Dave Earley has put together a list of “Australia?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s top 100 Journalists and news media people on Twitter.”
I didn’t count them, but there seems to be more than 100. Either way, damn fine list, and without doubt the best compilation of this type I’ve seen yet. I’d hate to think how long it must have taken him.
Notable is how many of the hacks at News and Fairfax have embraced Twitter. Talk about everyone piling on the train all at once.
SMH: Save Qantas from unfair practices, unions urge
QANTAS needs saving from “unfair competition” from foreign government-backed airlines to protect Australian jobs, the ACTU will argue today when it meets the airline over its decision last week to axe up to 1750 jobs.
Yes, but who saves us from Qantas extortion on routes without enough competition?
Or are the Union’s really suggesting that the Qantas, who given they’re suppose to be going into the red at the moment because they couldn’t organize an orgy in a brothel efficiently, should be allowed to charge more? That ordinary Australian’s, including union members, should pay more for their airfares?
Interesting tactic from the Union movement: argue that people should pay more when many Qantas routes are already excessively expensive.
Here’s the one thing that is a worry: if Qantas is as badly off as it seemingly might be, will the Government be bailing them out? Too big to fail?
More importantly: how could Qantas, who has long price gouged on routes like the Pacific, have managed to get into this mess in the first place? What, a cosy duopoly domestically isn’t enough for them?
The queen of Australian blogging lists Meg updated her Top 100/ 250 Australian blog list over Easter, the first time since Australia Day. The Inquisitr came second for the 2nd time running. My old business partner Darren Rowse beat me out with Problogger. He wasn’t there last time: in Jan it was Gizmodo Australia, the Allure Media title.
Meg for the first time is asking for donations, and I’ve sent over a small amount. Even if I’d rather be first, and we can argue about the way she calculates it, I value that list none the less, and I’d encourage others on it to donate.
The Inquisitr came in 6th on the Technation list of top Australian startups here which is flatering given the competition.
Onward and above….
I still don’t know what this bloke is playing at: I mean seriously, all the media attention and sucking in investors only to sell out at the 11th hour, but I love this line in response
The Age: Stunned investors vent fury at chairman
“He’s not going to get (the $4.5 million), I can promise you that,” Mr Byrnes said. “He’s just ruined his corporate life forever ?¢‚Ǩ¬¶ I’d trust Mr Bolton like I’d trust a rabbit with a lettuce leaf.”
TELSTRA will consider a voluntary separation of its wholesale and retail arms as well as the sale of some assets to the federal Government’s proposed $43 billion broadband network in a spectacular about-face that effectively dumps the aggressive four-year strategy championed by chairman Donald McGauchie and chief executive Sol Trujillo.
The radically different and more conciliatory approach is part of an attempt to ward off the threat of much greater government intervention in Telstra’s business. The company’s board has set up a special committee of directors and executives to come up with a new approach and to negotiate with the Government.
Even if the economics still don’t add up for the NBN, breaking Telstra up would be a massive win for the Government, and an even bigger win for consumers.
Now if only we could do something about censorship 🙂
Mark Day in the OZ (via Mumbrella)
IF we look through the increasingly clouded questions surrounding the Rudd Government?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s plans for a fibre-to-the-home high-speed broadband network, how it will be designed, who will build it, who will own it and what it will cost end users, one thing is crystal clear: this is a game-changer for media.
The $43 billion plan is a television killer. When it is built it will consign the Packer era of TV to the dustbin of history. Our future TV menu depends on new technologies and new paradigms.
It’s a nice theory. Will the internet kill TV? Yes, I believe it will, as I’ve argued time and time again. But will the NBN kill television?
No.
The problem isn’t one of lack of demand. You only have to look at the exceptionally high level of BitTorrent usage in Australia to know that Australians love their internet TV.
The problem is one of legal rights, and access to that content on a television set.
There’s no Hulu in Australia, and even Hulu in the US is trying its best to stay off of television sets. We have a mix of content now online from FTA providers, but it’s hit and miss, and not anywhere near consistent.
Lets say we’re 5 years behind the US (that we are behind is a given, but we can argue on the time frame): does Day really believe that the NBN is going to overcome issues not yet overcome in the United States?
The real problem comes down to rights distribution models. TV stations here pay a lot of money for rights to US content. The only way a NBC or CBS is going to offer their content directly online to Australians over the NBN to a large screen TV is when doing so delivers a higher return then selling the rights to a local TV stations.
As much as I wish to believe this will happen soon (and it will happen eventually), that’s not a short term proposition in Australia. NBN doesn’t change that at all.
Also consider that Australian uptake of pay-tv (cable) is far lower than most comparable markets. Australian’s aren’t all that keen in paying big dollars for content. That complicates the consideration more.
I mentioned in an earlier post that bundling may be the saving grace for the NBN: in that context, it’s not Day’s suggestion of internet TV (although it may be delivered via Internet protocols) but Cable over the NBN. That could work, well…depending on the cost.
We haven’t heard farmers complain for a while. Like clockwork though:
ABC: Rural areas ‘need broadband the most’
The Central Darling Shire Council’s general manager, Tim Hazel, says it is not fair Wilcannia will miss out on the Federal Government’s National Broadband Network.
