news Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has demanded that the Coalition disclose some basic details of its rival broadband policy, noting that Shadow Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull has not substantially outlined the policy further in public since a landmark speech on the issue in the middle of 2011.

The clearest indication currently available of the Coalition’s rival telecommunications policy is contained in a speech given by Turnbull in August last year, in which he proposed focusing on upgrading the HFC cable networks operated by Telstra and Optus, splitting Telstra into wholesale and retail arms, and using wireless and satellite solutions to serve remote regions.

Since that date, Turnbull has also appeared to focus heavily on the potential for fibre to the node technology to serve Australia’s future broadband needs, in comparison with Labor’s National Broadband Network policy, which focuses on more expensive and technically capable fibre to the home technology.

However, in a statement released late last week, Conroy criticised Turnbull for not releasing significant detail of the Coalition’s policy, demanding that the Shadow Minister “come clean” on the Coalition’s plans. “Six months ago today Malcolm Turnbull addressed the National Press Club on the National Broadband Network. For the rest of 2011 and already in 2012 he has been silent on any policy detail,” Conroy said.

“In one speech, three media releases and 15 tweets this year on the NBN he has continued his negative campaign and not provided an actual broadband policy. Meanwhile, his Coalition partners continue to call for fibre to the home in regional Australia, while his leader tells Australia this week we should invest in last century road and rail infrastructure not 21st century broadband.”
Last week, Conroy pointed out, Turnbull had linked to a Financial Times article on Twitter about a fibre to the node deployment by British telco BT.

“This is the same story he told us about in December,” Conroy added. “But he gives no detail on how it would be, or even if it can be, delivered in Australia. How many powered cabinets will be required to get within 400 metres of every premise? What is the actual speed that customers get rather than just ‘up to 80 Mbps’? How much will it cost? The Coalition needs to come clean – what is their actual policy, what technology do they propose to use and what will it cost.”

Conroy said Tunbull should answer the following questions about the Coalition’s broadband policy:

• How will the coalition achieve the structural separation of Telstra?
• How much will prices increase in regional Australia without a cross subsidy? How much will his “voucher” system for regional Australia cost?
• How many households does Mr Turnbull plan to serve with HFC?
• How many households does he plan to serve with FTTN? How many FTTN nodes does he plan to build?
• How many households does he plan to serve with wireless?
• What does he really think the requirements are for bandwidth in 2020?
• When does he expect his network will need to be replaced by FTTH (he calls it a migration path)?
• How much will his network cost?
• Why does he consisently misrepresent the $35 billion capital cost of the NBN?

The Office of Malcolm Turnbull has been invited to respond to Conroy’s statements.

opinion/analysis
It must be snowing in hell today, because I find myself in complete agreement with Conroy about the lack of detail which Turnbull has so far released about the Coalition’s broadband policy. As I wrote in November last year:

“After my initial burst of enthusiasm for Turnbull’s plan, the Shadow Communications Minister’s behaviour over the succeeding months — in which he has done virtually nothing to address its criticism or expound its merits in public — has done much to sour me on it. Watching Turnbull in action in that period, I often find it hard to believe that he has the energy and determination to see his rival proposal through, should he be appointed Communications Minister in a Coalition Government.”

No doubt it feels nice for Turnbull to be featured by outlets such as the Global Mail on its launch day as Australia’s “Prime Minister in waiting”. And it’s also no doubt nice for Turnbull to make appearances on prime-time Sydney radio discussing the NBN with sympathetic hosts and taking the chance for a few below the belt potshots at Conroy and the NBN project in general.

But policy development isn’t about feeling nice. It’s about substantive outcomes. Right now it seems very likely that the next Federal Election (generally expected to be held in 2013) could see a change in government, with a Coalition team under Opposition Leader Tony Abbott considered likely to knock Labor off its perch. With Abbott having threatened several times to tear up the NBN project, I think it’s about time we get some certainty from the Coalition about just what it’s proposing to replace it with. This is not a joke. This is about Australia’s future.

Image credit: Kim Davies, Creative Commons

This article is by Martin Hirst, an associate professor at Deakin University. It was first published on The Conversation and is re-published here with permission.

analysis Telecommunications giant Optus managed to convince the Federal Court in Sydney this week that there’s a legal blindspot in relation to its download pay-per-view service.

Telstra – given its business relationship with The National Rugby League (NRL) and Australian Football League (NFL) – had tried to prevent Optus from recording and re-broadcasting matches screened on free-to-air television. But Justice Steven Rares found Optus’s mobile television service didn’t breach the Copyright Act for a couple of reasons: Optus keeps separate recordings for each customer, and individual customers are responsible for requesting the recordings. So what’s going on here?

To my mind, former rugby league coach Roy Masters – ever the shrewd observer – hit the nail on the head when he wrote the following for the Sydney Morning Herald yesterday:

“They framed the copyright laws to protect the average punter from being sued for taping a TV show, including a football match on his home recorder. Now, their legislation is being used by Optus to sell a service.”

Naturally, Telstra has concerns. The AFL’s A$1.25 billion five-year rights deal signed last season with Channel Seven, Foxtel and Telstra, included a A$153m payment by Telstra for the online broadcast rights to games. The NRL, likewise, expected a proportion of its next deal to come from internet rights.

