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Good to hear that some banks continue to provide "financial services" like they are supposed to.

I've looked around and there is a lot of variation in Coinstar (and similar) fees.

USA fees are nominally 11.9% - "An 11.9% service fee applies. Fees may vary by location."

UK fees are 9.9% - "We charge a 9.9% coin processing fee for cash transactions (but, fees may vary by location). There is a 7% charge for charity donations.".

Can't find anything similar in Australia, but some banks seem to accept coins for a fee.

Not its own Slashdot, no. This is the closest.

However as I said in the post above, I *did* update it manually - and then LTE stopped working because it was no longer compatible with Telstra's network. Which has been a common and long standing problem with the Nexus 6P and Telstra and it's been going on for over a year. Don't believe me? Ask Whirlpool: http://forums.whirlpool.net.au... or Telstra themselves: https://crowdsupport.telstra.c...

The Nexus 6P has been a disaster in Australia and, despite the fact I loved the phone, it's pushed me off Android... for the time being.

Java autoupdate aka jucheck.exe.

http://forums.whirlpool.net.au...
Here is one example for more just google "java uac"

Without disabling uac or uninstalling java the only way I am aware of to fix it is to disable java's automatic updates which sounds like bad security practice but afaik no other fixes are available.

Inexperienced drivers don't know how much speeding is safe and that is why limits are set.

This is precisely why people crash. They are brainwashed to think as long as they are doing the speed limit they're ok. Maybe instead of teaching people to behave like robots we could teach them some real skills?

If you fear the police there's a very simple solution, follow the speed limit.

I don't fear the police. They are merely tax collectors. I drive as fast as I like, and ever once in while I pay a fee for the privilege. But this has nothing to do with road safety.

Cops don't care to stop you for a $50 ticket. They rather wait and get the next big fish. I've never been stopped for going 15km/h over the speed limit and I've driven over a million KMs in my life. Obviously I use common sense when going through construction and school areas.

You know the Internet is bigger than just your town/state/country right? Every law enforcement agency is different with different standards and tolerances. where I live you can get a ticket for 1km/h over the limit

That's the issue isn't it? Not everybody can evaluate this by themselves, instead they need to be told what speed they should go.

The math is pretty simple. More speed = more danger. You cannot argue that

If more speed = more danger then shouldn't we reduce the speed limit further? And once we've reduced them,we apply the same "math" we should then reduce them again? Then keep repeating until the speed limit is zero?
I'm guessing "math" (or logic which is what you meant) isn't your strong suit.

and that is why speed limits are set based on ministry of transportation predefined parameters.

and what are those parameters? Can you cite them? It may be different in your area, but I've had some experience in this field and can assure it's not as scientific as you think.

This is the comment they're referring too apparently. http://forums.whirlpool.net.au... Could have all been dealt with, had they participated in the forum to correct any misunderstanding. Too late for that now.

Australia was an example, and apparently it still is.

The latency isn't a by product of DSL technologies. It is caused by Interleaving.
If you are happy with a slightly slower connection, you can get lower latency but it must go slower to prevent errors.
Its usually a setting on your router, with Interleaving always enabled by default.

http://whirlpool.net.au/wiki/a...

If you haven't seen it already, may I introduce you to Whirlpool Forums? It's an excellent resource and I'm sure they'll have some good info on this topic.

Many years ago in Australia, a well respected ISP Internode introduced flatrate plans, which prioritised traffic based on usage in the last 30 days. This Whirlpool interview with Simon Hackett about the new flatrate plans. The plans failed as explained in this End of flatrate announcement. The key point from Simon's post is that flatrate wasn't able to attract sufficient low and medium users to balance the leechers. There is a thread to discuss Are Flatrate plans viable under NBN?.

The difference between the Australian & USA market is that we've pretty much always had quotas. Customers choose the quota they want (30GB through to 1TB). Quotas are implemented as full speed until you reach your quota and the speed is capped to 256Kbps or 128Kbps for the rest of the month. Some RSPs allow you to buy additional data blocks. Some ISPs also offer extra downloads during off peak times (midnight to 8am) which are good for scheduling downloads.

