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Domain: transact.com.au
Stories and comments across the archive that link to transact.com.au.
Comments · 21
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Video on demand in Canberra
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Re:FTTH
I'm sad to say that I can't think of what I'd use fibre to the home for over and above what I've already got. My whole city's got fibre to the curb, cat 5 to the stb and computer - 2mb/s for home users (plus additional bandwidth set aside for the cable TV and re-broadcast free to air TV channels they provide and video on demand), or up to 10mb/s for business. Now only wish that the provider would build some functionality like SBC's into the set top box.
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Re:FTTH
I'm sad to say that I can't think of what I'd use fibre to the home for over and above what I've already got. My whole city's got fibre to the curb, cat 5 to the stb and computer - 2mb/s for home users (plus additional bandwidth set aside for the cable TV and re-broadcast free to air TV channels they provide and video on demand), or up to 10mb/s for business. Now only wish that the provider would build some functionality like SBC's into the set top box.
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Re:The thing about corporations...
Corporations don't care about the consumer. They never have, and they likely never will. Corporations care about the consumer's money. As long as they can provide the bare minimum required to keep the money flowing into their coffers, that's all they'll do.
This is the one thing I can never really understand about America, and the reason I submitted the story.
Why on earth don't you guys change the laws? Corporations and their incessant drive for money can be a positive force, if they're funneled in the right direction. It's the reason you have the anti-monopoly laws and so on. But somewhere in the past twenty years, it's all been forgotten, as if to say that corporations making money in and of itself is the goal.
Because it's not the only - it should be about maximising social benefit - not just bottom line dollars, but also communities, people, and the environment. I don't want to come across as a left-leaning hippie, but what on earth is the point of these corporations if everyone suffers at the hands of them?
This story is the perfect example. Why should a corporation dictate to a community that it can't be competed with? Where is the benefit in that? And that this "loophole" in capitalism has been identified, where is all the righteous indignation at allowing a corporation to exploit the law to maintain an obvious monopoly over these poor people who just want broadband?
I'm living in a city where we're benefitting from a public utility's decision to roll out cable to us. Most all the other cable companies had passed us by, but what if the satellite providers and ADSL providers had decided to try to legally stall the roll out? The outcry here would be enormous! We have a governmental agency designed to promote competition, and they would have come down on any similar attempts like a tonne of bricks.
I guess all this boils down to a single question - why do you guys let these corporations get away with blue murder without doing anything?
-- james -
Re:No they don't
Think Fibre-To-The-Curb.
Have a look at TransACT who have cabled up the Australian captial, Canberra with FTTC. Customers get phone, internet (VDSL, with the customer allowed to choose provider) and digital TV.
It's possibly depending what cable you have in the ground/on the poles.
Now, I wish I had FTTC or FTTH where I live instead of some shitty 2-wire Tel$tra Copper or Hybrid Fibre Coax by a provider that charges too much. -
Re:Australia rules
Is it just me, or does Australia simply rule? It seems that they make a sensible thing after a sensible thing, seem to be enthusiastic on the Linux front, and generally kick ass? Will Australia be a leading ICT power after a while? US is, well, US and EU seems to be very slow in it's movement.
And as far as spammers go, I wouldn't blink an eye if they were thrown into a pound-me-in-the-ass prison in Siberia. They abuse the "freedom of speech" to make soem easy profit while harrassing general populace, while the freedom of speech that matters is generally not a problem unless you search for such information.
Watch out son, you just laid out a very big troll bait. You might not be able to handle what you're about to hook!
I'm an Aussie, and despite the oncoming wave of complaints about the Government and Telstra, it is a great place to live, and pretty-well IT minded. No, we're not South Korea, but broadband take up has just started accelerating at quite a pace, we've got an excellent mobile and landline network and all the capitals have cable in one form or another.
Every day I am reminded about how fortunate we are that our government by and large is not in the pockets of big corporations. This article on Wired really opened my eyes yesterday. The very thought of a Bank over here selling your details is unfathomable; good legislation is partly responsible, but I don't imagine many people would do it even if that wasn't in place. That a state is having to fight for this level of privacy (and having difficulty doing it) just floors me.
And the "do not call" register that the US has had to set up. My god, is it really that bad over there?
-- james -
Re:Serious Question
Here in Canberra Australia our local utilities company spun off a networking company called TransACT which has now run high speed networking past 50% of the homes in Canberra. Canberra's population is around 313,000 people and the city spans an area of around 40x40Km.
I can't believe that many cities in the world could be more spread out than Canberra is. We have lots of "green space" between suburbs and very little medium or high density housing.
TransACT fiber to the section copper to the house network has a bandwidth of around 53MB/s of which up to 1MB is currently available for internet in a standard household instalation. It also carries local and international free to air TV stations, Pay TV, and Video on demand.
You are kidding yourselves if you believe that an american company couldn't roll out a similar network.
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Re:Telstra is Crap
Make that about 99% --> www.transact.com.au
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TransACTHere in Canberra, (the capital city, which no is not Sydney
You do have to pay to ISPs fees on top unfortanetly but it's a great system. Plus you can get PayTV and free local calls down the same line. Using VideoLAN and the new i3 Set Top Box the're supplying you can even watch the TV on your computer, without a capture card. Yay!