We’ve done nothing wrong
Optus is not breaching current copyright laws by charging its customers for a record-and-download service that includes material in which its competitors hold some or all of the copyright.

In court, Optus successfully argued its customers already access its competitors’ content via free-to-air television and record and replay programs when they choose to. This model of free distribution is embedded in our media culture. Now that old interpretation of the law – protecting home recording rights for the “average punter” – lets Optus monetise a data stream for its customers, using free content provided at great cost by others.

The potential appeal issues confirm it’s about the income from broadcast, repackaging and online rights. The AFL and NRL are claiming a loss of trade. If they stick to their word and fight back, and Telstra joins in, it could cascade into a series of messy contract disputes.

The whole issue is further complicated by the pay-TV siphoning regulations in which all litigants are also stakeholders alongside Foxtel. As everyone knows, from the Communications Minister Stephen Conroy down, the regulatory regime and legal framework for the digital economy and the new convergent media landscape is out of step with the machinery of change. We have a high-performance engine under the hood, but the tyres and the suspension can’t really handle the speed. We are living through a techno-legal time warp.

The laws that worked to allow the “average punter” to record and replay TV shows using personal recording devices (such as TiVo) are now creating lucrative business opportunities that everyone involved in this legal stoush is keen to exploit. Monetising the click-stream is the main game in digital Dodge City and an analogue copyright law is not player-friendly for everyone. Contrast Masters’ old-hand wryness with the corporate-speak from Optus spokeswoman, Clare Gill:

“This has been a win for Australians, for innovation and for the law. This is a product similar to things that you can do today. So we see this no different (sic) from any other personal video recording device.”

As one punter wrote on sports website The Roar, it’s not a pretty sight to see communication giants slugging it out: “The battle between the telcos is getting ugly, and the sporting landscape is getting caught up in it.”

At the heart of the legal issues is the Copyright Amendment Act of 2006, which specifically allows home recording of free-to-air TV content. At the time smartphones were not so ubiquitous and the download technology was clumsy. The law worked for its time. But not any more. The techno-legal time-gap kicks in when the technology perfects a new application that the old rules were not designed to deal with. Here, the respondents argue, the law is out of date.

Under review
A review of digital copyright law was announced late last year by the then Attorney-General Robert McClelland. This is way overdue and may still take some time to come to fruition. The problem we have is that nothing in the government’s much-vaunted and much-despised Convergence Review seems to deal directly with this issue.

The interim report from the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy (DBCDE) doesn’t even deal with copyright law and, in a section where you might expect to find some comment on it – chapter seven, entitled “Competition” – there is only hollow sentiment and principle:

“Submissions to the Review addressing competition fell into two broad categories:

• Some stakeholders argued the market is functioning effectively and existing ACCC [Australian Competition and Consumer Commission] powers are adequate when anti‑competitive situations arise (including in relation to content)
• Other submissions expressed concern that emerging market situations could reduce competition in content and communications markets and that these situations will require a flexible operational response from the regulator.

The regulator should be entrusted with suitable powers to deal with content‑related competition issues in rapidly changing markets.”

Surely taking copyrighted material and on-selling it, as Optus looks set to do, is “anti-competitive”, even if a six-year-old loophole says it’s OK to do it.

The techno-legal time-gap
I first wrote about the techno-legal time-gap in 2006 in Communication and New Media: From Broadcast to Narrowcast, a book I co-authored with John Harrison. In that book we made the point that legal, moral and ethical debates and regulation lag behind the speed of technological change.

My example at the time was peer-to-peer file-sharing, but within a year of the book’s publication, Napster and others were facing huge legal threats and were effectively shut down. The problem then migrated to The Pirate Bay and other BitTorrent) sites. As that appears to be resolved – to the commercial satisfaction of some players – a new front has opened up. The latest target for the anti-piracy forces is Kim Dotcom, the founder of the Megaupload “cyberlocker”. Dotcom’s repurposing of other peoples’ content has got him into serious trouble. Other service providers are also caught up in this net.

Private matters
The fights over copyright – or “copytheft” to some – are not the only digital skirmishes. The very concept of privacy – both real and online – has been blown wide open. Not only has there been rampantly criminal behaviour that exploited loopholes in phone security leading to a tsunami of scandal engulfing the Murdochs, it seems our total being is exposed online. Daily hacks and distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks compromise data, much of it personal and all of it valuable in the surveillance economy.

It’s not just credit card fraud and online dating scams – seemingly innocuous transactions – buying products through online vendors, for instance – leave a trail that is collated, digested, modeled and spat back as marketing or social enhancement experiences.

It’s hard to see the “white hats” among the online baddies. But caught up in all of this today we have Julian Assange, a military whistleblower (Bradley Manning) and a collection of techno-savvy activists (Anonymous) attempting to bring down the military-industrial complex. They are all now caught up in the time warp. But the regulators are not having it all their own way.

Paradox effects
The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) protests of the past few weeks forced a backdown in the US over so-called internet censorship laws.

The time-gap exists across social media too. In 2006 Facebook was new and exclusive, Twitter was just around the corner, smartphones cost a fortune but the apps weren’t that good. In half a decade things have changed dramatically. These paradox effects will continue. The review of copyright law, a new round of privacy commission policy papers and the convergence review are all institutional attempts to deal with the contradictions, loopholes and inconsistencies.

