Feds relax VoIP customer service guarantee

THE Federal Communications department has released draft legislation that will remove most types of next-generation VoIP telephone services from the Customer Service Guarantee (CSG) regulatory regime.

The department is seeking public comment from the public and telecommunications companies on the proposed changes, which it says are designed to give maximum certainty to both the industry and to consumers.

The proposed legislative changes were drafted by the Communications after a 2005 report that recommended the CSG be limited to VOIP services supplied in fulfilment of the universal service obligation, or that were supplied as ‘primary services’ by a person who provides both the VOIP service and underlying carriage service.

The changes will be overseen by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA).

The department said it was not envisaged ACMA would be required to determine on a case-by-case basis which VoIP services were subject to the CSG and which were not. Rather, VoIP providers would interpret and apply the rules as they are relevant to their services and advise their customers accordingly in advance.

The aim of the changes is to provide certainty about how CSG rules apply to VOIP services. The main role the regulator will play is where customers enter a dispute with a VoIP provider about whether or not its service offering is exempt from the CSG.

With the increasing take-up of broadband services and improvements in VoIP technology, there has been increasing business and community interest in VoIP services.

Building on the Coalition’s 2004 election policy, Government undertook to review VoIP services within the existing regulatory framework, looking at issues related to VoIP in the broader context of emerging next generation networks.


For more VOIP news click here.

India set for ‘phone and fun’ growth

AS global giant Vodafone completed its stunning US$11.1 billion acquisition of India’s fourth largest mobile company, talk at 3GSM – the largest mobile conference in the world – turned to the subcontinent.

Vodafone’s purchase of a 67 per cent controlling stake in Hutchison Essar focused the Barcelona conference on the growth markets of emerging economies like India and China.

A recurring theme at 3GSM had been discussion about “the next billion” – that is, the next billion handsets that will be sold around the world. And it will be India and China that drive that growth.

For Vodafone, the Hutchison Essar deal gives the company headroom to grown, and reduces its reliance on the saturated mobile markets of Europe.

India’s 1.1 billion population currently boasts a mobile telephone penetration rate of just 13 per cent. But it is growing by more than six million subscribers every month, making it the fastest growing market in the world and the focus of the industry.

China’s mobile market is relatively mature with a mobile penetration of 40 per cent, while Europe’s is a replacement market only with 100 per cent penetration.

Hutchison Essar already has a customer base in India of 23 million. But Vodafone chief executive Arun Sarin expects that to grow to 100 million in three years.

That growth would give Vodafone 25 per cent of the total market, as the Indian government forecasts that there will be 500 million mobile phones in the country by 2010.

“The next billion” handsets would be offer very different services and would be sold much faster, the 3GSM conference was told.

Convergence continues to be a critical industry theme, with most expecting much close tie-ups between telecommunications companies and entertainment companies – the so-called phone and fun leaders.

For more Wireless news click here.

Melbourne pit stop for key telematics standards

THE principal players in the global vehicle navigation market have met in Melbourne under the umbrella of the International Standards Organisations (ISO) to thrash out key standards to improve the appeal and useability of navigation systems.

The meeting was hosted by Intelematics Australia, a subsidiary of the RACV and a globally respected OEM provider of telematics programs in the Asia pacific region.

Though founded in the late 1990s, Intelematics Australia started to gain much higher profile in the past 12 months as local consumers have started moved – in their hundreds of thousands – to purchase navigation systems. There are more than a dozen brands active in the Australian market, including Navman, Garmin and TomTom.

Much of the standardisation effort at the Melbourne meeting focused on bringing dynamic content into navigation platforms, including real time information like road conditions, tourist information, and periodic updates to the digital road map.

It is planned the architecture is also planned to support public safety information announcements such as road closures due to bushfires.

“In a small market like Australia, we need international standards to create the scale required to invest in advanced automotive technologies like navigation. Even with standards, Australia has been late in adopting navigation,” said Intelematics chief executive Adam Game.

Intelematics is currently rolling out a national digital traffic information service that will add electronic traffic avoidance capability to navigation systems.

“Australia is virtually the last developed country in which navigation systems are not connected to real-time road network information,” Mr Game said.

“Yet as a result of the standardisation process, virtually all navigation vendors active in the Australian market have products that are technically ready to receive our broadcast.”

The Melbourne meeting was a get together technically referred to as International Standards Organisation, Technical Committee 204, Working Group 3.

For more Navigation and Telematics news click here.

ATO online apps hit by Vista problems

JUST as the nation’s top tax collector Michael D’Ascenzo announced aggressive new targets to get people to lodge returns electronics, the Australian Taxation Office says it has been hit by Microsoft Windows Vista compatibility problems.

The ATO has been one of the most advanced Federal departments in developing and deploying web applications and web services to simplify tax compliance for both individuals and businesses – largely through its $450 million Change Program.

Last year, 90 per cent of taxpayers lodged returns electronically, and as Tax Commissioner Mr D’Ascenzo had set a target for this year of boosting electronic returns to 95 per cent of taxpayers.

But the target – set last month – has already been given a setback with the ATO reporting a series of problems for both individual taxpayers and businesses in getting Microsoft’s new Windows Vista applications to work with its back office systems.

The Vista problems are ironic for the ATO, which has worked hand-in-glove with Microsoft on its online services and web services back-end systems for the past five years.

The ATO was one of the first major users to throw its weight behind Microsoft’s .NET architecture as a Beta customer, and Microsoft used Tax as a global reference site in the early days of .Net release.

The ATO has now published the Vista problems on its website. The problems relate largely to accessing and updating electronic forms.

The ATO said:
· electronic forms are placed in a temporary location and will be automatically erased by Windows Vista. This means the user could lose all of their saved electronic forms
· The ATO record-keeping evaluation tool can still be used with Vista, but users will be unable to access the help application,
· The personal tax record keep will work with Vista, but only with reduced useability – and some text can become scrambled
· When using the facilitated lodgement tools with Vista the users’ portal activity statement will not be pre-populated with their information.

The ATO has issued work-arounds for most of the problems and said that Microsoft had been made aware of the issues.

Despite the issues, Mr D’Ascenzo told a conference of tax specialists at Queensland University last month that the Change Program was on track, and that the change program Release 2 work – where it implemented Siebel Case Management and Work Management systems had been a resounding success.

The ATO’s independent assurer Cap Gemini said the project was the largest Siebel case management roll out anywhere in the world.

“This has been a major undertaking,” Mr D’Ascenzo said.

For more Web Applications news click here.

