Posts by John Angelico

Re: Wrong?

However, it scores over the older and more pedestrian Encyclopedia Galactica (hello, Hari Seldon and Isaac Asimov's Foundation series) on two points:

a) it is slightly cheaper

and

b) it tells you how to make the best drink in the known galaxy - the Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster

Re: *cough*

[Hildebrand] ... and that's the long and the short of it!

Re: No cabinet, no problem

And in a FTTP scenario, would there still be a distribution cabinet somewhere in the vicinity of the premises being served?

Re: Perhaps this explains

Surely he can only have two: AC & DC.

Re: Hmmmmm SLOW internets......

So, are you saying that the infamous NBN will allow us to download that 90% advertising content (which we don't want) much faster - at a satisfyingly fast rate of 100Mbit/sec, only to dispense with it once it arrives?

It certainly won't improve international downloads, unless they are already being fed to Australia at least as fast as the theoretical 100Mbit/sec the NBN is putatively going to provide.

So don't get your hopes up, Charlie.

What good is his experience?

He can't seem to get the organisation to achieve its own targets.

Either the targets are too ambitious (poor planning) or the implementation is behind (inadequate resources = poor planning).

OR it was never going to fly in the first place.

Re: Of course we should go with FTTP

<Snort!> of course!

1. All this massive speed is potentially good ONLY WITHIN Australia.

I suppose it could be useful if you wanted to have a realtime feed of the Weather Bureau's re-computation of the current cloud pattern, direct from its supercomputer...

2. You can't suck any more bits out of the pipe than can be pushed in at the source.

If there is ANY intermediate choke point, then 100Mbits/sec doesn't mean a damn thing, and a Gbit/sec won't mean any more. And if the overseas links don't give us Mbit or Gbit rates, then what have we gained - snazzier weather maps?

And of course the national freeway/tollway network should arrive on your doorstep in all of its eight-lane glory, right? You would want the equivalent of the Basingstoke Roundabout at the end of your street?

Re: malcolm turnbull is an idiot.

This is not the model you were looking for....

The Telstra model the OP referred to was pre-competition.

The NBN is the re-monopolised telecomms network beloved of Mr Rudd and Mr Conroy and their union heavies.

Now I agree that the corporatisation of Telstra was a mess - the exchanges, backbone and CAN should never have left public ownership - that's infrastructure, like the roads, railways, gas pipes, water pipes and power lines. It is only logical to have one set of cables running down the streets, one set of exchanges and one set of mobile towers.

But the NBN as developed by the ALP was an even bigger mess, for a huge pile of money. Firstly, it was an idea soley dreamed up by Rudd andConroy to come up with a number to trump the then-government policy costed at 4.7Bn. They came up with 42Bn, and cast about for some grand "nation-building idea" to put behind it, with a public infrastructure component of 27Bn (IIRC).

The construction phase is way behind, pricing is terrible, take up has been woeful, and the financial success is in serious doubt because of the government policy to roll out more remote (sparsely populated areas) first. So those government guarantees backing the loans might eventually be called in and who would foot the bill, but us taxpayers (to be precise Thomson, our grandchildren. Indeed Thompson, our grandchildren!)?

The much vaunted speeds of FTTP would only apply if the end-to-end connections were wholly within Aust. and not always then. A 100Mbit connection at my end is not going to get me 100Mb/s download if the far end server only has a choked 12Mb/s pipe, or if some intermediate pathway is clogged, or throttled to 1Mb/s. And the same applies pari passu to the international connections.

I live about half a km from an eight-lane freeway but I do not have eight lanes at my front driveway. I have access to that freeway via two lanes in my street, and four lanes on the arterials connecting to the freeway ramps. BUT even if I did have eight lanes, I would not get a B-double with three TEUs over from Europe any faster than a ship could sail the oceans. And it wouldn't matter that the ship had the biggest marine diesel engine in the world, with 48 cylinders. Just get over the technology, for pete's sake!

PS: to whoever said Sean Howard started Oz-email, don't forget who helped to finance it with a half mill in shares in 1994 (before it went public), and who was sometime chairman.

Re: Let's be clear about this

mikeinnc, you said:

"The NBN - itself an unfortunate choice of name, since it really is a National Communications Network - is designed to replace the dying copper network."

Unfortunately, you as a highly competent tech-focused person have missed the political reality here.

The NBN is ultimately intended to replace the private networks (plural) with a re-monopolised government communications network. If you recall, not long ago - within the last about 12 months, NBN paid huge sums to Telstra, Optus, and the other network owners for the purchase of their assets, on the condition that they no longer compete with NBN. This condition is called by the legal eagles a "restraint of trade".

The seeds of this disaster lay in the flawed implementation of the Davidson(sp?) Report into separation of postal and telecoms services back in the 80s. Australia Post was established to handle the post, sharing but not owning the natural monopoly of the land/sea/air transport infrastructure.

Telecom was established to handle the electons, and the natural monoploy of the Customer Access Network and the exchange infrastructure was left in its hands.

Thus it operated as a monopoly provider to its own retail business as well as to competitors - a recipe for the disaster which has followed, despite the heroic but futile efforts of competitors to get around the monopoly by running their own netwoks.

There should have been a separate infrastructure entity (government owned) which operated ONLY the cables and exchanges, mobile towers, backbone etc., charging a transparently equal fee for access by service providers.

Now the whole exercise is being shown up for the dog's breakfast it has always been.

Better cite the episode...

...or some troll will reject it for lack of peer review.

Re: Dr. Dr. Help Me. My Brane Hurts.

"back stab"

Hmm, is that like "stabbing you in the back" but condensed to squeeze out all the correct grammar?

Re: Funny how these things go full circle

Hmm, don't know what happened to my marking you Plus...

I agree entirely.

I have a basic but excellent quality Omega, bought for me 40+ years ago by my Dad (duty free on a trip). Manual winding, manual date adjustment for short months. Clear view, keeps excellent time. I get it serviced maybe every couple of years.

Functional, basic practical - gee maybe this business of watches being an extension of your personality has something to it!

Re: Why would you want to view a pdf in the browser anyway?

Your example is best done in a calendar now, so hopefully your local authority/council/whatever-it's-called will ditch PDF for a public calendar display (gee maybe even Google Calendar?) so you don't have to go through all that swearing at Adobe, your council, and their web "design" staff.

Instead you just include their calendar into your own setup, just like including the public holidays (you DO include those important dates in your calendar app, don't you?).

Re: Pot and Kettle?

You said:

"For that reason I hope that if the accusations are true, Google are forced to play fair."

Only as long as the case is not allowed to drag on longer than MS dragged out their defence. After all, fair's fair, right?

Re: Centre of local council area

Interesting. That means that the centre of the Rural City of Mildura is 70Km from the real Mildura, isolated, without water and dangerous for non-4WD driving, and out of mobile phone range - even emergency services.

Now THAT'S better than Woop-Woop for the middle of nowhere!

Re: Scale it up

Yes, I remember it - with an impossibly young chief scientist in charge of the project, and other laughable implausibilities...

Re: You *have* to have a ribbon.

Well, it's a dead cert it won't be the budget!

Re: Bills rise

Well, let's put it this way.

If there is a certain cost per annum to operate the gold-plated network, then a contribution from the NBN will reduce the proportion borne by electricity users.

If they can't agree with the State Govt on the amount, that is, NBN wants to pay less by 400M pa, then this shortfall has to be loaded onto electricity bills.

That means that those bills go up.

Understand now?

N/T