We see the same pressures exerting themselves on the Australian Press Council and other regulators too. Analogue models of regulation, control and ethical boundary-setting are no longer working smoothly. The Media and Entertainment Arts Alliance (MEAA) code of ethics was updated in 1997, but it too is now showing its age.

Where are the guidelines for journalists on managing their social media accounts? Where is the advice on how to deal with lifting material from Facebook or YouTube to illustrate a story? I have collected several examples of these problems and discuss them on my blog (Ethical Martini). Ripping images from Facebook, for example, is a breach of both copyright law and an invasion of privacy (even if legal).

None of these problems is easily fixed. They are global issues and the World Trade Organisation is one of several transnational bodies looking for answers. The danger here is that regulators go with a business-friendly commercial fix, rather than regulation in the public interest. At the heart of capitalist property law is the right to exploit: just ask Optus.

Martin Hirst is the author of News 2.0: Can Journalism Survive the Internet?

This article was originally published at The Conversation. Read the original article.

Image credit: Back to the Future, Universal Pictures

newsThe National Broadband Network Company has blocked a freedom of information request which would have seen information released about the amount which it will cost Australians outside the company’s planned fibre broadband footprint extended to reach their premises, in a move first reported by iTNews.

NBN Co’s fibre optic network footprint is planned to cover 93% of the country’s population. This his has led to some discord among the remaining 7%, especially when some of those are right on the border of the fibre rollout zones. These users are expected to be served by satellite and wireless technologies, both of which have lesser capacity than fibre. NBN Co does have an option for residents on the edge of the network footprint. These customers can pay the charges for extending the cable. This offer came about mainly because residents in Tasmania, in some of the early stage rollout zones were unhappy about ‘just missing’ the fibre connection.

People who wished to have the fibre extended to their homes lying beyond the footprint were asked to call the company before 24 June, 2011 and request a no-obligation quote. The company would then determine how much each extension would cost. NBN Co also made it clear that it wouldn’t be a single number stating the cost of extension as this would have to vary depending on factors such as distance in kilometres from the actual footprint.

In June 2011, for example, a user of the online forum Whirlpool received a letter from NBN construction head Dan Flemming stating that his property would be covered by a wireless or satellite service. Flemming wrote, “It may be possible for you to connect to the National Broadband Network using fibre optic technology, if you agree to pay NBN Co to extend the fibre optic network to your property. Your property will then be connected to the fibre optic network as part of the planned rollout in your area in the coming months.”

However, it appears that NBN Co is not too keen on revealing these costs to the general public, with recipients of the extended connection signing non-disclosure agreements, and hence being unable to reveal how much the extended connections cost.

In a response published last week (PDF) to a request by technology media outlet iTNews under Freedom of Information laws for NBN Co to reveal the price paid, NBN Co said that it couldn’t reveal the price, as this could snowball and lead to serious problems for the company.

In a statement emailed to Delimiter responding to the FoI issue, NBN Co said that it had “appropriately assessed the FoI request” within the terms of existing legislation and “its role as a commercial entity operating within a highly competitive market”.

“NBN Co is a government business enterprise, and like any business it doesn’t make sense to release information that could jeopardise commercial activities and our ability to negotiate prices for similar services in the future,” the company said. “The quotes provided as part of the network extension trial were based on actual costs, and will vary for each location based on distance, geography and accessibility in a specific area.”

“It is important to note that NBN Co is committed to a process of engagement with communities, and a factor that’s driving our public messaging is explaining that the NBN is delivering high-speed broadband access to every home in the country via one of three technologies – fibre, fixed wireless and satellite. As we go into communities we will provide more information about the capabilities of our network and the different technologies.”

“A fibre network extension is an option that is available, and we are in the process of finalising a formal policy to be released in the near future. However we are also in the early stages of providing greater information about the new generation wireless and satellite services that will also be available.”

opinion/analysis
It seems obvious why NBN Co doesn’t want to provide the fibre extension costs publicly. It is likely the case that the company doesn’t want to kick off yet another round of media speculation and debate about the cost of the network it’s building. If the fibre extension costs were disclosed, I’m sure many edge case Australians who were just to miss out on the fibre would come forward, demanding that the costs be waived or at least cut down.

However, NBN Co’s action here also highlights a lack of transparency. The costs of its fibre extension activities will be released eventually anyway, one way or the other. It makes no sense for the company to hide them. Those costs should be released public and become part of the public debate about the NBN.

Image credit: NBN Co. Opinion/analysis by Renai LeMay

news Accounting software firm Xero announced last week that it had raised a further AU$15.5 million from current strategic investors to maintain its future growth in Australia and worldwide. The New Zealand-based company also announced the acquisition of Max Solutions, a leading practice management company and developer of WorkflowMax, a job, time and invoice management solution.

Chris Ridd, Managing Director, Xero Australia said that both the new developments supported Xero’s rapid growth here in Australia and the rest of the world. “We continue to transform the accounting industry by helping them embrace the cloud. Many of our customers are WorkflowMax customers so this together with Paycycle gives us a very powerful combination,” Ridd stated. WorkflowMax was introduced in the market in early 2008.