Pronto strikes ERP gold in mining sector

CitGOLD is one of Australia’s fastest-growing gold producers, with a market capitalisation of $300 million, annual revenues of $12 million, and a steady increase in the share price for the last five years. It and plans to increase gold production from its Charters Towers Gold Project in far north Queensland from 40,000 ounces to 250,000 ounces within the next five years.

CitiGOLD chief operating fficer Chris Towsey said PRONTO-Xi was not only able to offer a robust, scalable solution to accommodate its aggressive growth plans, but tools to meet some industry-specific cost reporting requirements.

“We needed more than an incumbent accounting system, as that alone does not provide the integrated financial management and reporting solution required to track and measure quite specific costs,” Mr Towsey said.

“For the mining industry, cost control is critical, as we don’t control the selling price of what we produce - the market and our customers do. So our ability to increase profit margins is based on our ability to control exploration and production costs,” he said.

“PRONTO-Xi offered two appealing features; the ability to handle laboratory assays and quality control data - that is, chemical analysis, and reporting exploration costs against tenements which is a very unusual activity for business software producers.”

CitiGOLD has selected a range of PRONTO-Xi modules including Financials, Distribution, Project Costing Management, Payroll, Screen Customiser and Faxmail.

For more Supply Chain News click here.

Google disk failure research dumbs down SMART

NEW Google Labs research on failure rates of consumer-grade disk drives has thrown into question the predictive accuracy of disk-drives’ Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology (SMART).

In particular, the Google study found little evidence to support the generally held industry belief that there was a strong correlation between failure rates and factors like higher temperatures and high utilization rates.

The just-published Google Labs paper finds failure prediction models based on SMART parameters alone are “severely limited” in their prediction accuracy given that a large fraction of Googles failed drives showed no SMART error signals whatsoever.

The Google study is thought to be unprecendented in size and scope, given the sheer size of the Google disk drive population and the newly highly parallel health data collection and analysis infrastructure the company used in the research.

The paper, called Failure Trends in a Large Disk Drive Population, will light a fire under the storage industry as it appears to debunk some long-held claims of manufacturers.

“One of our key findings has been the lack of a consistent pattern of higher failure rates for higher temperature drives or for those drives at higher utilization levels,” the paper concludes.

“Such correlations have been repeatedly highlighted by previous studies, but we are unable to confirm them by observing our population,” it says.

“Although our data do not allow us to conclude that there is no such correlation, it provides strong evidence to suggest that other effects may be more prominent in affecting disk drive reliability in the context of a professionally managed data center deployment.”

Despite the importance of the subject – some 90 per cent of all new information in the world is stored on disk – there are few published studies on failure characteristics.

And most available information comes from the disk manufacturers themselves, usually based on extrapolation from accelerated life test data of small populations, or from returned unit databases.

“Accelerated life tests, although useful in providing insight into how some environmental factors can affect disk drive lifetime, have been known to be poor predictors of actual failure rates as seen by customers in the field,” the Google research says.

“Statistics from returned units are typically based on much larger populations, but since there is little or no visibility into the deployment characteristics, the analysis lacks valuable insight into what actually happened to the drive during operation.”

The research found that while some SMART parameters – like scan errors, reallocation counts, offline reallocation counts and probational counts – have a large impact on failure probability, SMART was not enough to reliably predict failure.

“Given the lack of occurrence of predictive SMART signals on a large fraction of failed drives, it is unlikely that an accurate predictive failure model can be built based on these signals alone,” Google said.

For more Data Storage News click here.

Outsourcing in flavour with ‘megascope’ deals: Gartner

THE number of massive IT outsourcing contracts in the US worth $1 billion were long been used as the yardstick to measure the health or otherwise of the tech services sector.

In the Australian corporate and government sector the budgets are somewhat more modest … but confidence in the IT services sector was still measured by the hundred-million-plus deals.

Research group Gartner says 2007 will be marked not so much by the outsourcing “megadeal” of $1 billion or more, but rather where multiple suppliers win smaller contracts in massive projects of “megascope”.

Gartner defines a megascope as an enterprise-wide scope of work that is or will be outsourced and the organization awards the work to several providers on a selective basis, matching scope and requirements to the best value or best-fit provider.

Cumulatively, the megascope award may top $1 billion in value, but each individual contract is typically smaller.

According to Gartner, organisations generally won’t award large IT outsourcing contracts to one provider in 2007, but will split the work up among several companies.

“We expect large organisations to source the largest parts of their megascope engagements to large providers that have a similar global presence,” said Gartner research vice-president Lorrie Scardino.

“However, these large organisations will consider and select smaller or regional providers for focused parts of their megascope deals to engage with focused specialists, or expand the scope of services that are globally delivered.”

In 2006, many organisations made several awards by breaking up the scope of work into selective segments.

Although not all of these selective awards were megascope candidates, the total contract value awarded by a single client to multiple providers is a significant indication of the specific organisation’s adoption or continuation of outsourcing as a pillar of business strategy, as well as the market’s continued growth.

For more IT services news click here.

Hughes’ hybrid land-space systems a winner

HUGHES Network Systems has been given a company of the year award for its integration of the best of both satellite and terrestrial technologies within its HughesNet-branded broadband products.

Research group Frost and Sullivan announced the award overnight.

Hughes invented the very small aperture terminal (VSAT), pioneered the commercialisation of the satellite industry, and has become a full communications service provider rather than a provider of merely satellite-based solutions.

Under the HughesNet brand, the company has enables its customers to maximize the benefits of multiple broadband solutions by providing both terrestrial and satellite technologies.

There is a growing trend among both small and large networks to use hybrid technologies, depending on the individual application and location. Through HughesNet, customers are able build and manage complete network through a single service provider.

“This provides Hughes with a significant advantage over more traditional satellite providers that compel customers to deal with multiple Internet service providers (ISPs) or commit to a completely satellite-based network,” said Frost and Sullivan industry analyst Tim Street.

“With increased competition between VSAT providers and terrestrial ISPs, Hughes cleverly transitioned to a full managed services provider, HughesNet.”

Hughes has organised its HughesNet enterprise and government offerings around three main services: managed network services, digital media services, and enhanced services.

HughesNet now provides consumers with services such as customised start pages, domain hosting, personalised web addresses, blogging, and advanced hosting along with broadband Internet access.

Globally, Hughes’s transition to HughesNet has allowed it to add enormous value to both existing and potential customers by helping them optimise the use of different broadband technologies.

For more Satellite and Broadcast News click here.

