wonk v4.0

Australian VoIP services to get their own number range

Dec 20, 2005 Australia, Internet, Telco, Telstra, VoIP Comments Off

ACMA proposes new number range for VoIP services (ACMA press release)

From the release: “ACMA is proposing to introduce a new service definition, ‘emerging communications service’, to accommodate VoIP and other emerging services. A new number range for emerging communications services (0550) is proposed. Emerging communications services may be fixed, somewhat nomadic or wholly nomadic but the numbers allocated to them will have no geographic significance.”

I see the creation of a dedicated number range for services which are not geographically fixed to be a good thing. Those of us who run our own VoIP switches or ATAs will be able to easily route this range to a particular destination without needing to guess what is VoIP and what is not. I’m not sure how the fixed line telcos will react to this from a pricing perspective. They may want to price PSTN to VoIP calls at a fairly high rate to try to discourage people from abandoning the legacy networks, but this could just as easily have the opposite effect as being the final straw in what people will put up with from the existing pricing models. Other people are speculating the cost of all fixed line calls will be coming down to a rate closer to what is being charged by VoIP providers. We will have to wait and see what eventuates.

The ACMA is accepting comments on their proposal until 14 February 2006.

Australia has the world’s most overpriced housing

Dec 1, 2005 Australia, Current Events 1 Comment

House prices ‘world highest’ (The Age / Tim Colebatch and Jewel Topsfield)

From the article: “AUSTRALIA has by far the most overvalued houses in the Western world, with prices 52 per cent higher than justified by rental values, the OECD says.

In a new analysis of the housing boom sweeping developed nations, the OECD also says the price of housing relative to incomes is 50 per cent higher in Australia than in other countries as a group.”

It’s been pretty obvious to anyone looking to buy a house for a couple of years, but now the OECD has confirmed house prices in Australia are just plain nuts. As a renter looking to buy I’m hoping for a massive crash in the property market. Other than winning the lottery I don’t see any other way to be able to afford a house in the near future.

Spam from wonk.org

Nov 28, 2005 Spam Comments Off

Over the last couple of days some joker has been sending out spam using my domain name, wonk.org. Please be assured the spam is not from me and I do not recommend you buy any fake r0lex watches or anything of the sort.

If you are a mail server administrator please consider using SPF. It is not the silver bullet solution to spam, but it will stop forgeries such as the one currently in progress against wonk.org.

Melbourne grinding to a halt

Nov 5, 2005 Enviroment, Melbourne 4 Comments

Melbourne grinding to a halt (The Age / Dan Silkstone)

The Age today is carrying a set of stories related to the public transport woes Melbourne is currently suffering from. The government has commissioned a report titled “Most Liveable and Best Connected?” which confirms what commuters already know – the current system doesn’t work. Also revealed is the fact that the privatisation of the system has not delivered any improvements to commuters and may actually be costing the public more money than if it was still government run.

Personally I would love to be able to take public transport to work, but for double the travel time at almost the same cost as driving I don’t consider it to be a reasonable option.

Telstra fixed line revenue falling

Oct 13, 2005 Telco, Telstra Comments Off

Defections erode sales at Telstra (International Herald Tribune / Fergus Maguire)

From the article: “The fixed-line unit, which generated more than a third of Telstra’s 22.2 billion dollars in sales last year, is headed for a “meltdown,” Trujillo said in a presentation to government ministers in August.

Fixed-line sales may fall as much as 6.8 percent this business year, following a 3.4 percent decline to 7.7 billion dollars the previous year, the chief financial officer, John Stanhope, said last month. Last year’s sales decline was the unit’s first.”

The article goes on to mention how the increasing monthly line rental costs for fixed line services and the constant price reductions of mobile services are causing people to turn away from fixed line services. The sort of call quality you get from mobiles is not quite up to the same standard as a fixed line but the suite of services being offered by networks such as 3 more than make up for the reduced voice quality. Once you factor in things like capped mobile plans it is clear for most people a fixed line service is no longer good value.

I’m curious to see how Telstra will react to the changing market. The only thing that could stop people moving off fixed line services is to drop the monthly line rental back down below $20 per month, or even under $15/month. Whether they can make a profit of that level of revenue is questionable, but it may well be better than no revenue at all.