Xero will use the capital raised to expand business in the Australian, USA and UK markets, where the company is gaining market share against the large incumbent providers. The company, founded by serial New Zealand entrepreneur Rod Drury and small business accountant Hamish Edwards, has 170 staff spread across four countries, with the most recent office set up in the US. Xero’s online accounting software spares its clients the hassle of installing anything on their computers.

Among the strategic investors who have given additional funds for Xero’s global growth are independent Xero director and board member of Fairfax Media, Sam Morgan as well as the former co-founder of MYOB, Craig Winkler. Valar Ventures, the New Zealand investment vehicle of US-based Peter Thiel and one of the initial investors in Facebook, is another investor. Thiel incidentally is a former co-founder of PayPal, who had invested NZ$4 million in Xero and joined its advisory board in October 2010.

The Max Solutions acquisition, worth AU$4.6 million, will enable Xero to provide a full complement of online tools to accountants wanting to manage a ‘modern practice’ without using expensive in-house servers.

Max Solutions was founded in 2007 by Gavin George and Chris Spence, who are slated to join the Xero team and bring in all the other staff of Max Solutions. George spoke about the significant opportunities the acquisition would give both the WorkflowMax team and product set. “We always envisaged that WorkflowMax would be a truly global solution, and now with the funding, talent and energy that Xero brings we have a significant opportunity to achieve our goal,” he said.

The Xero Board also revealed the launch of the Shareholder Purchase Plan (SPP). The SPP will allow current New Zealand-based shareholders to acquire new Xero shares under the same terms as strategic investors. The company presently has 60,000 paying customers in over 100 countries, and has also built up strategic marketing partnerships with Telstra and ANZ.

With the newly raised funds and acquisition, Xero seems to be rapidly progressing as a leader in the online accounting market. Revenue in Australia increased to $1.4 million for the half-year up to 30 September, 2011, making it the group’s fastest growing region. Compared to the same period in 2010, this indicates a whopping 260 per cent increase. Consequently, Xero has big expectations for its global operating revenue for the year ending 31 March, 2012 to be twice its 2011 revenue of AU$7.2 million.

Image credit: Svilen Milev (SXC.hu), royalty free

Note by Delimiter: The GAME Group operates some 95 stores around Australia, employing some 600 staff. The retailer is a major competitor to retailers like EB Games and JB Hi-Fi.

This article titled “GAME Group to offload overseas shops as UK sales plunge” was written by Martin Farrer, for guardian.co.uk on Friday 3rd February 2012 08.02 UTC

The struggling video GAME retailer GAME Group has been given a lifeline by its banks after agreeing to sell its overseas stores.

GAME, which has issued a series of profit warnings in the past year as sales have plunged, said it had agreed to operate within lower lending limits after talks with its lenders and would now meet its banking covenants at the end of this month. It said on Friday that it would make an £18m loss for the year to 31 January.

The group, whose lenders are led by RBS, also agreed to provide an “updated strategic plan for review and approval, in part, by the lenders”. This will include a review of its overseas operations, which include hundreds of stores in France, Spain and Australia.

GAME has been hit hard by online competitors and has had to discount heavily to attract customers, in turn affecting margins. Last month it warned that a disastrous Christmas trading period, when sales fell 15%, meant it might breach its banking covenants. It operates 610 stores in the UK but has already announced plans to close 60 of them.

Online competition means that the company has failed to cash in on the huge popularity of GAMEs such as Call of Duty, the new edition of which racked up $1bn of global sales within just 16 days of being released in November.

However, GAME hopes that next month’s European launch of the PlayStation Vita will provide a sales boost for the whole GAMEs market, with that console to be followed by Nintendo’s new Wii U later this year.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010

Published via the Guardian News Feed plugin for WordPress.

Image credit: GAME Group

review There’s nothing like a little controversy to drive up demand for a new gadget. The Galaxy Tab 10.1 is the famous tablet Apple didn’t want us to get our hands on, and yet despite its best efforts in the courtroom, Samsung was successful at getting the injunction against Aussie sales lifted in time for Christmas. Was it worth all the legal wrangling? Read on to find out.

Design
After all the fuss, we were expecting the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 to look a lot more like the iPad. Perhaps if you’d never seen an iPad before, and assumed any tablet-looking device was an iPad, you’d make that mistake, notwithstanding the Samsung logos emblazoned on the front and back. But holding the white iPad 2 and white Galaxy Tab 10.1 side-by-side, you’d never mistake one for the other. The white iPad 2 has a white bezel around the screen, a metal back and 9.7” display in a 4:3 aspect ratio, while the Galaxy Tab 10.1 has a black bezel around the screen, a plastic white back with chrome frame, and a 10.1” display 16:10 aspect ratio.

With the obligatory iPad comparisons out of the way, the Galaxy Tab 10.1 is a handsome device in its own right – possibly the best-looking Android tablet we’ve come across so far. At 565g and a skinny 8.6mm thick, it’s both the lightest and thinnest tablet for its size. As with most tablets, the battery is sealed in to keep it slim as possible, but the Galaxy Tab 10.1 skips a few of the niceties that we’ve come to expect in an Android tablet, namely a micro-USB port (it uses the same proprietary jack found on earlier Samsung tablets for charging and syncing), a HDMI port, and a microSD card slot. You can, however, buy adapters that attach to the proprietary port for adding HDMI, USB and SD card reader functionality.