The fact is that ISPs run networks with contention and in cheaper ISPs that leads to congestion in peak hours. There is not dedicated bandwidth between your PC and the server you want to connect with. Quotas are a reasonable way for ISPs to manage network traffic and make it cheaper to offer faster speeds. Bandwidth is a shared resource, which some people over exploit impacting on others. This is referred to as the Tragedy of the commons.

Would you prefer 8Mbps with no quota or 100Mbps with a 1TB quota?

Many years ago in Australia, a well respected ISP Internode introduced flatrate plans, which prioritised traffic based on usage in the last 30 days. This Whirlpool interview with Simon Hackett about the new flatrate plans. The plans failed as explained in this End of flatrate announcement. The key point from Simon's post is that flatrate wasn't able to attract sufficient low and medium users to balance the leechers. There is a thread to discuss Are Flatrate plans viable under NBN?.

The difference between the Australian & USA market is that we've pretty much always had quotas. Customers choose the quota they want (30GB through to 1TB). Quotas are implemented as full speed until you reach your quota and the speed is capped to 256Kbps or 128Kbps for the rest of the month. Some RSPs allow you to buy additional data blocks. Some ISPs also offer extra downloads during off peak times (midnight to 8am) which are good for scheduling downloads.

The fact is that ISPs run networks with contention and in cheaper ISPs that leads to congestion in peak hours. There is not dedicated bandwidth between your PC and the server you want to connect with. Quotas are a reasonable way for ISPs to manage network traffic and make it cheaper to offer faster speeds. Bandwidth is a shared resource, which some people over exploit impacting on others. This is referred to as the Tragedy of the commons.

Would you prefer 8Mbps with no quota or 100Mbps with a 1TB quota?

Many years ago in Australia, a well respected ISP Internode introduced flatrate plans, which prioritised traffic based on usage in the last 30 days. This Whirlpool interview with Simon Hackett about the new flatrate plans. The plans failed as explained in this End of flatrate announcement. The key point from Simon's post is that flatrate wasn't able to attract sufficient low and medium users to balance the leechers. There is a thread to discuss Are Flatrate plans viable under NBN?.

The difference between the Australian & USA market is that we've pretty much always had quotas. Customers choose the quota they want (30GB through to 1TB). Quotas are implemented as full speed until you reach your quota and the speed is capped to 256Kbps or 128Kbps for the rest of the month. Some RSPs allow you to buy additional data blocks. Some ISPs also offer extra downloads during off peak times (midnight to 8am) which are good for scheduling downloads.

The fact is that ISPs run networks with contention and in cheaper ISPs that leads to congestion in peak hours. There is not dedicated bandwidth between your PC and the server you want to connect with. Quotas are a reasonable way for ISPs to manage network traffic and make it cheaper to offer faster speeds. Bandwidth is a shared resource, which some people over exploit impacting on others. This is referred to as the Tragedy of the commons.

Would you prefer 8Mbps with no quota or 100Mbps with a 1TB quota?

In Australia the idea was to educate as many people via forum post and web sites.
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/ in the Companies section.
Also the "Find a broadband plan" http://bc.whirlpool.net.au/ search would result in a list of local ISP options per exchange. Allowing people to plan, compare ISP and list their caps, services (P2P tracking/slowing efforts) seems to have done some good.
Over time searching for that brands products would bring a flood of negative results or very positive news.

In Australia the idea was to educate as many people via forum post and web sites.
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/ in the Companies section.
Also the "Find a broadband plan" http://bc.whirlpool.net.au/ search would result in a list of local ISP options per exchange. Allowing people to plan, compare ISP and list their caps, services (P2P tracking/slowing efforts) seems to have done some good.
Over time searching for that brands products would bring a flood of negative results or very positive news.

The original old pdf thats now been replaced can be found via the above mentioned Whirlpool forum: http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/2151781#r40092377

Hi ebno http://www.nbnco.com.au/nbn-for-home/how-it-works/how-it-works.html might help a bit
If you have a tech question have a text/google search of the NBN section at http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum/142

Internode attempted this in Australia with the "flatrate" plans, but they ended 2005, because enough low end users weren't attracted to the plans to balance out the top 10% of downloaders. It is well worth reading the detailed post by Simon Hackett (of Internet Toaster fame) explaining the reasons. You might be surprised that the CEO would write in such detail and openly the business.

