Recent Articles
Fog
Apr 28, 2005 Melbourne, Misc Comments Off
One of the things I like about winter is the morning fog. It mutes the sounds of the city and lets you have some peace and quiet.
Telstra speeds up ADSL2 rollout
Apr 26, 2005 Internet, ISPs, Telstra Comments Off
Telstra hastens ADSL2+ (Australian IT / Andrew Colley)
From the article: “ Telstra has not announced a launch date for its high-speed DSL service, but The Australian understands that the carrier plans to make them available to its retail and wholesale customers across 400 exchanges in late September.
Telstra refused to confirm or deny the reports when contacted by The Australian.
“We’re on schedule to have it up and running in the second half of the year, but we haven’t publicly released a launch date,” Telstra spokesman Rod Bruem said.
[..]
The Australian understands the carrier has taken a conservative approach with its ADSL2+ access plans, offering speeds of 3Mbps and 6Mbps.”
Personally I doubt Telstra will do very well in the market place with such low speed plans. The current ADSL1 spec is capable of speeds up to 8Mbps downstream which makes me wonder why Telstra would commit to such a large capital expenditure if they’re not going to offer higher speeds than their current infrastructure can deliver.
Whirlpool News – Telstra stalls on DSLAM migrations
Apr 20, 2005 Australia, ISPs, Telstra Comments Off
Telstra stalls on DSLAM migrations (Whirlpool / Phil Sweeney)
The article above described some of the difficulties faced by ISPs when trying to move customers from Telstra Wholesale ADSL services over to their own DSLAMs. According to Simon Hackett of Internode Telstra have inflated the costs of performing the migrations and are not allowing ISPs to have their own technicians perform the work. The ACCC is looking into the issue.
Google video
Apr 15, 2005 Internet, Music & Entertainment Comments Off
Google Readies Platform for Video Distribution (Slashdot)
Well this is an interesting development. Google with host video content for producers and look after the payment system if they choose to display it on a pay-per-view basis. I wonder if they’ll accept home movies or only professionally produced content?
Super news from Virgin
Apr 6, 2005 Australia, Current Events 1 Comment
Virgin’s super strong push (The Age / Simon Hoyle)
From the article: “Fund managers and financial planners could find their city offices and luxury cars at risk if Virgin Money succeeds in its plans to shake up the local superannuation industry.
Virgin yesterday said it had joined forces with Macquarie Funds Management, and service providers Superpartners and Trust, to launch a new superannuation product to be released on July 1, coinciding with the new choice of fund regime.”
Richard Branson likes to get stuck into market’s where there is very little competition, and he seems to do a great job of it. I’d certainly look at switching to Virgin if they offer a competitive package.
ACCC to monitor ISPs
Mar 30, 2005 Australia, ISPs Comments Off
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 Internet, ISPs, Telco Comments Off
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 Comments Off
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 Comments Off
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 Internet, ISPs, Telco, Telstra Comments Off
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.