Features
There are no real surprises on the Galaxy Tab 10.1’s spec sheet. It has the stock-standard 1GHz Nvidia Tegra 2 dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM, a 10.1” 1280 x 800 display, front and back cameras, and both Wi-Fi and 3G versions. For some reason, Samsung has skipped the 32GB option in favour of 16GB and 64GB storage capacities, and this is something you’ll want to get right up-front, as there’s no microSD slot for adding extra storage. The Galaxy Tab 10.1 uses a PLS (plane to line switching) LCD rather than the IPS panel found on most other tablets, and while this is meant to have the same effect for ultra-wide viewing angles, we found the screen dimmed considerably when moving it from side to side.

Software is the main way that Samsung differentiates the Galaxy Tab 10.1 from the legion of other Android tablets. Alas, it doesn’t run the latest Ice Cream Sandwich version of Android (Samsung says an over-the-air ICS update will be available in the first quarter of this year), but the Android Honeycomb 3.1 build running on the Galaxy Tab 10.1 has been heavily customised with Samsung’s TouchWiz UI. It’s always a bit of hit or miss as to whether vendor skins are better or worse than the vanilla OS, but in this case, TouchWiz is a definite improvement over Honeycomb’s homely – and at times, confusing – UI.

Extras include lots of tablet-optimised widgets to choose from on the homescreen, a ‘Mini Apps Tray’ that you can for running supported applets (such as calendar, music player and calculator) on top of the app that’s currently open, an enhanced ‘Quick Panel’ notification area that includes shortcuts to system settings like Wi-Fi, GPS, screen brightness and auto-rotation, and custom fonts, apps and settings that put a much friendlier face on Honeycomb.

There’s also the usual Samsung software like Samsung Social Hub (an aggregator app for email, PIM, chat and social networking), Samsung Music Hub (a music subscription service), Kies Air (an app for wirelessly transferring files with a computer through a web browser), and the Samsung Apps store, and some Android apps exclusive to the Galaxy Tab 10.1 like MagShop (a digital newsstand app for ACP magazines) and ABC Reading Eggs (an educational children’s app). The Galaxy Tab 10.1 is also the only Android tablet we’ve come across so far with native support for DivX, XviD and WMV.

Performance
For day to day use, the Galaxy Tab 10.1 felt slightly snappier than other Android tablets we’ve reviewed. Things like launching apps, switching screen orientations, moving between homescreens and loading webpages felt just that little bit faster. Its Rightware Browsermark score of 88,970 is significantly faster than the average Android tablet score of 55,000, and not too far behind the Apple iPad’s score of 99,578.

Standard definition video playback was decent, if not occasionally choppy. The stock video player can’t play 720p MKV videos, but like most Android tablets, the Galaxy Tab 10.1 supports hardware acceleration for 720p and 1080p videos thanks to its Tegra 2 processor. Also like most Android tablets, 720p video (using the third party VPlayer) isn’t great, with audio sync problems and jerky playback. We didn’t even bother trying a 1080p video. Audio performance didn’t blow our hair back either – the Galaxy Tab 10.1 surround sound stereo speakers sound a lot better on paper than they do in practice, and while the volume is adequate for personal listening, you’ll struggle to hear it in noisy environments.

One thing we noticed when transferring files to the Galaxy Tab 10.1 is that the USB connection only supports MTP – there’s no option for mounting the tablet as a USB mass storage device. It still mounts as an external drive on a WIndows computer, but if you’re using a Mac, you’ll need to either install the Samsung Kies desktop software, or use Kies Air over a Wi-Fi connection to transfer files.

The Galaxy Tab 10.1’s battery life is much better than expected for such a skinny device. Playing a loop of standard definition videos (Wi-Fi on, 3G off, screen brightness set to ‘Auto’), it lasted for just under 12 hours. This beats the iPad 2’s record of 10 hours of continuous video playback.

Conclusion
Based on its own merits, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 is an impressive tablet. It’s sleek, good-looking, offers a great user experience out of the box and has the best battery life out of any tablet we’ve reviewed so far. But it’s not really the hardware we have an issue with – it’s the dearth of tablet-optimised apps for Honeycomb tablets. The app situation for Honeycomb has gotten a little better in the past few months, but it’s still drastically behind its main competitor, the Apple iPad 2 – an issue that’s all the more significant given both the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and iPad are priced identically. The Galaxy Tab 10.1 doesn’t even get the benefit of the extra features usually found on Android tablets like microSD expansion, HDMI output and USB OTG; some of these features are available for the Galaxy Tab 10.1 using optional adapters, but then again, you can say the same for the iPad 2.

If you’re ideologically opposed to any Apple-branded products, the Galaxy Tab 10.1 is definitely one of the better Android tablets available, but even then, your money may be better spent on one of the newer devices with quad-core processors and Ice Cream Sandwich out of the box. The Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 starts at $579 for the 16GB Wi-Fi model and $729 for the 16GB 3G model, and it’s available on plans from both Optus and Vodafone.