The reality is that while it doesn't cost any more to provide 10Mbps or 1Gbps over the first piece of fibre from your home it does cost significantly more to route that data to it's end destination. People need to be prepared to pay for that, just like we pay for the amount of water and electricity consumed. Would people be complaining if the tap was left running all day?

You're missing the point. Telstra and Optus have got away with selling patchy, over-subscribed and under-performing services in Tasmania for years. They obviously consider it non-viable given the population base, despite their widely advertised claims. I experience this at first hand, since although I only live 30 minutes drive from what passes for a major town here, I can't get any kind of wired broadband to my home, and the closest cell tower I can access is 35km away.

Tricky. What's the NBN status there?
Missing the point or not, I wouldn't hold my breath for Google loonies. If you do have direct line of site with somebody you can trust and closer to the node, you may consider P2P long range WiFi. It's not that unusual.

Read the reviews about PWM LED systems and take it into consideration.
http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/articles/pulse_width_modulation.htm
Go for top end Dell, the ~$1000 Eizo range.
Any Australian tech forum has a post on the Korean IPS options:
"27/30" Korean Monitor Guide/Help Pt2"
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=2023067

Here's a list of 200+ Uncapped Plans, since you are either too lazy or too stupid to find them yourself.

• * NBN is costing ~$40 billion compared with Google Fibre estimate of $150 billion for a Nationwide roll-out.
  Now Australia has a similar land mass to the US, but less than 1/10th the population and is heavily urbanised.
• * Google is 1Gbps for $70. Currently the highest NBN plan is 100/40Mbps with 1TB quota for $164.95/month.
  1Gbps will be available in a couple of years on the NBN, but price is $150 plus data (100/40Mbps wholesale is $38/month so retail prices will be likely to be double wholesale).
• * 50% on the NBN are predicted to connect at 12/1Mbps (page 64 of NBNCo Corporate Plan (2012-15)) at ~$40-$50 for 30GB month.
• * Current NBNCo wholesale prices are discounted, as per page 67 of the NBNCo Corporate Plan
  - 1000/400Mbps falls from $150 to $90, while the average speed grows from 30Mbps to 230Mbps. So price falls by 40% while average speed grows by 7.6 times
  - price of CVC falls by 2.5 times, while the data usage grows by 20 times

Sadly, too many people in Australia have read the "1Gbps Fibre announcement made during the 2010 Federal election campaign in response to Google Fibre Announcement. Very little investigation has been done to appreciate what is being delivered for fear that like other government initiatives, the delivery will be a failure. The reality is that for 50% 12/1Mbps will be what they experience and for maybe 25% 100/40Mbps with download quotas. The rich will have their 1Gbps connections subsidised by the national roll-out. Rather than revolutionary the NBN will be little better than current 100Mbps cable services. NBNCo are also focusing on areas already serviced by cable to re-enforce their natural monopoly and reduce competition.

The alternative would have been to release uncapped fibre speeds (everybody receives 1Gbps) and charge for data. This is fair as low quota users put hardly any load on the network, while heavy downloaders do. We would then have had something closer to Google Fibre and truly revolutionary. To quote Simon Hackett (Internode):

"They could charge that average to everyone, and open the ports up to full speed for everyone (this is my personal preference, FWIW)." post by Simon Hackett

Instead we have a fibre network where anyone downloading less than 5GB month (national average is ~20GB (ABS) is probably better using a 4G connection and ditching the land line. If we accept that NBNCo are correct in predicting that 50% will connect at 12/1Mbps, then based on the fact that 25/5Mbps plans are only $5 extra a month there is a significant number of people who may find wireless better value.

Telstra are a notoriously dodgy company with a history of being idiots when it comes to customer's privacy and account security. Have a read of this for one of their latest privacy blunders...

Never blame malice for what can easily be blamed for stupidity.

Telstra's consumer level staff are notoriously incompetent. Their linesmen are generally OK (thanks to the union pushing for training) but their helpdesk/home support is an insult to trained monkeys everywhere.

Telstra are a notoriously dodgy company with a history of being idiots when it comes to customer's privacy and account security. Have a read of this for one of their latest privacy blunders...