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Re:The Luxembourgish situation
I'm fascinated by the situation in Luxembourg, because of the similarities between it and the ACT (Australian Capital Territory), where I live. For USAians, the ACT is the equivalent of the District of Columbia - a territory just big enough to contain a city. Canberra's only got 300,000 people, so the ACT's only 4000 sq km or so ( vs 2800 sq km for Luxembourg).
Anyway, 12 months ago there were basically no good broadband options. Now we have 3 - I've got a package involving free local (ie anywhere on the network) phonecalls, a dozen or so cable channels, a 256 kbps 800 MB/month line, and an ISP with the usual website, e-mail etc for less than $50 US/month total. And despite a letter saying "we're going to actually slow you down to 256kbps real soon", I'm still getting 400 kbps+ according to various speed measurers.
It beats the heck out of my 56k modem. And it SURE beats the heck out of downloading stuff from Australia to a German server over a 300 Bd modem back in the late 80's. The international lines couldn't take 1200 back then, and 300 was iffy for large (multi kilobyte) data transfers. Geen Gouden Eeuw!
Ma, dann nach ee scheinen daag! Vlaams? I speak and write both Plattdeutsch and Nederlands so badly that I can even understand that. Interesting spelling (Ma instead of Maar for example). Maybe I'd even fit in with the Luxembourgeoisie. A Bientot, Tot Zeens, etc.
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You think THAT's bad????
I live in canberra which has the fortune of being slowly connected to the Transact network which is FAT fibreoptics. It all sounds great until you look at the prices ISP's are charging their customers
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Fibre to the home...
Transact, who are rolling out the fibre network )(this very second!!) in Canberra, Australia, would probably benifit from this..
... it's just a pity that users of the fibre network pay once just to connect to the network, and again to use anyservers (you need an ISP to do anything on the net for example). -
Its in use already in the field
www.tranact.com.au
The electricity utility is rolling out the fibre, since they already own the power poles. A copper pair is run from the pole to the house. -
Re:When this comes out...
www.transact.com.au - its been rolling out for a year or more now
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There are options... in CanberraMy mobile phone is with the "incumbent" telco; they're the only people who cover significant parts of the outback.
Having said that, I currently buy no other services from them. The reason? TransACT.
4 twisted pairs (cat-5) into the house. Total theoretical capacity in my house right now: 208 Mbit. Cost to run another similar line? Possibly a few hundred dollars. VOD, pizza-over-the-net, telephony on the same wires.... it's all here.
Now all I need is a television.
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TransACT
In Canberra, Australia's capital city, TransACT is rolling out fibre optic cable to all residential properties (not sure about apartments). The prices are about $29USD for 1Mbps/128kbps or $37 for 2Mbps/256kbps.
The bad news is it is going to take a couple of years to roll it out throughout the city. And not all Australian cities are as lucky. But at least it is better than nothing. -
For once Australia Actually leads the way (kinda)
The tiny little Capitol of Australia, Canberra, has for the past few years investing in a project called TransACT which promises to link the entire city with a state of the art fiber / copper network (basically fiber to the curb) with an atm (like) network actually running down the cables. The company is not selling content themselves leaving it up to others to acutally provide services like pay TV (which *still* hasn't really taken of in OZ) or all the other fun services you can send over a nice fast network (internet, movies on demand, pizza ordering - what more do you need
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Re:Public Utility?Our local ADCo is partially owned by the utility company which is, in turn, partially owned by the territory government.
This is a good model for a network, with fibre to the curb and VDSL to the residence. Technology and some degree of public ownership does not seem to be enough to succeed though. The main shareholders were recently asked to kick in further capital to keep the firm afloat.
The main problem appears to be content. Being an "open" network, where all providers are welcome, as opposed to the competitors HFC "closed" networks, providers (other than the BBC) appear to be reluctant to put their IP on the line.
It seems that content providers are afraid of having to compete against each other. They much prefer the tried-and-true closed model with their captive audiences. If you buy the Telstra/Optus cable you must watch their cable allies.....
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This is (sort of) being tried as we speakTransACT is a semi-commercial attempt to completely wire Canberra for telephony, video and Internet.
They're worth watching to see what the pitfalls are likely to be.
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Re:possible new cable in Canberra...TransACT communications, an ACTEW spinoff company, is laying the network infrastructure for fibre to the curb, which will carry traffic such as phone, internet and cable tv.
Unfortunately, they don't plan to roll out to newer suburbs like mine at this stage, due to the underground powerlines..
Might also point out that TransACT themselves do not provide internet service, and those that do provide it to TransACT customers (a whole 1 suburb at this stage, I think), provide it at a premium. There are links to ISP pricing on the TransACT site.
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Australian DSL or lack thereof.Ah, DSL. I believe there are three major phone companies prepared to provide fast internet connections at high prices, if you're sufficiently close to a suitable telephone exchange. Not so great, huh? As with PayTV, there's a certain amount of infrastructure duplication going on, which makes it all rather unprofitable.
Canberra is the testbed for a different approach. (Canberra is the capital city of Australia, for those foreigners who have only heard of Sydney. It houses only 300,000 people.) In Canberra, there is a company called TransACT which is rolling out optical fibre. They will then sell the fat data pipe to any supplier and any user who wants to be connected; eliminating the infrastructure duplication.
It's early days yet, (the first network activation is rumoured to be happening today) but they've signed on several TV providers and five ISPs, and the lists are expected to grow rapidly as they connect more of Canberra. Local government departments are expected to take the service up immediately. (The company was spun-off from the local Electricity and Water supplier!) There are many eager residential customers.
Rachel