SAP flies into Pilot Software acquisition

GERMAN software giant SAP has acquired fast-growing Pilot Software, a maker of analytical tools and strategy management systems designed to help senior management extract better information from finance and customer data.

The US-based Pilot’s analytical software aims to make it easier for high-level business managers to better align corporate strategic goals and corporate performance.

Founded in 2002, the privately-owned Pilot Software has more than 150 customers worldwide that use its strategy management tools across industries including financial services, the public sector and retail. Terms of the SAP buy-out were not disclosed.

By aligning strategy with execution, organisations are able to improve corporate performance, accelerate management decision-making, facilitate collaboration and turn information into value.

SAP described the acquisition as a “tuck-in” purchase, saying Pilot added “a critical piece” to its portfolio of analytic applications.

“Analytic applications that help organizations manage their performance effectively represent a strategic area of investment for SAP as we continue to expand our leadership in this market,” said SAP’s suite optimisation executive vice-president Doug Merritt.

Leveraging analytics to improve performance management has been among the top priorities of senior executives in the last five years and is an area in which SAP continues to broaden its portfolio and further strengthen its leadership position in the analytic applications market.

“With the acquisition of Pilot Software, we are providing an advanced system for defining and managing strategies that is integrated with the business processes of information workers,” Mr Merritt said.

For more e-Finance news click here.

IBM bows out of enterprise printing

IBM is getting out of the enterprise printing business by offloading its Printing Systems Division to Japanese office automation specialist Ricoh in a $725 million deal over three years.

The two companies have formed a joint venture company called InfoPrint Solutions based on the IBM Printing Systems division. Ricoh will initially own 51 per cent of the venture and is set to progressively acquire the remaining 49 per cent over the next three years as the venture evolves into a wholly-owned Ricoh subsidiary.

IBM chairman and chief executive Sam Palmisano said the “eventual transfer of the IBM Printing Systems Division to Ricoh” would let Big Blue continue to refine its focus on its strategic businesses.

Mr Palmisano said in addition to its track record in the print industry, Ricoh would provide the investment necessary for InfoPrint Solutions to continue to innovate.

The initial part of the deal is expected to be completed by the end of the IBM second quarter. The joint venture is expected to begin operation with about 1,200 employees.

IBM will continue to provide maintenance services to InfoPrint Solutions clients under a service agreement and over time more than 1,000 IBM printer maintenance specialists may join the new company.

The joint venture will access IBM's worldwide distribution and sales network. InfoPrint Solutions will be an IBM worldwide partner for printers.

IBM's printer development capabilities will also become part of the joint venture, while IBM Global Financing will continue as a financing provider.

For more Office Printing news click here.

RFID national standards pilot extended

SUPPLY chain electronic standards body GS1 Australia has been given additional funding from the Federal Government to extend its national RFID/Electronic Product Code (EPC) pilot program.

Called the National Demonstrator Project (NDP), the pilot aims to develop a full business case and clearly show the return on investment for EPC/RFID for electronic proof of delivery by individual Australian businesses.

GS1 Australia general manager John Hearn said the project extension would run until the end of April to test the concept of paperless delivery and electronic proof of delivery (ePOD). It has been part funded by the federal Department of Communications, IT and the Arts (DCITA).

RMIT University and GS1 Australia will jointly manage the project and provide technical advice, while Telstra will continue to provide EPC communications through its Adaptive Asset Manager RFID solution and networking infrastructure for the project team.

Companies on the project team include Capilano Honey, CHEP. Franklins, Linfox, Masterfoods and Procter & Gamble. Retriever Communications will RFID-enable their application at CHEP and provide a scanning application for RFID readers, integrated into the Telstra systm.

“This extension will be useful to illustrate how EPC standards facilitate the interoperability of different pieces of technology, allowing companies to achieve complete integration of EPC information into their business process,” said RMIT University’s head of Manufacturing and Materials Engineering Dr John Mo.

The team expects that the pilot will provide quantifiable results about the benefits of using RFID technologies and EPC standards to facilitate paperless delivery and electronic proof of delivery (ePOD).

For more RFID news click here.

Asset tracking system targets retailers

Retail technology specialist NCR has unveiled an asset tracking software system that uses radio frequency identification (RFID) and other automatic identification and data collection (AIDC) technologies to help stores better manage point-of-sale equipment.

The company said its NCR Asset Visibility product is a foundation for a broad range of retail, logistics, warehouse and manufacturing applications.

Large retail chains can use the system to track and manage store assets such as end-cap displays, racks or bins, fixed or mobile point-of-sale hardware and shopping carts.

Or it can be used in combination with other software to track shopping carts as they move through a store can help retailers better understand consumer behavior and potentially increase revenue per customer.

“NCR Asset Visibility simplifies the infrastructure needed to enter, capture and cleanse data at the point of business activity,” NCR’s AIDC Solutions Group general manager Ken Hamlin said. “And it updates all relevant systems in real time.”

“Further, it gives organisations the flexibility to use the combination of technologies that best meets their requirements at a competitive cost, whether active or passive RFID, biometrics, bar codes, wireless LAN or cellular.”

For more POS news click here.

NetRegistry ramps up SME hosted services

INTERNET services firm NetRegistry has acquired the assets of domain name and web hosting company PlanetDomain from Primus Telecommunications for more than $8 million.

With the addition of the PlanetDomain business, NetRegistry chief executive Larry Bloch says the company now dominates the Australian market for domain name registrations with 27 per cent of the market.

The combined business now boasts more than 250,000 domestic and international small and medium sized (SME) customers, Mr Bloch said. PlanetDomain is profitable and would continue to be managed by its current staff in Melbourne.

Mr Bloch NetRegistry planned to pursue other acquisitions of companies that provide hosted application to large numbers of small businesses in Australia.

“Our strategy is to acquire relationships with SME’s at the start of their online journey – buying a domain name,” Mr Bloch said. “We then apply our proven skills in customer service to build trust and loyalty, gradually increasing the breadth of subscription services provided.

“We are still at the early stage of a long wave of innovation in the provision of online services to businesses. Our growing market position places us well to dominate the provision of online business services to Australian SME’s for many years to come,” he said.

For more e-Marketing news click here.

Bogus email declares PM dead, infects computer

AN email widely circulating in Australia that links to a bogus news report claiming Prime Minister John Howard had suffered a heart attack is being used to spread a malicious computer virus, experts have warned.

Global security firm Sophos has issued a global warning to users to be wary of unsolicited emails posing as breaking news reports.

