Mid & North Coast Communication Issues

Telstra is again angry after its fibre at Kempsey was slashed in the third such vandal attack on the lines in two years. According to ABC Online, up to 10,000 people lost broadband, landline and mobile phone services when a fibre-optic cable under the Kempsey railway bridge was slashed. The issue is that these senseless acts put many peoples lives at risk as telecommunications such as a basic phone can mean the difference between life and death if its not working correctly. Telstra were going to put the cable underground after the last attack but it appears not an option because the of the make up of the river bed. The issue is that this cable feeds most of the coast from the tweed to Kempsey, if they loose it due to vandalism many businesses are effected. Whilst there is some back up bandwidth available it cannot carry everything TELSTRA needs to carry so some services miss out. These vandals as far as I am concerned are no better than hackers, virus producers and any other sort of vandal. Heavy fines and gaol terms apply to those found guilty of damaging telecommunications infrastructure. I'm afraid IP based CCTV may the best way of protecting this cable in the future.

Well they kept it a secret but tonight i can surf on 3g on optus, woohoo!!!!!! about frwaking time i signed up to wireless broadband at dial up speeds and now well i am getting comparable speed to my adsl at home

Next G Turbo Modem
The problems I was having was several issues with the new Next G wireless broadband network cards, which work on the USB port. This broadband network is supposed to be able to provide speeds of 14megabits and according to Telstra’s chief executive it will be increased to 17.7megabits shortly. The network card manufacturer by maxcom as shown in this article from APC magazine http://apcmag.com.au/6703/telstra_still_selling_non_vista_devices from July this year. At that time there had just been a new set of drivers released but maxon on their website says “If you’re a Telstra Turbo Modem user, we have updated drivers for you, however the full connection manager still does not work with Vista. ...” This unfortunately makes the drivers useless and the 300 dollars for the item a waste of money and its real pain if you have just bought a new Toshiba laptop with vista like my clients have. I rolled the clients machine back to xp with toshiba’s help. Toshiba were fantastic but as their tech support said to me why should they be picking up telstra’s mess by offering their clients XP roll backs which costs them money and Microsoft aren’t exactly impressed with that idea either. A Telstra dealer in Port Macquarie told me I should forget about trying to set up the cards on vista and just go XP.

Handsets:

CDMA – Firstly my boss from the night club I work at in Port Macquarie literally one week before they announced the closure of the network had bought a CDMA IPAQ which is a Palmtop Computer and Smart Phone on the CDMA network he paid 1299 for it and will only get 15 months use out of it, he is very unimpressed with Telstra. Also the CDMA network is better for people with hearing aids as it does not buzz them like a GSM phone does (its like putting a GSM phone near a radio)

I pay my mothers phone bill and she was on a 20 dollar plan with a Nokia 6385 handset included with 20 dollars worth of calls per month. Nice plan, Telstra were offering a similar plan with a free handset on Next G but the Handset was a Telstra 152 Handset made by a company called ZTE. It is the most clunkiest, difficult to navigate handset and also its impossible for an older person to see the buttons. I took a ZTE handset but am returning it to Telstra with a rocket as it is crap.

NEXT G Handsets:
It was interesting to note that nokia took its time to come along to the next g network. In IT circles the conjecture was that Nokia did not want there reputation tarnished if the next g network failed to be up to scratch. There is only one nokia handset available on Next G but to qualify for it as a free handset you must sign up to the 80 dollar per month plan. Motorola and Sansung seem the only option unless you want the cheap and very flakey ZTE rang of Telstra phones or a very expensive PDA style smart phone at a cost of thousands.

Current GSM coverage:
The three major infrastructure based telecommunications providers Telstra, Optus and Vodaphone has varying GSM and 3G / EGSM coverage across Australia. I three phones with me one optus, one on Telstra and one on vodaphone.

Vodaphone works well in Port Macquarie near transit hill, hopelessly in the CBD but OK along the highway as Vodaphone concentrates all its efforts on the highways but it doesn’t work in wauchope. Optus works well in Port Macquarie all over, brilliantly on the north shore and in the wauchope cbd but move out of the CBD and forget making a call, optus does not work in lake Cathie and bonny hills just like vodaphone. Telstra GSM works well right around the hastings in most cases but not past the wauchope town limits, works well in Port Macquarie accept on the north shore. Needless to say if I want the opportunity of making a call in any area on the GSM network I triple my chances by having three phones as in most cases one atleast works.

