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It’s Tender Time Again
The federal Government has announced that it will soon be calling for tenders for its $250 million Regional Backbone Blackspots Initiative. This is part of the Government’s campaign to ensure there is more competition in the broadband sector, particularly in regional Australia. What is at stake here is the chance to build a telecommunications backhaul in opposition to Telstra to the ‘black spot’ towns identified by the Government.
Two industry giants have already flagged their intention to bid for the tender.
Nextgen Networks said yesterday that it would bid for the contract, but would not sell its network into the proposed national broadband network. While the government is expected to build backhaul fibre to ‘uneconomic’ areas and construct the ‘final mile’ of fibre into consumer homes, Nextgen says consumers will benefit if ‘everything upstream’ from this final mile is privately owned and operated. In predicting the requirements of the tender, Nextgen managing director Phil Sykes said his company would propose to build “spurs” from its national fibre trunk into about 250 regional centres across the nation.
Optus has lodged a submission to the Government as part of its industry consultation process and has also flagged its intention to bid for a role in the project ‘subject to the conditions of the tender process’.
According to a spokesperson for Communications Minister Stephen Conroy, the ‘competitive tender process for the backbone rollouts will soon begin and construction for these links is expected to start as soon as September.’
For more, check out the articles by Dan Oakes at the Age and Andrew Colley at the Australian.
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Is Telstra Back in the NBN Game?
When the Labor Government first announced its plan to build a $43 billion National Broadband Network, its relationship with Telstra was moved to centre stage, and things didn’t look good. Telstra’s non-complaint bid for the NBN had seen it knocked out of the tendering process, and the Government’s announcement of the plan was accompanied by threats of harsh regulatory measures against the telecommunications giant.
With so much tension in the air, will Telstra and the Government be able to heal the breach? According to Dan Oakes at the Brisbane Times, the outlook today is optimistic. The impending departure of ‘aggressive’ Telstra chairman Donald McGauchie and chief executive, Sol Trujillo, are said to be raising hopes that ‘their respective replacements, Catherine Livingstone and David Thodey, can repair relations with the Government.’
The idea of friendlier relations between Telstra and the Government may also come in handy as speculation mounts that the NBN will still need Telstra support. At a forum last night, two of the pivotal figures involved in the development of the Government’s plan, Professor Rod Tucker and Professor Reg Coutts, indeed argued the NBN could not be built without Telstra’s input.
‘Telstra is part of the Australian infrastructure … and they have to be part of the solution,’ said Coutts. ‘It’s got to be in their interests to be involved, and no doubt (the Government’s NBN company) will be working to see if there’s a pathway forward to realise that objective.’
To read Oakes’ full article, click here.
Tags: internet , kevin rudd , labor , stephen conroy Comments (0)
Lead Me Not Into Temptation
(Cross posted at BPWWOO)
Thank God that someone finally understands. It’s so hard being a young man in today’s society, beset on all sides with pressures and temptations, that it comes as a relief when someone shows their comprehension of the modern man’s struggles the way Miranda Devine did in last week’s Herald.
Miranda, with unerring perspicacity, has pointed out the real root of the issues surrounding footballers and their sexual misadventures. It’s all about society’s failure to teach women how to behave properly. And isn’t that the truth? Oh, it may not be fashionable to say so in today’s anything-goes, teenage-sexting, pass-the-crackpipe dole-bludging tree-humping society, but the fact is it is just plain unreasonable to expect men to know how to treat women when women insist on waving their sexuality in our faces like a red rag to a five-eighth.
As Miranda explains, far better than I ever could, without any “expectation of women to modify their behaviour”, it is “putting unsustainable pressure” on these poor befuddled footballers to expect them to know how to act. After all, they may be “drunk, insensitive or carried away by group dynamics”. Hey, we’ve all been there, right? If I had a dollar for every time group dynamics had forced me against my better judgment to jump on top of a reluctant teenager in a hotel room, I would have enough money to put a whole battalion of young girls in cabs after thanking them politely.
The point is, why don’t women modify their behaviour? Why is it always incumbent on we men to restrain ourselves from groping or assaulting or watching a dozen of our friends copulate with, yet nobody ever calls out women for their deliberate and persistent sexual attractiveness? It seems that our moral compass has spun out of control to the extent where we suddenly laud the sexually active woman, but condemn the innocent drunk insensitive footballer. Has the world gone topsy-turvy? When did the balance of power between the sexes shift to such an extent? When did we decide that avoiding sexual assault was the sole responsibility of the assaulter, with no corresponding responsibility on the assaultee? Aren’t relationships these days supposed to be an equal partnership? Not in the case of the relationships between young girls and entire football teams, apparently. No, in those situations, suddenly everything changes and the footballers have to do all the work. They’re expected to read all the subtle signals, pay attention to all the complex issues of consent, say all the thank-yous, make all the police statements. How about a bit of give-and-take, girls?