The comes after the widespread distribution of a message which claims Mr Howard was in Sydney’s Royal North Shore Hospital fighting for his life after a heart attack suffered at Kirribilli House.

The emails pretend to link to a story from The Australian newspaper. The bogus news story points to a web site containing malicious code.

Clicking on the link takes users to a web page which downloads malicious code into their PC, and then displays the real ‘404 page not found’ error page used by The Australian on the news.com.au site.

The Prime Minister is the latest in a long line of public figures to be used by malware authors and hackers. Politicians like George W Bush, Arnold Schwarenegger, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton have been used in the past.

“It seems the hackers are back to their old tricks of spamming out sensational headlines in the hope that computer users will forget to think before they click, and visit the website hosting the malignant code,” said Sophos senior technology consultant Graham Cluley.

For more IT Security news click here.

IBA hooks up IPTV venture in China

AUSTRALIA’S largest ASX-listed eHealth company IBA has entered a joint-venture in Shanghai that will deliver healthcare information services throughout China using the internet and internet protocol television (IPTV).

The joint-venture, to be called Shanghai People’s Health Information Technology, will build a private internet-based network that will link doctors and patients, enabling consultations via the internet.

The venture will also provide a “national interactive health channel” on China’s only IPTV service, BesTV.

IBA owns 51 per cent of the joint venture and will contribute up to $7 million, based on future earnings and related working capital requirements.

The joint venture has acquired the intellectual property and support and maintenance contracts for an administrative hospital information system currently installed in over 180 hospitals –representing 90 percent of tier one hospitals and 20 per cent of tier two hospitals in Shanghai and surrounding provinces.

It also has the rights to provide health information systems to eight planned Harvard Medical Centre hospitals, two of which are currently under construction.

Shanghai People’s Health’s first customer will go live at the end of March – following trials in December and January – with an optical fibre, IP based network that will link over 20,000 families with doctors through 11 hospitals and community centres in Shanghai’s Changning District.

The Changning private network will initially provide the capability to deliver in-home and out of hospital consultations linking health professional and patients with community clinics and specialists located at the larger public hospitals.

With trials now complete, the joint venture will launch China’s first Health Channel in May.

The service not only provides more channels than traditional terrestrial television, using full size MPEG-4 video coding.

The service will provide health information, in-home video and audio consultations, video on demand capabilities and relevant health media content, including paid advertising.

The Health Channel will be distributed through an exclusive contract with BesTV, which is jointly owned by Shanghai Media Group, China’s second largest media company, and China Telecom, the largest fixed line telephone company.

For more IPTV news click here.

New video surveillance targets employees

US-BASED video surveillance and intelligence software specialist IntelliVid has begun trials of a newly developed developed intelligent point-of-sale video interface module that targets the problem of employee theft.

The IntelliVid system lets retailers instantly view and evaluate employees who are processing atypical transactions, like unusually large purchases or merchandise returns.

By revealing the circumstances of the transactions, IntelliVid’s video analysis capabilities then let the retailer to identify internal theft incidents and take appropriate action.

The system was developed in response to a growing internal theft problem identified in the US by a recent University of Florida study that found the problem, cost US retailers US$18 billion annually.

“With nearly half of all retail shrink being attributed to internal theft, retailers can now significantly improve their bottom line by implementing an intelligent video analysis solution that includes a point-of-sale interface,” said IntelliVid chief scientist Dr Christopher Buehler.

The company also recently announced version 2.0 of its flagship Video Investigator software, which supports the use of IP surveillance cameras.

Video Investigator transforms retailers’ existing video surveillance systems from passive recording devices into active theft prevention and store intelligence systems.

It also supports retailers’ increasing use of internet protocol (IP), cameras, which significantly reduce the complexity and costs of implementation over traditional analog cameras.

For more Retail IT news click here .

Legislation heats Access Card debate

CIVIL libertarians and privacy advocates have stepped up their campaign against the proposed Federal government smartcard just weeks after enabling legislation for the so-called Access Card was introduced to Federal parliament.

The Victorian Council for Civil Liberties – which opposes the proposal, calling it is a national ID card – will host a public forum on the Access Card in Melbourne on Thursday.

Chaired by high-profile silk and Liberty Victoria president Julian Burnside, the meeting will include speeches from Labor Human Services spokeswoman Tanya Plibersek and Public Interest Advocacy Centre chief executive Robin Banks.

The meeting, which includes an address by Tim Warner, convener of the Access Card No Way campaign, is expected to be the first of a series of meetings around the country seeking to galvanise opponents of the card.

The billion dollar Access Card proposal seeks to replace 17 health and welfare cards – including the ubiquitous Medicare card – with single government smartcard.

The introduction of Access Card legislation to Parliament two weeks ago detailing how the card will function has set the scene for a long anticipated brawl between supporters of the card – who say it will make Government services more efficient – and those who oppose the initiative.

Advocacy groups like the Australian Privacy Foundation and Electronic Frontiers Australia say the Access Card is effectively a national identity card, and compared the proposal to the defeated 1987 Australia Card proposal.

Human Services Minister Ian Campbell dismisses the charge, saying the legislation introduced to Parliament provides for a penalty of five years jail for anyone demanding that the Access Card be produced for strictly identification purposes.

The proposal is understood to have already caused ructions within the Coalition party room among backbenchers concerned about privacy provisions in the legislation.

Labor has said it supports in principle the introduction of card that improves government services, but is concerned that the proposal has been rushed through without adequate privacy protections.

For more e-Government news click here .

IBM gives Cheetah a Linux playpen

IBM and Novell have teamed up to build and release a new Linux-based database appliance server based on Big Blue’s Informix Dynamic Server database.

The new IDS server is the first major upgrade of the Informix Dynamic Server (IDS) database management system in two years. Code-named ‘Cheetah’, the database is in open beta testing with IBM customers.

The new hardware-software bundle will combine IDS Cheetah with SUSE Linux Enterprise Edition from Novell and an IBM xSeries server based on AMD’s Opteron 1000 processors.

IBM says the bundle is targeted at small to medium sized enterprises and designed specifically to meet the low-cost availability and security needs of smaller, growing firms.

“The IDS data server provides an environment with low administration needs, which in turn lowers the total cost of ownership and frees up (database administrators) to focus more attention on their overall information strategy,” said IBM data server vice-president Arvind Krishna said.

"IDS Cheetah will build upon the IDS history of reliability with a broad spectrum of high-availability options for business continuity and advanced security,” Mr Krishna said.