Finding the right handset:
As you said in most cases most people want a decent handset and just makes calls and send the odd text message. Video calls, multimedia messaging and tv via mobile are tertiary concerns. However, big buttons and easy to answer and navigate are the primary concern for most people, whilst I have bought my mother a Nokia 5300 which is a pretty wizzbang phone with all the whistles and bells, it’s the fact you can get to the base operations and functions very easily.

In summary, the network isn’t up to scratch yet, the range of handsets are extremely limited and the cost of the Next G is ridiculously over priced compared to optus or vodpahones 3G/ESM products. However, the only company that can currently provide the best service even if it is greatly reduced by the introduction of Next G is Telstra purely because they own the largest amount of infrastructure and land which was procured by government land grabs when it was government owned.

Thank you once again for talking to Telstra Country Wide and putting the questions that were very important to ask, no commercial station has really asked these, the local ABC in Port Macquarie have also hammered Telstra on the lack of service with the next g network and the forced change to Next G.

In a surprise move by Australia's largest telecommunications provider Telstra is seeking a $600 million government subsidy to roll out what it describes as the biggest "geographically fixed broadband development in Australia". The comnpany laims its proposal would deliver broadband for the first time to 250,000 homes and businesses in rural and remote communities, extending fixed broadband coverage from 91 to 95 percent of the population including remote communities such as Birdsville, Groote Eylandt, Marble Bar and the Tiwi Islands north of Darwin.

This would see the company install ADSL broadband equipment in 1560 exchanges and upgrade 1029 large pair-gain systems that currently block access to ADSL broadband services in some rural and regional areas. However, leaving speeds limited to 8 megabit and not opting to install 24Mbps ADSL2+ technology in exchanges where it would have a monopoly on such speeds.

According to Whirlpool.net.au, which is the foremost authority on broadband issues around Australia, there will be a new single-user churn process to switch between DSLAMs is expected to be available early next year, however, Australia's largest retail ISP BigPond has decided not to participate. It should be pointed out that Bigpond is the retail ISP wing of Telstra, the company which also provides wholesale ISP products to many retail ISP's around the country.

For a few years now, Internet broadband users have been able to switch between Telstra Wholesale Internet based ADSL providers with little cost and downtime using rapid transfer (or "fast churn"). Th However, many ISP's have chosen to invest in their own infrastructure and install their own DSLAMs, which are telehoused in the exchange or near by. With these DSLAMs in place it has made the process of changing ISP's a lot more complicated.

Say if I changed from Bigpond ADSL to to an isp that owned its own DSLAM in my area. I would be required to disconnect my service with the old provider completely and then reconnect with the new ISP. Having to pay possibly a disconnect fee from the old ISP, a reconnect fee for the new one and I would not have broadband from anywhere to 14 days. However, an Australian has released details fo a new scheme that will allow quick churns between ISP's on different DSLAM's and that ISPs will be able to utilise a "single service transfer" in late January. It should be pointed out that it is the ISP, not the DSLAM owner that needs to participate. So whilst BigPond can choose not to participate but that doesn't prevent a user utlising an ISP on a wholesale Telstra DSL service from be able to switch across to other ISPs.

It should be pointed out that bigpond will continue to participate in the old Telstra operated rapid transfer process.

According to Rupert Murdoch, AUSTRALIA'S internet infrastructure is a disgrace that the Federal Government must fix. Murdoch says that the Government and Telstra should invest at least $10 billion to provide broadband to every home, he told a shareholders' meeting. He also spelt out a clear warning that there is a huge risk Australia would be left behind as the internet changed how commerce was conducted and how people were entertained.
He told shareholders that "When you have broadband -- real broadband, not the type they're talking about here -- where you get, say, 20MB/sec of data into your home, it changes everything," he said. "People then spend a lot of time with their laptops and computers. In Australia we only have a couple of million (people on broadband) and they don't even get 1MB. "I think it's a disgrace."
I find myself in complete agreements with Mr Murdoch who is one of the worlds major online content providers through his News Cooperation company. If you think of internet online content like water and the internet like pipe lines and the consumers at the other end as people needing a resource you can clearly see the problem. In Australia we have millions of people with a major thirst for knowledge and data, the content providers can provide it but the pipes to get it there are way too small and because of this millions of Australians go thirsty for knowledge and data.
Federal Communications Minister Helen Coonan seems not to understand the issues, she claims that "Australia is now approaching four million broadband subscribers and has the second-fastest broadband take-up of the 30 OECD countries”. She also says that Internet speeds in Australia are not as slow as Rupert Murdoch suggests. However, it suggests that she fails to understand the issues surrounding this as Australia continues installing pipes that are too small to feed a large number of houses. But Senator Coonan says speeds are improving in Australia.She has also argued not everyone wants to pay for super fast broadband. Well I don’t believe that, people want fast broadband they simply cannot afford the costs of it. The government needs to subsidize the cost of supplying broadband and provide the services Australia needs.
What Murdoch is saying is that the pipelines taking data into houses and businesses are way to small and many Australian internet users agree. However, I think internet users would indeed agree they want faster speeds, however, costs of producing these faster speeds will need to come down. The only way this can happen is if the government spends the money required to provide such services.