Jenneth Orantia turned her back on a lucrative career in law to pursue her unhealthy obsession with consumer technology. She’s known for having at least half a dozen of the latest gadgets on her person at a time, and once won a bottle of Dom Perignon for typing 78WPM on a Pocket PC with a stylus.

Image credit: Samsung

analysis In several radio interviews this week, Shadow Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull stated that the National Broadband Network project would cause consumer broadband prices to rise higher than those currently on the market. However, unfortunately this statement was factually incorrect.

To illustrate why, firstly, let’s go through what Turnbull said. According to transcripts available on Turnbull’s website, Turnbull said the following on 2GB in an interview with Ben Fordham on Wednesday:

” … Australians are waking up to how much this is going to cost them – not just as taxpayers but also it’s going to be more expensive as a consumer. You see this is the penny that hasn’t quite dropped. I think most people recognise that this is a very, very expensive project. But what they haven’t quite – the penny hasn’t quite fully dropped that this is going to be expensive in terms of the usage charges.”

“Now what’s going to happen here is because there is no competition, because this is a government monopoly and because they are spending so much money so they’re overcapitalising it, inevitably prices are going to be high.”

In a separate interview on the same day with 2UE’s Paul Murray, Turnbull said the following: “What we do know is that it’s going to cost a bomb, and it’s not going to make broadband access any cheaper. It’s going to make it more expensive.”

The Coalition has publicly stated its opinion that broadband prices will be higher under the NBN than the current ADSL-dominated broadband market repeatedly over the past six months. In September, Liberal MP Paul Fletcher stated that new NBN pricing released by iiNet at the time was higher than existing ADSL prices. And several months earlier, Turnbull stated that early pricing released by Internode for services on the NBN demonstrated the project would drive consumer broadband prices higher.

However, unfortunately the Coalition’s statements on this matter have been factually incorrect.

Almost all of Australia’s major ISPs released their first tranche of NBN pricing over the closing months of 2011, and in almost all cases, the prices are directly comparable to current pricing available over Telstra’s copper network (ADSL) or the HFC cable networks operated by Telstra and Optus.

To illustrate this fact, let’s examine the NBN prices of Optus, and compare them with the telco’s existing ADSL broadband prices. In naked DSL, Optus currently offers three plans, at $59.99, $69.99 and $79.99 monthly price points, and with 120GB, 150GB and 500GB of data quota included. And in naked NBN, Optus offers exactly the same price points and download quotas.

In bundled DSL, Optus currently offers five plans, at $79, $99, $109, $129 and $149 price points, and with 120GB, 500GB and terabyte download quotas, with varying amounts of call charges included — usually unlimited ‘standard’ local and national telephone calls within Australia, to both landlines and mobile phones. And in bundled NBN, Optus offers many of the same price points and quotas — except sometimes they’re cheaper. The company’s $79 plan with 120 GB of data has morphed into a $64.94 plan (with, admittedly slightly lesser calling value). The $109 bundled plan with 500GB of data and unlimited calls has been copied straight across, and so has the $129 plan with a terabyte of data and unlimited calls.

It should be clear that virtually every single aspect of Optus’ NBN pricing plans represents better value than the telco’s current ADSL plans — and for exactly the same price. Optus doesn’t currently actively promote its HFC cable offering, so it’s tough to get an idea of what its prices are there. But if you compare its ADSL broadband plans to its NBN broadband plans, it seems clear that the plans are virtually identical.

It’s a similar case with Australia’s second-largest provider of ADSL broadband services, iiNet.

If you sign up for a naked DSL broadband plan through iiNet on its own network, (which comes with a bundled Internet telephony phone line), you’ll get a total of 100GB of quota (50GB on- and 50GB off-peak) for $69.95 per month. A similar plan with a bundled traditional telephone line and 100GB of on- and off-peak quota will cost you a total of $79.90 per month. If you’re not using iiNet’s DSLAM infrastructure in exchanges, you’ll pay a bit more — or the same, but with less download quota.

iiNet has two NBN plans which are comparable to this. The first comes with speeds of 12Mbps and 100GB of on- and off-peak quota, for $69.90 a month with an included Internet telephony line. Then iiNet has a 25Mbps plan with the same quota and telephone line for $74.90 a month. In short, like Optus, iiNet’s NBN plans are almost exactly the same as its ADSL plans. However, the NBN fibre technology is more reliable, has better guaranteed speeds and lower latency (responsiveness) than the current copper network.

Still not convinced? Let’s look at a another major provider, Internode, which was recently bought by iiNet, but whose prices so far remain independent. Internode currently offers a 300GB ADSL plan with a bundled telephone line for $99.90 a month. The top speeds possible on this plan are limited to 24Mbps, due to the limitations of the copper network, and most people will be getting less than 16Mbps. But for $94.95 a month, on Internode’s NBN plans, you can get a 100Mbps connection with the same 300GB monthly download quota, plus a bundled internet telephony line. Yup. A broadband plan four times faster, using more reliable technology, for $5 a month cheaper. That’s the NBN.

Now there are some anomalies in NBN pricing so far which may give the Coalition some basis for its pricing claims. For example, cut-rate ISP Exetel has priced its NBN plans significantly higher than its ADSL plans. In another example, when you get to really high-end plans — 100Mbps plans with a terabyte of download quota — pricing can shoot up in some cases.