IDS Cheetah is scheduled for release this year and is designed to meet customers changing data management goals by enabling users to extract more value from their business information.

Novell’s open platforms solutions vice-president Roger Levy said IDS Cheetah’s support for open source application development and SUSE’s performance and reliability would give customers the best possible return on the investments they make in their applications.

The IDS platform is a strategic element of IBM's Information Management portfolio and delivers fast OLTP performance, high reliability and low cost administration. It is a leading integrated data server in many market segments such as retail, telecommunications, healthcare, government, banking/finance, entertainment, and SMB.

For more Open Cebit news click here.

IBA to get into bed with UK’s iSoft

Melbourne-based software maker IBA Health has confirmed it is seeking to buy UK giant iSoft in a deal that would create one of the biggest health industry back office specialists outside of North America.

The company has issued a statement confirming it is in discussion with the iSoft Group in London which may lead to an all-share offer to buy the UK group.

IBA Health also confirmed it was in discussion with “certain financial institutions” to obtain funding for such an acquisition. IBA said such funding would refinance the companies existing debt facilities and provide “adequate working capital for the ongoing requirements of the enlarged group.”

Though the company confirmed its interest in pursuing iSoft, no price tag has been attached to any possible transaction, though some analysts have said such a deal would be would about A$500 million.

Though trading at close to its 52-week high, IBA was off slightly on news it was seeking to buy the troubled UK firm. iSoft shares on the London Stock Exchange, which have struggled, bounced almost 10 per cent on confirmation that IBA had begun talks to buy the firm.

IBA Health is the largest health information technology company listed in Australia, with a market capitalisation of more than A$560 million.

The company provides information and communication solutions to connect providers, payers, patients and communities. IBA Health's range of systems is designed to support workflows across all health sectors including hospitals, clinics, aged and community care facilities, primary care as well as claims and payments processes.

For more e-Health news click here.

Top ten firms buy 33% of global components

THE top ten global electronics manufacturers account for one third of global semiconductor consumption – worth A$107 billion – according to research group Gartner.

Hardware giant Hewlett-Packard was the top semiconductor consumer, purchasing about $15.3 billion, though Gartner said PC-maker Dell and mobile phone specialist Nokia were within $500 million of the top position.

The other top five semiconductor consumers were Samsung and Sony, followed by Motorola, Siemens, Toshiba, LG and Apple.

“Nokia, Motorola and Siemens represented a large fraction of the increased consumption, driven by strong cell phone and communications growth,” said Gartner research director Alfonso Velosa.

“Data processing and telecommunications firms represented 75 per cent of the total semiconductor spending by the top consumers,” he said.

Gartner said the top 10 OEMs represented a diverse group of businesses, focusing on a variety of applications, ranging from large telecom equipment firms to industrial conglomerates.

These OEMs operate under a variety of end market focuses. Nokia, HP and Dell are largely pure-play firms, focused on the cell phone or the PC and server markets.

Sony is centered on consumer electronics, but also sells automotive and data processing products. Apple entered the top 10 for the first time, propelled by its broad mix of products, and in particular, its strong sales of portable media products.

“The top 10 OEMs in 2006 were multinational firms that have been implementing supply chain best practices over many years,” Mr. Velosa said.

“They have experience in managing a large number of global supply chain partners. This experience is enabling these OEMs to better compete in commoditized markets by increasing the volume of products developed where product design and manufacturing may be controlled in different geographic regions by the OEM or its partners.”

“Although semiconductor consumption will remain concentrated among the top OEMs, the design-in, sales, order and fulfillment channels will continue to evolve,” Mr Velosa said.

For more Components and Peripherals news click here .

Research priorities outlined at Future Parc

TECHNOLOGY that can assist the environment – in particular water resources – will be a key theme when the nation’s flagship information technology research organisations outline research priorities at CeBIT’s Future Parc showcase.

The CSIRO ICT Centre is expected to use Future Parc to highlight its ongoing work in one of the hottest topics in Australian politics – the way it monitors Australia’s scarce water resources.

The organisation has made impressive progress in developing wireless sensor networks for use in collecting geospatial data.

CSIRO ICT will showcase the sensors used in its $9 million-a-year Water Resources Observation Network (WRON), which is being developed to help better management Australia’s water and to protect river systems.
“Spatial data and sensor technology have a wide range of applications, particularly in the environmental field,” CSIRO researcher Gavin Walker.

“This technology will improve our scientific understanding of Australia’s scarce water resources and will revolutionise the way scientists gather data.”

The organisation has developed the technology in close collaboration with the Open Geospatial Consortium, developing a set of improved OGC specifications to provide access to multiple sources of geospatial information to assist in decision making.

With a keen eye on commercialisation opportunities in recent years, the CSIRO has point to the water monitoring application as a technology with broad potential across the globe.

More generally though, CSIRO ICT the geospatial technology that backs WRON can be applied to a vast range of different applications.

Both CSIRO and National ICT Australia (NICTA) – the country’s other flagship tech researcher – are both expected to use future parc to introduce specific commercial initiatives.

For more Future Parc news click here.

Local online ad market tops A$1 billion

THE online advertising sector grew to more than $1 billion in Australia for the first time last year led by staggering growth in the paid search market, according to global researchers Frost and Sullivan.

The company’s Australia Online Advertising Market report found total online revenues grew by 62 per cent in 2006 to $1.01 million and are expected to triple to $2.95 million in 2010.

Strong growth was seen in all the main product segments: paid search led by growing more than 100 per cent, followed by general advertising (48 per cent); directories (60 per cent) and classifieds (49 per cent), the report found.

The explosive growth in paid search was due mainly to search engine pay-per-click keyword advertising, which outpaced both contextual search and paid directory listings.

Google was the biggest winner in the local online advertising market, growing to become equal market leader in Australia with Telstra’s online unit Sensis.

Employment classified specialist Seek became the third largest online publisher in Australia, overtaking Fairfax Digital and NineMSN, according to Frost and Sullivan Australia research director Darryl Nelson.

“The strong jobs market in Australia in 2006 drove the classifieds segment, which accounts for 30 per cent of the total online advertising market,” Nelson said.

“Our observation of the market points to paid search continuing to see strong growth in the future, we estimate paid search revenues to grow to $975 million by end-2010, a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of almost 40 per cent,” he said.

The Frost and Sullivan survey was carried out late last year with senior management level executives split between existing online advertising users and non-users. A total of 462 respondents participated in the survey which looked at advertiser usage patterns, attitudes and intentions.