Australian Government to tackle VoIP regulations

Oct 11, 2005 Australia, Telco, VoIP Comments Off

VoIP rules on way, providers told (Australian IT / Andrew Colley)

From the article: “The federal Government said it would soon respond to industry calls to introduce measures to regulate low-cost voice-over-internet-protocol telephony services.

The announcement has been expected since last year when the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) co-operated with VoIP providers to develop a discussion paper on IP telephony for Senator Coonan.

“An announcement on the Government’s response to the ACMA report on VoIP is imminent,” a spokeswoman for Communications Minister Helen Coonan said.”

There are certainly a lot of regulatory issues that need to be examined with VoIP services. The main ones being emergency call handling and the portable nature of VoIP services. There is also some ambiguity currently as to whether a telecommunications licence is required to operate a VoIP service, or whether they are just considered to be part of an internet service which does not need to be provided by a licensed carrier.

The article also mentions a local VoIP industry group, the Australian Voice over IP Association. Their website says they have been operating since February 2005 however there is no information about what the organisation does or who the members are. Hopefully if they start getting a little publicity it will prompt them to publish some information on their site.

Peering wars – Cogent vs Level 3

Oct 7, 2005 ISPs, Internet Comments Off

ISP battle leaves thousands with reduced Net use (Techworld / Matthew Broersma)

From the article: “A dispute between two of the Internet’s biggest service providers has exploded into the public arena after a large number of business and consumer customers saw their Net use curtailed.

The first customers knew of the dispute was on Wednesday morning, when ISP Level 3 terminated its peering agreement with Cogent. The loss of this direct link meant that a portion of each network’s users could not contact anything hosted on the other network, including websites, other types of servers and e-mail addresses.”

This sort of thing is never pretty. Fortunately for people in Australia there should be no impact on traffic because domestic providers who buy traffic from the US typically multihome to 2 or more networks.

Telstra lagging behind in technology

Sep 19, 2005 Current Events, ISPs, Telco, Telstra 2 Comments

Telstra in need of a big technological fix to stay in the game (Sydney Morning Herald / Rod Myer and Garry Barker)

From the article: “New chief executive Sol Trujillo will release his strategy to transform the telecom next month. The transformation could take three to five years to really pay off but timidity and slow movement are no longer an option as Telstra struggles to re-engineer itself to meet the realities of technological change.

The old copper network yields Telstra a whopping 60 per cent profit margin but customers are deserting it. Ian Martin, telecom analyst with ABN Amro, expects land-line revenue, which fell from $8 billion in 2003-04 to $7.5 billion last year, will drop a further 7 per cent this year to $7 billion.”

The last mile copper network is Telstra’s biggest asset by a long shot. Virtually all DSL based connections sold in Australia rely on Telstra’s copper to reach into the household of office of the customers. The high wholesale cost charged to ISPs and other carriers for the use of the copper is driving them towards alternative technologies such as wireless. Some of the newer wireless providers such as iBurst and Unwired have no such dependencies on Telstra for reaching their customers enabling them to provide services at a lower cost. If Telstra does nothing to address this trend their largest asset will become irrelevant.

The Age takes a look at some VoIP providers

Sep 16, 2005 VoIP Comments Off

Why talk is cheap (The Age / Roulla Yiacoumi )

The Age has taken a look at some of the VoIP options for consumers which are available in Australia, and compares the costs to equivalent PSTN services. Its quite a comprehensive article while at the same time not being too technical for the average consumer to understand. I’d certainly recommend giving it a read if you’re considering getting a new VoIP service at home.

Telstra’s network ‘plagued with faults’

Sep 7, 2005 Current Events, Telstra Comments Off

Network ‘plagued with faults’ (Australian IT / Michael Sainsbury and Steve Lewis)

From the article: “TELSTRA’S copper network is suffering record fault rates because the telco has withheld up to $3 billion worth of crucial investment, according to the document at the centre of an investigation into the company.

The company revealed for the first time that the state of its copper network was much worse that expected. In a slide it outlined the problems with its network. Heading the list of bad news was that Telstra had “received 14.3 million fault calls (more than 14 per cent of all lines have faults);”

That is indeed a lot of faults.