Consider that a lot of central phone exchanges and DCs are in the Brisbane CBD, and most kept working in early 2011 when a good chunk of the state's land area was underwater: http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/1616757. The locations I've got gear (PIPE DC3, Pegasus and Fujitsu) were well out of the flood zone, being located in areas above any reasonable flood level - if they had gone underwater, there wouldn't be a Brisbane anymore.

The main drivers of DC location are cost and utility. Cost includes the normal stuff like power, real estate, connectivity and so on, but also factors in risk, redundancy, insurance and mitigation of each of these factors. Even though Sydney is a relatively low risk area to build, being well south of the major storm and seasonal cyclone-affected areas, I'm sure Amazon, considering their international scope, would have taken into account any reasonable level of risk when deciding where they want to put a DC to host their gear.

Google Multi-bet.

"Seems there has been blackmail and hack attempts to at least two online bookies,
Multibet.com and Centrebet"

"syn flood on port 80 - MASSIVE one

The server was originaly in Alice, thus killing the Alice network. Telstra then implemented their "DDoS protection" (www.radware.com - ironically, when we told our current DDoS protectors this, they laughed) in their Sydney office. It took out part of their core network in Sydney straight away before they killed the www server ips." http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/237347

They just bought more bots to the fight.

Now we are talking!

(Australians will know exactly what I'm referring to. For those outside Aus, that was a website that was set up by Telstra as a propaganda mouthpiece. Shutdown about three years ago, shortly after Sol Trujillo left.)

They NEVER leave a Fine on a car for being unlocked.

Never Say Never

Yep, and in fact, as of a few days ago, the IPv6 option is now turned ON by default for new customers:

http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/1845420

I don't make many files actually.. not that are worth obscuring on this level.. this is more about hiding and obscuring files other people have made :-) .. to give someone the runaround in the event my files fall into someone else's hands.

Note that Australia is quite close to being in the same situation America is.. see the articles about the IINet case currently in the courts - http://whirlpool.net.au/

Someone could literally bust my door down at any time. I would have no warning.. and no time to nuke anything.

This ruse is more about slowing an attacker down and costing an attacker resources than anything else. I smile every time I see one of those files, sitting there, waiting to be "cracked". I do so hope that if they want to try and go through my files that they try one of these first.

Meanwhile, I've just spent an hour and a half on a new short story. No doubt if this machine goes walking it will make light entertaining reading for the (government) thieves.

Sounds like your grid is too small to have solar on it: not enough load to keep it within limits; lowering the voltage could cause brown-outs during the peak times. My solar feeds the grid all day and so does my neighbour's: his feeds so much he actually ends up with a credit bill every quarter!

I have heard this story on Whirlpool a few times, starting here. (Links to other threads)

Currently Australia is trying to implement the National Broadband Network and great debate is currently being had about exactly why we need a fibre network, how many people will actually use it, how it will be implemented and who will pay.

It looks like we could learn a lot from the Brits ...

Welcome to reality, dude, it's the internet, for everything there is a list, often many lists. Here you go audio hardware that supports flac http://flac.sourceforge.net/links.html and http://reviews.cnet.com/flac-mp3-players/ and even other forums http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/804579 chat about it.

So let's introduce manufacturers to reality and ignore their B$ and don't buy their stuff if they wont provide the features you're after.

What happens if you tell them "I don't have a computer?" That would have been amusing.
They proceed as if you did.
They get stumped when you mention your public IP starts with 2001::.
They say your Windows computer is infected and when the caller gets stumped when you can't find your "Start menu" because you're running OSX, they act like they knew all along and abuse you when you point out the simple fact that they said "your Windows PC is infected" when you don't have one.
There's quite a lot at this Whirlpool thread

Scenario 1, you get a message saying your bandwidth is used up and internet stops. No great problem.

Scenario 2, the net keeps working and there is no indication but you silently get a huge bill at the end of the month. This is really bad

Which is it?