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Service Stream wins massive Do Not Call deal

AS many as a million Australians are expected to immediately sign up for the new anti-telemarketing Do Not Call Register when it goes live in May, according to Communications Minster Helen Coonan.

Melbourne-based telecommunications specialist Service Stream was this month awarded a multi-million contract to build the Australian Government’s long-anticipated register.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority said Service Stream was awarded a contract to design and operate the register until 2011 following a month-long competitive tender process.

The Do Not Call Register was set up to give local consumers a mechanism for stopping telemarketers calling their home and mobile numbers. It is expected to be operational by May.

Senator Coonan said the register was a direct response to growing concern about the growth in the number of telemarketing calls and said government was preparing for massive initial demand for the opt-out service.

“The Do Not Call Register will provide peace of mind to individuals who are distressed or concerned by receiving large numbers of telemarketing calls,” Senator Coonan said.

“Based on overseas experience, we expect there will be a high level of demand for the register – as many as one million numbers could be registered in the first week alone,” she said. “It is therefore imperative that a robust Register is developed.

Government committed $33.1 million in the last federal Budget to establish and operate the register, and made the passage of enabling legislation through Parliament a priority to ensure the service was up and running as soon as possible.

“This is a significant step towards reducing the number of annoying unsolicited calls received by many Australians,” Senator Coonan said.

The Do Not Call Register is expected to be fully operational by no later than the end of May 2007. From that time, it will be unlawful, in the absence of consent, for telemarketers in Australia or overseas to contact a number listed on the register.

The Do Not Call Register legislation provides for telemarketers to submit their calling lists for checking against register.

ACMA has also released for public comment a draft determination setting out the arrangements for telemarketers accessing the register.

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NCR prepares to carve off Teradata CRM unit

THE world’s oldest technology company, US-based NCR Corporation, is preparing to spin off its lucrative Teradata data warehouse and data mining business unit.

The company has not talked about a specific buyer for the unit, but said NCR and Teradata would be structured to operate as two distinct companies.

NCR was founded in the 1880’s as National Cash Register, originally making mechanical adding machines.

Though it has continually evolved in the past 120 years, the company has remained true to its roots, specialising in retail technologies ranging from automatic teller machines to automated payment terminals and retail point of sale systems.

The Teradata unit was acquired in the 1990’s when NCR was a owned by telecommunications giant AT&T. Teradata was and remains a specialist in enterprise class data warehousing and business intelligence applications used heavily in the massive retail applications – in particular in managing massive Customer Relationship Management issues for telecommunications companies, banks and other finance companies, and global retailers.

In total NCR generates annual revenues of about US$4.5 billion of which $1.5 billion comes from Teradata. The unit is the most profitable part of the company.

Though Teradata has been at the pointy-end of technology innovation and is considered by many to be the jewel in the NCR crown, it has long been considered an odd fit for the century old firm.

The company has spawned a slew of top executives, including Mark Hurd who was credited with turning Teradata into a profitable unit before moving on to first manage NCR and then to his current job as HP chief executive.

NCR president and chief executive officer Bill Nuti said the move was a logical strategic step for NCR.

“Teradata and the new NCR operate in different markets each with solid prospects for the future, but they have markedly different business models,” Mr Nuti said.

“Both new companies should benefit from sharper management focus on their unique business opportunities. Each new entity should be able to more effectively pursue their specific growth and research and development agendas, while designing employee incentive plans that are more directly aligned with their own performance and growth objectives,” he said.

“In addition, NCR investors should benefit from increased transparency and clarity, which will allow them to more appropriately value the merits, performance and future prospects of both companies.”

NCR believes there are opportunities to expand earnings and cash flow following the Teradata separation by continuing to leverage its leadership position in the emerging self-service market, further enhancing operational excellence, and securing additional manufacturing cost reductions and supply-chain efficiencies.

In addition, NCR expects to benefit from increased investment in its sales organization, which should further strengthen the company’s competitive position, market share and brand as it pursues self-service opportunities in new industry and geographic segments.

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ABS dissects broadband numbers

NEW subscribers are signing up broadband internet services in record numbers despite ongoing user frustration at slow access speeds, an Australian Bureau of Statistics survey has found.

More than 1.8 million more Australians signed up for a broadband internet service in the 18 months from March 2005 to September last year, the ABS found.

The ABS’ Internet Activity Survey – the first time the bureau has investigated online numbers – shows there are now far more broadband customers in Australia (3.91 million) than dial-up users (2.75 million)
Broadband subscribers represent 59 per cent of the total number of Internet subscribers in September 2006 compared to 30 per cent in March 2005.
Communications Minister Helen Coonan said there was increasing demand for broadband internet access as more Australians sought always-on, anywhere access business and entertainment services.
Wireless technology – mobile and fixed – was one of the fastest growing sectors in the broadband access market with nearly five per cent of subscribers now using wireless modems.
“The rapid take-up of broadband internet shows Australians want the latest technologies and infrastructure to support it,” Senator Coonan said.
“But as the increase in take-up of wireless broadband shows, consumers want to access what they need, at a price point they can afford and via a technology that suits their individual needs.
The ABS found there were a total 6.65 million internet subscribers in Australia, including 825,000 businesses and 5.26 million households at the end of September last year.

Labor communications spokesman Stephen Conroy had welcomed the ABS’ plans to study broadband for the first time, but said the report would only highlight that Australia was lagging other developed nations in broadband uptake.

Senator Conroy said Australia was ranked just 17th in an OECD survey of 35 countries for the take-up of 256kbps broadband, and that the World Economic Forum had ranked Australia 25th in terms of available internet bandwidth.

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Hyro gets Heavy, adds content division

IN THE wake of its local distribution deal with US-based content leader Heavy, Australia’s largest digital services provider Hyro has set up a specialist Content Services division.

Australian Stock exchange-listed Hyro said the new division would work closely with clients to both source and create programming and “branded concepts” that are produced for a full range of digital media and device platforms.

The creation of the division signalled a much bigger focus on content sourcing and distribution for the company. It said the Heavy deal would be the first of a series of deals to source niche content – with niche target audiences – that was not currently available in Australia or New Zeland.

The deal with Heavy is the company’s first exclusive digital services content licensing arrangement.

Under the terms of the agreement, Hyro and Heavy will drive sales from the licensing of Heavy digital content through all media platforms including TV, online, mobile and gaming devices; PSP (PlayStation Portable), and iPod.

Heavy is a specialist producer of entertainment content specifically designed for digital channels and targeted to specific market demographics. It’s most prolific customer base are 18 – 34 year old males.