ABC NEWS ONLINE

Telstra has been accused of bullying public schools by increasing line rental fees for schools that use other phone companies services.
The telco has defended the move, saying its shareholders are suffering.
Telstra has confirmed it is no longer offering a discount on line rental rates for schools that do not use Telstra to make their calls.
The chairwoman of the Public Schools Principals Forum, Cheryl McBride, says her school feels bullied.
"We swapped over to Optus and so our line rental actually doubled," she said.
Telstra spokesman Warwick Ponder says it offered reduced line rental rates of $19 a month to public schools, but schools whose business goes to other companies now have to pay $35 a month.
"We simply can't subsidise competition in this way, Telstra shareholders won't cop it," he said.
He says the school have chosen to take their business to another carrier.
"We're happy to give them subsidised rates if they're doing their business through Telstra but Telstra isn't a government department.
"We don't need to be in the business of subsidising competition - we're a business like any other business.
"We need to be on a level-playing field with some of these overseas companies."
Mr Ponder says Telstra is happy to talk with individual schools about their needs.
New South Wales Opposition Leader Peter Debnam says Telstra's stance is unacceptable.
NSW Education Minister Carmel Tebbutt also says it is unfair and she will be asking the Federal Government to intervene.
"The Department's written to Telstra urging the company to continue with the existing line rental rate , so we'll see what Telstra's response is to that," she said.
"But I'd also like to see the Federal Government step in - they're the majority shareholder of Telstra.
"They should make sure that public schools get the best possible deal and that Telstra's not taking advantage of public schools."

I have to congratulate Port Macquarie Hastings Council on their realization that broadband is an essential piece of infrastructure. Cr Rob Drew said that “Broadband should be seen as a basic infrastructure like roads, water and sewerage - and regarded in a similar manner as a basic phone line." Quite true, I know several “tree changers” who honestly decided on their house purchase on the criteria that it could get high speed broadband.

Broadband infrastructure brings jobs, decentralization of large businesses, the breaking down of country / city barriers and many more opportunities. Council claims it has come up with a plan that could be replicated throughout the country. Having just come back from a inland NSW trip I can see why PMHC’s plan is important to improving country life. With a share holder, profit making and minimalist customer service orientated telco market it is falling more and more on the shoulders of local government to provide basic services and this expansion into the telecommunications field is a welcome one.

With voice over IP & broadband services independent of the Telstra wholesale infrastructure the council has the abilities to offer a full communications service as well as reduce its own costs should this plan go ahead.

PMHC is often criticized for its lack of understanding of the needs of rate payers, lack of foresight when it comes to infrastructure (namely the cultural centre) and sometimes the standard of basic infrastructure like roads, water supply, drainage and sewerage. I can honestly say after driving through inland NSW we have pretty good infrastructure.

However, this brilliant insight into broadband infrastructure should bring jobs, improved socio-economic factors for our area and dare I say it in combination with the cultural and arts centre the grounds, platform and abilities for a digital art, digital music and specialist video festivals to set up in Port Macquarie.

On Wednesday 13 September 2006the Federal Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, Senator the Hon Helen Coonan, will meet with Mayor, Councillor Rob Drew and Port Macquarie-Hastings Council's General Manager Mr Bernard Smith to discuss the region's recent submission to the Broadband Connect funding program.
"This meeting is integral to further promoting the importance of broadband to our community and its impact on future development," explained Mayor, Councillor Drew.
The funding submission, delivered in August 2006, outlined a community approach to delivering broadband to the community.
"There can be no argument that broadband is critical to the economic health of regional centers," said Councillor Drew. "High-quality broadband access is critical in enabling us to build a knowledge-based community. As well as providing for the needs of current business and residents, broadband services are a large part of promoting our region to investors and new homeowners. Broadband should be seen as a basic infrastructure like roads, water and sewerage - and regarded in a similar manner as a basic phone line."
The broadband funding submission included a community broadband plan which could be replicated throughout the country, and Council believes the plan could be used as a showcase for other regions that recognise the need for high-speed broadband access.

Original doccument on Hastings Councils Website http://www.pmhc.nsw.gov.au