And I thought the Federal Liberal Government was bad on the censorship front:
The Federal Opposition has outlined a plan to block Internet pornography reaching home computers.
Opposition Leader Kim Beazley says a Labor government would introduce laws requiring Internet service providers to offer a “clean feed” without pornographic and violent sites.
Mr Beazley says Australian parents do not want their children to be exposed to such material.
“Block it at the point of the provider as opposed to the point of the parent and if that particular household wants to opt into the pornographic sites then they make an active decision to do so,” he said.
“Parents want their kids learning on the net, not exposed to pornography and violence.
“The reality is … only about a third of the parents put some sort of blocker in relation to the sites on their home computers, it’s too hard for most of them but if you did it at the level of the provider, probably very few people would opt in.”
Oh yeah, and completely f*ck Australian internet busniesses while you’re at it Kim, because we already have some of the highest internet charges in the world, and impossing this sort of restriction on ISP’s will only see the cost get higher. Even the Howard Government knew it was technically near on impossible and cost prohibitive to impose this sort of censorship.
So, how much do you pay for the internet then??
$69.95/ month for 512kpbs. If I want to go to 1.5mps which I’m seriously considering doing, $99.95/ month (all AUD). 10gb max download then it’s shaped back to something like 72kps on both plans. If I wanted 20gb per month I’d be looking at something like $130ish.
Here in England the main telco, BT, offers 2Mbs at ?É‚Äö?Ǭ£18/month (USD 31.50) for 2G up/down. Each extra 2G of usage adds ?É‚Äö?Ǭ£2 (USD 3.50) to the bill. That’s about as competitive as it comes, though some smaller companies undercut that, they’re generally regarded as unreliable.
That’s less than half of what I’m paying.
And four times the speed. It’s pretty stable too, and you get a free account with Yahoo’s premium services (email) thrown in. I’m out in the sticks here like you, but I get the full service.
I was just about to comment about the cable provider, and I checked their prices! Actually really cheap, but I’m lucky because I’m in a cabled estate, a rarity, and it’s only cabled because it’s new. I’m thinking given it’s to costly to break my Telstra contract that I’ll drop down to their minimum $29.95 a month plan and sign up with the Cable guys, given I can get 2mps and 40gb for $64.95 per month or $44.95 for 10gbs (at that speed though I’d want 40 🙂 ), works out cheaper than going to 1.5mps ADSL even having to maintain a basic ADSL account.