The federal Minister for Communication, Stephen Conroy, says the $43 billion network will benefit regional communities but has admitted the scheme will only be available to towns with a population of 1,000 or more people.
Mr Hazel says smaller rural communities should be offered the same services as cities and larger rural centres.
“The smaller and more rural and remote towns probably need these types of services even more than our city counterparts or our regional counterparts,” he said.
Actually, why should they be offered the same services?
If you choose to live in the middle of no where, should you really expect that you’ll get all the same services as someone in a city with millions of people get?
Lets be clear on one point though: they’re not getting it because they don’t vote Labor (mostly.) Broadband went out to small communities under Howard because most of the regional/ remote seats were Liberal or National Party seats; it was always seen as helping keep the voters on side.
I do remember under Broadband Connect 1 a community of 50 people getting ADSL for example (Malloy Island, near Augusta WA).
And that might be the better solution here, a new Broadband Connect scheme that subsidizes regional connections in areas not covered under NBN. The Government could then cap the cost so the spend is the same as City areas;
Consider that under BC1, the subsidy was around $1200-$2500 per connection. NBN is slated at around $5k per connection. Rudd could say private operators get $5k/ connection if they provide access to areas not covered by NBN at a certain min spec (say 50mbps instead of 100mbps.)
The bigger question though comes back to whether we treat highspeed access as a social right for all like we consider a telephone connection.
That’s a political call more than anything.
Age:?Ǭ†Telstra set to abandon major cable upgrade
In the aftermath of the Government’s decision last week, Telstra’s immediate task will be to rethink its investment in cable after it emerged that regulatory changes could include forcing the telco to divest the network which passes 2.5 million homes and businesses.
Wow. Just wow.
Should the Government decide to force Telstra to divest the cable network, Merrill Lynch said it could be folded into the proposed national broadband network, which would mean that fibre-optic cables would not have to be rolled out to many homes and businesses in the cities.
The broker said the new company proposed by the Government to run the national network was the “only logical buyer” of Telstra’s city cable network.
More wow.
I wrote earlier in the week about how the numbers don’t stack up for the NBN when you consider the need to repay the cost of the rollout. The key presumption in that post was that the NBN had to be offered at a competitive rate to encourage uptake, but that competitive rate would never cover costs.
But what if it simply can’t be offered at a competitive rate to cover costs?
$200/ month is the figure from AAPT: News.com.au
Paul Broad, chief executive of Australia’s third largest telco, AAPT, is convinced broadband bills will rocket to at least $200 a month under the Government’s plan and says consumers simply won’t pay.
The Opposition put the figure at $150 earlier in the week, and noted rightly that the profit would have to be bigger than Telstra’s to cover costs (news again)
Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull questioned the commercial viability of the project suggesting it would need an annual return of $6 billion, The Advertiser reports.
“Now that is substantially more than Telstra’s entire profit,” he said.
“If as the industry analysts say, if this would require households who are currently paying say between $40 and $50 a month for broadband, to pay $150 a month for broadband, where is the evidence households will do that?” he asked.
I’ve got no problems with the maths in either, but I have serious doubts on the marketing logic: there’s no way in the world the NBN is going to ask $200 a month for access.
Zero. Zip. Zilch.
Take the economics out and it’s a pure political decision. Conroy and Rudd might be dumb, but they’re not dumb.
But here’s the other consideration: the NBN is a WHOLESALE network. We’re talking access to retail costs really, not wholesale costs. Image $200/ mth wholesale access + the retail margin on top.
Not happening.
Which leaves us with a black hole, because it has to bring in this sort of money to recoup its costs, let alone make a profit.
However.
There is one scenario that might make it work. Not at $200. Maybe not at $150. But it could work at $100-$150.
Bundling.
Triple play phone, data and tv.
Gizmodo Australia found only 20% of people would pay over $100 for NBN access…but for internet access.
If say Optus or iiNet offered unlimited calls, cable TV and high speed internet for say $150/ month, people might pay.
But that consideration is made on today’s competitive environment.
2018 on the other hand??
Steve Murphy in the Business Spectator:
The 21st Century infrastructure equivalent of the Snowy Hydro is what K-Rudd says of his new Broadband plan, but will we end up flushing as much money down the fibre optic drain as we do water down the Hydro.
The problem is we don?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t know and the Government can?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t tell us with any degree of precision because it is yet to conduct a feasibility study. That?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s right, K-Rudd and the team don?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t know if what they?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢ve announced is feasible.
I did some digging, the Government doesn’t use the words feasibility study…but it’s an accurate description. Point one of the NBN rollout (source)
Commence an implementation study to determine the operating arrangements, detailed network design, ways to attract private sector investment
but wait, there’s more:
The preliminary estimate is that the enhanced NBN network will cost up to $43 billion…
The Government’s objective is to achieve 90 per cent coverage of the FTTP network, and remaining coverage to be delivered through wireless and satellite technologies, within this funding envelope. Initial advice to the Government is that this objective is achievable, but this estimate will be subject to an implementation study.
Duncan Riley on SiliconANGLE Chiang Mai One