In the US, Heavy has successfully grown its online audience to generate 16.5 million unique online visitors per month that stay on the site, viewing for an average of 30 minutes.

Hyro’s Content Services division is headed by Chris Flintoft and comprises a team of new media and TV experts, with a broad experience in Australian broadcasters and telecommunications.

“Hyro Content Services will focus on a highly interactive, tactile and cross-platform approach involving original characters, storyline and video targeted at ‘web 2.0 style’ channels such as broadband, 3G and portable media devices,” Mr Flintoft said.

”We will be creating and sourcing digital content that is different, cutting edge and that keeps pace with the constantly evolving media world so that our clients can reach their target audiences in new and innovative ways.”

Hyro chief executive Joe Calavassy said that 18 months ago the company’s broadcast and mobile business was still in it embryonic, incubation state “requiring us to invest some of our margin in building capability and capacity.”

"Now, the Wireless and Broadcast business is a fully commercial part of Hyro, contributing more than 10 per cent of revenue and positive net earnings.

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Cisco, Apple head to court over iPhone

NETWORKING giant Cisco Systems and Apple are taking their dispute over the ‘iPhone’ name into the eleventh hour with both companies agreeing to a deadline extension to later this week to avoid a court date.

Cisco lodged a trade mark infringement lawsuit with the US federal court in San Francisco last month to prevent Apple from using the iPhone name for its much-hyped music player/phone device.

Cisco’s Linksys division has been shipping a line of voice over IP (VoIP) devices branded iPhones since the early last year. The company has owned the iPhones since it acquired technology firm InfoGear in 2000, which had registered the name.

Apple has argued that it should be allowed to use the iPhone name because each company’s phone uses different networks and different technology – Apple’s is a cellular phone while Cisco’s is VoIP.

Cisco has previously said Apple could use the iPhone name, but had said it wanted both companies phones to be able to communicate with each other. It did not detail how the different technologies should communicate.

Cisco has now agreed to an Apple request to extend the deadline to respond to the lawsuit until February 21. Both companies say they aim to reach a “mutually beneficial” resolution outside of court.

Apple formally announced its iPhone product last month. It is due to ship in the US through the Cingular cell network in July with a staged roll-out across the globe scheduled over the next year and a half.

For more VOIP news click here.

Budde joins Austrade for CeBIT sidetrip

IN conjunction with the export agency Austrade, high profile telco industry analyst Paul Budde will lead an ICT and broadband trade mission to the Netherlands to coincide with the CeBIT Hannover trade fair in March.

The study mission is being sponsored by both the Australian and Dutch governments and will not cost Australian companies anything beyond their own travel costs. Austrade will provide provide tailored business matching services in the Netherlands to companies participating in the mission.

The mission has been scheduled by Austrade for the four days prior to CeBIT Hannover.

Mr Budde the Netherlands is one of the most advanced countries in the world in terms of broadband, with household broadband penetration rates – at true broadband speeds – now close to 70 per cent.

Because the high speed networks are the norm, the Dutch have a range of broadband based services healthcare, education, government, business and entertainment.

Mr Budde will lead a series of site visits to discuss Dutch ICT and broadband business models – including Private public Partnerships (PPPS) and partnerships between telecom companies and local councils.

He will also lead discussion of government policies and regulatory frameworks for next generation networks (NGN), FttN (Fibre to the Node) and telecom wholesale services.

Meanwhile 16 local companies will exhibit within the Australian Pavilion at CeBIT Hannover under a new Brand Australian banner being pushed by Austrade and the Australian Electrical and Electronic Manufacturers Association.

The local’s at the Australian Pavilion already makes this year’s participation at CeBIT Hannover the biggest of the decade, but an additional six Australian firms will exhibit at the show independently – and more than 25 are sending networking representatives.

Among those exhibiting in Hannover are Melbourne communications firms Blue Box Devices, Polaris Communications and Exinda Networks, and Canberra software companies dotNET Solutions and Wev Active.

With Australian importing $20 billion more ICT hardware and software every year than it exports, Austrade has made improving the industry’s trade performance a high priority.

For more Export Alley news click here.

VC firms tip US$1 billion into blade sector

JUST one year after it was set up, the open collaborative community driving innovation in blade-based systems,Blade.org, says its venture capital firms have tipped more than US$1 billion into companies developing emerging blade technologies.

The blade server market remains the industry’s fastest growing server segment and is expected to grow to reach $US11 billion by 2010.

From eight founding members a year ago, including IBM, Citrix, Brocade and Intel, Blade.org has grown to nearly 100 members, made up of hardware and software providers, developers, distributors and large end user customers.

The blade initiative started four years ago when IBM and Intel opened the architecture and specifications of the IBM BladeCenter system. More than 400 tech firms have now downloaded the specifications for free to begin to shape the future of the blade server platform.

Additionally, the need for the Blade.org community was identified by venture capital firms that recognized the opportunity for up and coming technology companies to play a critical role in the fast growing blade server market.

More than 50 global venture capital firms, including Walden International, Accel and Austin Ventures and many of Blade.org's member organizations, building support for the blade server architecture and spurring development based on open hardware standards.

"By providing an environment that sparks innovation among members, Blade.org is bringing new blade server applications and solutions to market more quickly, creating opportunity for the entire blade ecosystem," said US Venture Partners general partner David Liddle.

“Nearly half of the Blade.org ecosystem is made out of venture capital investments, and we believe this is expected to have significant impact on shaping up the future direction of this technology."

By combining storage, networking and servers, blade server systems simplify business computing for customers. The shape of each blade server is slim and, like a book, slides into a system like books on a shelf and carries its own processors, memory, storage, network controllers, operating system and applications. Each server also shares a mid- or backplane, which enables power, fans, floppy drives, switches, and ports to be shared.

The benefits of the blade approach include improved security, improved virtualisation, and massively reduced power and cooling demands for data centre managers.

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Metro blackspots program disappears in black hole

MORE than two years after Prime Minister John Howard announced a $50 million fund to improve broadband “blackspots” in metropolitan areas, Government has spent just $200,000 on improvements, according to Labor communications spokesman Stephen Conroy.

Mr Howard announced the $50 million Metropolitan Broadband Blackspots program as part of the 2004 election campaign.

Senator Conroy says government bungling had resulted in $1.3 million being spent on administration costs while just $200,000 had been spent on actual broadband service improvements.