After all, as Miranda says, with typical warm, knowing wisdom, today “it is men, alone…who must restraint themselves”, despite the very pertinent fact that “young women are told they can act and dress any way they please”; and if that ain’t nail on the head, finger on the pulse, rolled-gold truth. What mad Marxist social engineer hit upon the idea of women acting and dressing any way they please? Have you seen the way they dress these days? It’s like, ladies, I know you have breasts. You don’t have to draw such obvious attention to them. You don’t have to strut around displaying your bodies, as if they were something to be proud of. But there they go, running about in next to nothing, frequenting nightclubs, drinking and dancing and rubbing our noses in their shameless femininity, and here we are, expected to restrain ourselves. We’re expected to just ignore this wanton behaviour, act as if they’re not shattering all our long-cherished moral codes.
We once had a social contract in this country: women covered up and stayed home; and men agreed not to force them into sex except under extreme provocation. As far as I’m concerned, they broke the contract first. Now we have the absurd situation where women get away scot-free with doing whatever they feel like, while somehow a bunch of fit young men are pilloried for no greater crime than giving expression to the perfectly natural, healthy urge that every man has, the urge to climb through a window and stand around naked with some other fit young men, observing each other’s sexual technique. The fact that these men are highly paid elite athletes, for whom any kind of distraction or media brouhaha could seriously affect their match-day performance, just makes the injustice all the more tragic.
Not that men are the only victims here. As Miranda observes, “our era’s turning point in sexual politics confuses women as much as men”. In all likelihood, that lass from New Zealand was quite confused when she went on Four Corners. So you see, women are suffering too. The sheer confusion must be so overwhelming; that’s probably why they act out by seducing all those footballers, or by reading Twilight, or exposing their midriffs, or any of the other bizarre ways in which modern women demonstrate their irretrievable descent into an inescapable moral vortex.
But there’s a way out, ladies. You can turn things around. You can return to your “natural modesty”. You can stop ruining men’s lives with your thoughtless expressions of sexual identity. You can stop blaming the victim – footballers – and start taking responsibility for your own feminist-warped minds.
Just thank God that Miranda came along to save us all, before it was too late.
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Start Diggin’: Norway now, Australia next?
The GFC is casting a shadow of financial doom and gloom across the world. In Norway, however, one company is providing a glimmer of hope for those needing a little economic respite.
Lyse, the nation’s largest fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) provider has found a way to help customers save their pennies in a truly ‘ground-breaking’ way. According to ars technica, under a new scheme, Lyse customers are asked to pre-register before any fiber is dug, then offered a $400 saving if they dig their own trench from the street to the home. The scheme is meant to appeal to the ‘Norwegian sense of thrift and do-it-yourselfness’ and allows customers a sense of control over their property.
While it does involve a bit of hard labour, it seems the opportunity to save is proving hard to resist for many Norwegians. Already, 80 percent of the company’s customers have reportedly taken up their shovels. Whether Australians will be given the same opportunity to dig their ways to cheaper, faster internet remains to be seen. For the moment, with Australia’s NBN plans in slow motion, my shovel remains on indefinite standby.
You can read the full story on Lyse here.
Tags: economics , internet , kevin rudd , labor Comments (0)
The More Untangled the Web Becomes…
newmatilda.com’s forum in Sydney on Tuesday night brought together some divergent commentators on the Federal government’s proposed mandatory internet filter. The aim of the forums to some extent has been to broaden participation in the debate by trying to reach an audience beyond the articulate online community and to examine how the arguments are framed both for and against internet regulation. Of course the discussion draws on well-documented concerns about filtering the internet, which centre on censorship, civil liberties, technical failure, and ineffectiveness to meet cyber-safety objectives.
The event was chaired by David Vaile, CEO of the Cyberspace Law and Policy Centre. The Parliamentary “host” (who secured the venue for the event) was Penny Sharpe, MLC. Penny weighed into the discussion later with some insights about how much (or little) MPs might know or understand about the proposed filter. She also talked about the online activities of her 10-year old daughter, thereby offering some good examples for discussion of “young people” at risk.