However, these cases are not the rule.

Further analysis reveals that Exetel is still offering low-end NBN plans starting at $34.50, and its prices don’t start to get expensive compared with its ADSL pricing until you start to get to the point where you’re downloading more than 100GB of data per month. Exetel has acknowledged it’s not targeting big-downloading customers, so we’re not really surprised by its lack of competitiveness at the top end.

There is also the fact that Exetel has a miniscule share of Australia’s broadband market compared with Optus and iiNet, which are the second and third-largest providers of broadband in Australia. The prices offered by Optus, iiNet (and its subsidiary Internode) are, by definition, mainstream price points which the majority of Australians will be buying services at. And those prices are even more mundane and normal when you look at the mid-range plans (between $50 and $70 a month) bought by most Australians.

Two other major Australian broadband providers, Telstra and TPG, are yet to release NBN pricing. If both exhibit radically different pricing structures from Optus and iiNet, I will be more than happy to revisit this topic at that future date. However, I would not expect Telstra’s NBN pricing to be radically different from its current broadband pricing, which is already at the pricey end of the market. TPG’s pricing has historically been at the discount end of the market, and I would expect this trend to continue.

Lastly there is one other important fact which needs to be taken into account.

NBN Co has lodged a document with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission called a ‘Special Access Undertaking’. This document, among many other commitments, states that NBN Co will maintain prices for its key wholesale prices at the current levels for five years. In addition, the company will limit future increases to be less than the rate of inflation for 30 years. In short, in real terms, NBN Co’s wholesale prices will remain fairly stable for the next 30 years.

Taking this binding commitment into account alongside the fact that current mainstream NBN prices are directly comparable, often for a better service or even slightly cheaper, than current ADSL pricing, it is factually incorrect for the Coalition to state that consumer NBN prices will be higher than current broadband prices. And if prices were to increase, given the fact that NBN Co’s prices will remain the same, that price increase is not the NBN’s fault. That blame could be laid at the door of the retail ISPs.

With all this in mind, I would hope that the Coalition would refrain from making this claim in public in future. Or, if it does make this claim, I would hope that it would provide some evidence to make its case. This debate is not a matter of opinion. This debate is about objective fact.

Image credit: Enrico Corno, royalty free

This article is by Marita Shelly, a PhD candidate at RMIT University’s Graduate School of Business and Law. It was first published on The Conversation and is re-published here with permission.

analysis Yesterday’s Federal Court ruling that Optus customers are able to view sporting matches minutes after they are streamed live without breaching copyright is a landmark decision that alters our understanding of copyright law, and has significant implications for the AFL’s broadcasting rights deal.

The ruling, by Justice Steven Rares in the Optus v Telstra, AFL and NRL copyright case, finds that computers (including tablets such as the iPad) and mobile devices such as iPhones and smartphones are now the modern equivalent of the video cassette recorder.

Individuals are now able to record free-to-air broadcasts onto their computer or mobile device and watch the broadcast moments after the original broadcast – which in many cases will be live – without breaching copyright.

Justice Rares found that Optus customers, rather than Optus, had made the recordings of the live or pre-recorded free to air AFL and NRL games using the TV Now service. Optus customers were then able to watch the game at a time convenient to them, potentially a few minutes after the original broadcast.

Under the Australian Copyright Act, individuals are able to make:

“a cinematograph film or sound recording of a broadcast solely for the private or domestic use by watching or listening to the material broadcast at a time more convenient than the time when the broadcast is made.”

What the Optus customers did using the TV Now service is known as “time shifting”. The Act does not state a time period such as a day or hour that must be observed before time shifting can occur. So the fact that in this case, the time shifting occurred within a few minutes of the original broadcast is not a factor under copyright law. Given that the Federal Court has found that there has been no copyright breach by Optus customers in their use of the TV Now service to record and view live or pre-recorded free to air AFL and NRL games, this activity can continue.

The Court’s finding (if it is upheld by the Full Court of the Federal Court) could de-value broadcast and media rights for sporting events. For sporting organisations that heavily rely on media and television for income this could place them at financial risk.

For the AFL, the value of its five-year $1.25 billion broadcasting media deal with the Seven Network, Foxtel and Telstra could be reduced – particularly if Telstra attempts and succeeds in voiding the agreement for exclusive rights to the internet and mobile services of AFL games, worth over $150m. It has further implications for future deals.

The big losers will be the football clubs and the players. Potentially, the AFL will attempt to re-negotiate with the AFL Players Association in regards to the collective bargaining agreement. Clubs could also be placed in financial risk if their funding was to be reduced. The decision for Telstra means it has potentially over-valued the rights for exclusive uses of the internet and mobile services of the AFL, given that based on this ruling, the mobile services to AFL games are not the exclusive rights of Telstra and their customers.

Obviously, Optus is the big winner with potential increases in customers to their News TV service and revenue from data charges as a result of the recordings of the broadcast videos. But this is not likely to be the end of the issue. Expect the AFL, NRL and Telstra to lobby the Australian Government for changes to the Copyright Act, which is currently being reviewed. This review, announced last October will examine “whether the exceptions [such as time and format shifting] in the Copyright Act are adequate and appropriate in the digital environment”.