“This incompetent response to the serious problem of providing broadband access in metropolitan areas will be a further frustration to those Australians whom Senator Coonan enraged last year by claiming that ‘no one is complaining’ about broadband speeds in metropolitan Australia,” Senator Conroy said.

The Senate Estimates process had confirmed that Telstra had never participated in the Metropolitan Broadband Blackspots program, despite Communications Minister Helen Coonan’s assurances last year that the company was a participant in “filling these blackspots in metropolitan areas.”

“The Metropolitan Broadband Blackspots program was nothing more than a cheap vote grab hastily cobbed together during the 2004 election campaign. Australians without access to broadband deserve better than cynical election stunts from the Howard government,” Senator Conroy said.

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India, China drive licensed growth: Ballmer

Improved attitudes toward using legal, licensed software within economic powerhouses like India and China will provide enormous opportunities for growth in the corporate desktop market, according to Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer.

Speaking at a financial analysts’ briefing in New York last week, Mr Ballmer said there was a “real movement” among large companies in the emerging economies that would provide renewed growth opportunities for business software growth in the next financial year.

“There's certainly an opportunity to grow the business again in the corporate world in emerging markets on the desktop,” Mr Ballmer said.

“More and more if you go to China, you go to India, the biggest companies all do actually want to be legal.

“As people increasingly list their stocks on the exchanges in those countries, in this country, in others, there's a real movement to legalise in the corporate environment in these emerging countries,” he said.

Mr Ballmer told the analysts that while the industry move to software as a service presented enormous challenges and potential threats to the company, the changes were fundamental and presented at least equal opportunities for growth.

“The evolution of the software business to being a business of software and service is fundamental, and we are investing in that as if it is fundamental,” Mr Ballmer said.

“We will evolve our business models from transactions to in some cases subscription, in some cases hosting, in some cases advertising, in some cases we'll continue on the transaction model, but our business models will evolve with the evolution of our business to have much more of a service component.

“I view this as a huge opportunity for us. People can say, isn't it also a huge threat? Sure, all great transformations have both aspects to them.

“This as fundamentally a very, very good thing, but nonetheless it brings with it a world with new competitors and new challenges,” Mr Ballmer said.

Meanwhile, just three weeks after the launch of the next generation Windows Vista operating system, Mr Ballmer has said the company hopes to develop and release the next major Windows upgrade well inside the five years it took to get Vista to market.

While Microsoft last week issued a statement aimed at quelling speculation about when the company expected to release the next version of Windows.

Mr Ballmer said there were people in the industry still held to the idea that innovation could still be developed by “three guys in a garage”.

“We won't go five years again, I promise, between big Windows releases,” Mr Ballmer said.

“But there are products that are so anchored to the way people work, they're not going to be (developed by) three guys overnight. It simply requires too much testing and too much sort of sophisticated engineering to get there.”
“But we continue to push and push hard on the innovation front, and I'm going to talk about that,” he said.

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Watchdog targets ADSL2+ advertising claims

THE Australian competition watchdog has warned internet service providers it will prosecute companies that make misleading claims about the download speeds of different broadband technologies.

Australian Competition and Consumer Commission chairman Graeme Samuel said he was concerned that ISPs were making claims in advertising about download speeds not achievable outside of a laboratory environment.

“The ACCC is concerned that ISPs are using 'hypothetical' speeds when these speeds are just that – available to the hypothetical consumer not necessarily the real world consumer,” Mr Samuel said.

“At the ACCC, we are concerned about the real-world consumer.”

The ACCC has published an information paper “to assist ISPs comply with the Trade Practices Act”.

Though the information paper is technology neutral and is directed at all broadband service providers, it focuses primarily on ADSL2+ services as it is not as well understood by consumers.

The paper draws attention to the industry practice of using hypothetical speeds as the basis of speed claims in advertising when such speeds are unlikely to be achieved in the real world.

The ACCC has warned ISPs that they should have a reasonable basis – such as real world network trials – for any claims they make in advertising.

“The paper focuses on ADSL2+ because consumers may be attracted to these services by speed claims,” Mr Samuel said.

“As a new technology, consumers usually have less information than the provider of the service and may be misled by headline claims of hypothetical maximum speeds,” he said.

The paper outlines penalties available to the ACCC for conduct it believes breaches the misleading and deceptive conduct provisions of the Trade Practices Act.

Penalties include corrective advertising, injunctions to prevent the prohibited conduct, and fines up to $1.1 million for companies and $220,000 for individuals.
The ACCC monitors advertising by ISPs, and will continue to closely monitor advertising of internet speeds to ensure that high-speed broadband services are appropriately qualified.

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Election year jitters as Telstra cranks Next G

JUST days after announcing surging profits from wireless data traffic, Telstra has cranked up speeds on its Next G third generation mobile network from 3.6Mbps to 14.4Mbps.

In addition to quadrupling the Next G data transfer rates, the company also announced plans to extend the effective range of Next G cells in regional centres from 50 kilometres to 200 kilometres.

Telstra says the improved geographic range of the Next G cells will ultimately provide network coverage to 98.8 per cent of the Australian population.

The company said the extended cell coverage made the Next G system the first in the world to switch on the 200 kilometre-range cells.

Telstra chief executive Sol Trujillo said more than 400,000 subscribers had signed up to Next G since the third generation network went live last October.

Politically, the company needs its world-first 200 kilometre cell technology to succeed.

Telstra has already said it will switch off its ageing CDMA network – which is the only mobile system available to many rural and regional Australians – in January next year.

It has also promised its Next G network would provide the same or better coverage before the CDMA network is turned off. The Nationals in Canberra – NSW Senator Fiona Nash and Queensland Senator Barnaby Joyce – intend on making sure Telstra keeps that promise.

Regardless of Telstra’s majority-private ownership, in an election year mobile coverage in the bush is an issue the Nationals are prepared to die in a ditch over.

Mr Trujillo used the weekend Next G upgrade announcement to talk up the coverage issue.

“This is a major leap from the 50 kilometre range that was typically supported on our Next G network, and is an important step towards equaling, and in some cases exceeding existing CDMA coverage,” Mr Trujillo said.

Briefing analysts in Sydney last week, Mr Trujillo said Telstra had topped one million 3G mobile subscribers, with a total of 415,000 Next G customers – and that the average revenue per user for these 3G users was $20 per month higher than 2G customers.

The improved multimedia capabilities of the Next G network was changing the way customers used their phones and further driving data traffic, Mr Trujillo said.
“Our Next G customers are using their devices differently to drive dramatic change in usage patterns, migrating from basic voice to content-rich applications,” he said.

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