kew.” .. “Earlier today, a 20-year-old man driving a BMW led police on a 109km chase at speeds of up to 250kph in regional Victoria.”

There is no excuse for travelling this fast on public roads. People who are caught at those speeds should have their cars crushed and be banned from driving for life. The risk they pose to public safety is simply unacceptable.