A leave to appeal to the Full Court of the Federal Court has been granted. The AFL, NRL and Telstra have all indicated that they will be appealing. So stay tuned.

news In a new blog entry entitled “What can we learn from the UK?”, Liberal MP Paul Fletcher has lambasted the broadband policies of the Gillard Government, unfavourable contrasting them with the approach of the Cameron Government in the UK.

Fletcher starts off in the piece by pointing out the high amounts that Australia is spending to promote deployment of superfast broadband compared to UK and moves on to claim that the Cameron Government’s approach is much more pragmatic, flexible, private-sector oriented and competition-centred. Disapproving of government intervention, except where there is market failure, he is also highly critical of the one-size-fits-all approach of the Labor Government and is all for more tailored approaches with a mix of technologies.

The Cameron Government announced in December 2010 that it will spend £530 million (or A$1.23 billion) to promote the deployment of ‘superfast’ broadband (defined as more than 24 Mbps) in the UK. This amounts to around $20 per citizen of UK, whereas in Australia the cost comes around to $1600 per person, according to Fletcher.

Fletcher points out that the UK approach is to do it in stages, with the first commitment being to provide virtually all homes access to a minimum level of service of 2 Mbps by 2015. After the initial commitment is met, the government plans to promote ‘superfast’ broadband. In contrast, many Australian homes will have to wait well beyond 2015 for the National Broadcast Network (NBN) to reach their doors. Also, the Gillard Government by reaching for a highly ambitious goal of 100 Mbps is being foolhardy without a clear idea of what applications need that kind of speed.

In UK, delivering broadband is primarily a private sector matter. Government intervention is necessary only where there is market failure—in commercially less attractive areas like some rural and inner city areas. British Telecom (using a mix of ADSL, fibre to the node and fibre to the home) has committed that approximately two thirds of UK homes will receive fibre to the node (offering up to 40 Mbps) or fibre to the home (offering up to 100 Mbps) by 2015.

In Australia too, significant parts of the market will require public sector funding, but the Federal Government has taken an approach of pushing aside private sector everywhere — by funding a ubiquitous publicly owned fibre network. The Government is also paying Telstra and Optus to withdraw their extensive existing cable networks from service in spite of the fact that they can be upgraded to deliver 100Mbps.

Another point Fletcher makes is that UK policy, while recognising fibre’s pre-eminence, explicitly rejects picking technologies; it notes that other technologies including wireless and satellite should be part of the mix. In Australia, the Government is also using different technologies — fibre for the majority of the population, coupled with satellite and wireless in rural and regional areas.

Public funding in the UK, where provided, is being put in the hands of the communities and local authorities to use on infrastructure that suits them. A key design approach is to deliver ‘a central digital point’ in communities; in turn the local community will be responsible for extending the network to individual homes. A mixed technology approach will be taken, and local authorities will have a key role. This, Fletcher says, is a more flexible approach and more responsive to local needs instead of Labor’s one-size-fits-all centrally controlled strategy.

Fletcher also brings our notice to a report by UK communications regulator, Ofcom, which estimates that even though 57 percent of the homes were able to receive superfast services, less than four percent of them actually subscribed to it. This is significant as it suggests that consumer demand for superfast broadband is limited.

Image credit: Office of Malcolm Turnbull

news Some of the youngest of Western Australia’s nearly 262,000 students enrolled in 770 public schools will now use the latest in Apple tablet technology to learn about alphabets and numbers.

Premier Colin Barnett and Education Minister Elizabeth Constable made an announcement this week, stating that Year 1 and 2 students in 17 schools would participate in the Early Childhood iPad Initiative to develop their numeracy and literacy skills. They will be guided by two mentor schools that have already experienced this new form of education during a pilot project. Nine hundred iPads would be made available to the schools.

Barnett said Western Australia’s performance in the recently held National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) tests had earned the state additional funding for educational programs. The $1 million program is aimed at making learning more interesting by bringing mathematics and reading to life and helping children engage in their education more fully.

“Our new on-entry assessments of pre-primary students give teachers vital information about the skills our youngest students possess as they enter school, and we are delivering the tools teachers need to best connect with young students” said Barnett.

According to Constable, teachers piloting the program last year had found students responded very well to using iPad apps to develop their reading and maths skills “Students are very confident with the technology generally, and are excited to use iPads. This can only be good for their education” she said. Teachers across the state are already using electronic whiteboards in the classroom. “This technology is reinvigorating learning and iPads will similarly have an impact in the classroom” Constable said.

Schools and universities in Western Australia have been independently testing iPads and tablet devices in various educational programs for over a year. In September 2010, the chief information officer of the Department of Education and Training, Bevan Doyle had said, “The department does not have a policy on the use of iPads or Android-based technology at this stage; however some schools have bought tablet devices to trial in various settings.” He also stated that if educational institutions showed an interest in a ‘central buying arrangement for iPads’, official movements such as seeking optimal pricing would be made.

The WA department ensures that public schools receive technology funding to maintain a student-to-computer ratio of 1:5 for secondary schools and 1:10 for primary schools. “Schools are able to use the remaining funds for other technologies including iPads, and of course schools can supplement the funding from other sources” said Doyle.