Continue Reading »
Tags: censorship , citizen journalism , culture wars , democracy , family first , feminism , labor , liberal party , media , online media Comments (2)
The Tangled Web: debate continues tonight in Sydney
As the intersection between politics, technology and the media continues to grow online, we’re facing some hard questions. How do we regulate the world wide web? The debate about internet regulation continues tonight at the next event in the newmatilda.com series of public forums.
The Federal Government’s proposal to block websites with a mandatory filter or “clean feed” has drawn vocal opposition from the online community, who are concerned about its impact on civil liberties as well as on the technical functionality of the internet. Meanwhile, many people are unaware of the proposal and its potential impact on their day to day lives.
This forum examines how we manage conflicting interests within the debate, how we engage with policy-makers on the issues around internet content regulation and how we involve more people in the discussion.
CHAIR:
David Vaile, Cyberspace Law and Policy Centre
SPEAKERS:
Fiona Patten, Australian Sex Party
Geordie Guy, Electronic Frontiers Australia
Kerry Graham, Inspire Foundation
WHERE:
NSW Parliament Theatrette
Parliament of NSW
Macquarie Street, Sydney
This is a FREE event.
You can follow the discussion tonight on Stilgherrian’s live blog.
Tags: Uncategorized , censorship , citizen journalism , democracy , internet , media , online media , stephen conroy Comments (0)
Melbourne forum progresses net filter debate
The second in our national series of public forums presented a chance for conversation about the complex issues raised by the Federal government’s proposed mandatory net filter. Braving the cold, wet weather, an informed and engaged group of people gathered in Melbourne on Monday night. They joined Colin Jacobs from EFA, sociologist Michael Flood and Greens Senator Scott Ludlam to take a look at the internet regulation debate.
Here’s Colin’s reflections on the night.
Tags: censorship , citizen journalism , democracy , greens , internet , labor , media , newmatilda.com , online media , stephen conroy Comments (3)
NBN Luddites will be proven wrong
Today on his blog Paul Budde dispels a few myths on the potential costs to consumers for NBN access. He writes:
Professor Henry Ergas’s projections of monthly cost predictions for end-users of the NBN ($215 per month) are based on a similar lack of vision. In this instance Professor Ergas is assuming that Internet access will be the only thing from which the NBN will derive its revenue.
The advent of the Internet has already shaken up the decades-old telecoms and media business models. How can Ergas’s company Concept Economics make their assessment as if nothing is going to change in the next five or ten years, when FttH is rolled out? And how can they truly believe that at that point we will still be looking at high-speed Internet as the only source of income. The fact that there is widespread industry interest in the project indicates that the reality is rather different from the Ergas theory.
Read more on his blog here
Paul Budde also writes for newmatilda.com. His most recent article was Australia To Lead the World at Something Good.
Tags: internet , labor , media , newmatilda.com , online media , stephen conroy Comments (0)
Webcast Today Discussing NBN
Boardroom Radio Australia is hosting a webcast today, discussing the Rudd Government’s proposed National Broadband Network.
Watch live today at 2pm (AEST) at http://www.brr.com.au/event/57176/nbn-round-table
BRA’s Friday Partners Lunch presents National Broadband Network Round Table: with Patrick Fair, Baker and McKenzie; Shane Barber, Truman Hoyle; and Ian McGill, Allens Arthur Robinson
Commencing Friday, 24 Apr 2009 02:00PM
Tags: internet , labor , online media , stephen conroy Comments (0)
Labor’s Net Filter? Never Heard of It
AAP Reports: More than half of parents in households with the Internet have never heard of the Federal Government’s plan to restrict access to a blacklist of banned websites, a national parenting organisation has found.
Of those parents who have heard of the trial, slightly more than half (52 percent) support it and 14 percent are undecided.
Some 46 percent of fathers with access to the Internet actually oppose the trial, compared to just 17 percent of women.
Although most parents (78 percent) claim to control their children’s computer use, only one-in-three actually has Internet filtering in place. More than 900,000 teenagers have unrestricted family home access to the Net and 760,000 are allowed computers in their bedrooms.
The data comes from a survey by parenting seminar conveners Generation Next, who want a national cybersafety strategy put in place to protect children.
The group will be promoting that issue - and spelling out protective behaviours parents can take to minimise online risk - at the first of its public seminars at the University of NSW’s Clancy Auditorium at Kensington on Saturday May 23.
Tags: australian federal police , censorship , citizen journalism , culture wars , family first , internet , labor , media , online media , stephen conroy Comments (0)