According to the 'developers', to update Android you have to:

- Go to their website download exe file
- Fire up VMWare, realise I donâ(TM)t have XP
- Find old XP Image off DVD
- Copy XP
- Boot XP (upgrade VM, upgrade VM Tools)
- Reboot
- Install Kies (Samsung Software)
- It downloads Dot Net for the next 15 minutes
- It wants to update itself (yes the brand new thing I just downloaded off their website)
- Update (another 85MB download)
- After install Iâ(TM)m in some kind of MP3 playerâ¦what the?
- Spend ages figuring out I have to turn off dev mode, then I have to go to the home screen on the phone (it doesnâ(TM)t work while apps are open)
- Phone appears as connected device (yay!)
- Windows XP spends the next 5 minutes finding new hardware
- Error Dialogue âDevice not responding. To resolve the issue reboot the deviceâ(TM)
- Unplug the device, quit Kies
- Start Kies, replug in the device
- Device appears, and shows an info screen which says âThis is the latest firmwareâ(TM)
- Google solutions, most of which appear to be third party ROMs and Registry hacks that may brick your phone
- Realise itâ(TM)s Telstra thatâ(TM)s holding it up here in AU: http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/1599816
- Consider installing some custom ROM called âDarkysâ(TM) or something else called âRomKitchenâ(TM)
- Realise itâ(TM)s 11:42pm (2 hours since I started my journey)
- Give up

For comparison:

To Update iPhone from 4.2 to 4.3:
- Plug in, press âupdateâ(TM) button in iTunes

Yup, in order to update Android, you have to install VMWare and dig up copies of XP. Clearly, these guys are top-tier engineers, and everything they write is unbiased and technically well-informed.

Man, I can't wait for iOS 5, because Apple has really innovated this time: over the air updates for a mobile OS! Just wait until Google rip them off and then claim that their OS somehow supported OTA updates since it went live. As if that were possible before Apple invented it!

When did /. become such an apple fanboy site anyway? Shouldn't you iOS dweebs be posting about how Android's higher marketshare doesn't matter over at daringfireball or something?

True - but this is only one ISP out of the hundreds that are available. Plus, the filter is very small in scope - nothing to do with the Australian Government, but rather maintained by Interpol, and purportedly blocks only child abuse content with ages less than 13 involved.

So, either you care about it enough to switch ISPs (which due to the forced wholesale laws in Australia, virtually everyone can do, and is a good idea anyway since Telstra usually aren't the best choice), or you don't care and you will continue along blissfully unaware that a handful of obscure domains which you were never going to visit anyway are unavailable. Or change your DNS servers.

Censorship is evil, but as far as it goes, this is really pretty minor. Same blacklist as already exists for many European countries/ISPs.

My guess it will be that outside the Capital Cities it will be 100Mbps shared between all connections... which will probably end up being slower that the current system of Telstra enabling an ADSL2+ Exchange with an 8MBps backhaul, and then selling dozens of 20Mbps connections to the houses connected to it.

Also... thousands of "remote" users currently on ADSL or ADSL2+ will be relegated to NBN Wireless

This is all complete nonsense. The initial spec for the NBN is 2.5 Gbps downstream per GPON (not more than 64 homes) scaling to 40 Gbps, nothing like "100 Mbps shared between all connections". This fiber will then connect your house back to one of 22 points of interconnect, where ISPs will have connectivity (or rent it from a backbone provider). If the ISPs choose to under-provision their non-capital PoPs, that's really no change from today, but there's no reason to believe an ISP would cripple themselves with a 100 Mbps back-haul.

Telstra will also be able to maintain their copper network in places not serviced by NBN fiber. Indeed, they are obliged to continue phone service to these customers for at least 10 years under Universal Service Obligation. so why not run ADSL over those wires too?

References:
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/1511009
http://www.dbcde.gov.au/broadband/national_broadband_network/nbn_policy_statements

Get your real info from here :-

http://whirlpool.net.au/wiki/cleanfeed

Well we have 'bad' ISPs here as well but there are quite a few good ones that are genuine innovators and care a lot about the quality of their network and customer service etc. Since we have such a huge selection of ISPs to choose from (for example, here are the ISPs/plans I can choose in my State). They have to differentiate themselves somehow, much more so than in the US, if they want to attract customers and survive. Some compete on price, others on network quality, customer service, bundled extras etc.

The ISP I'm on (Internode) is not the cheapest, but their network is second to none and they are more customer-focused than most. They are considered in a way a geeks' ISP in that they trial newer technologies earlier than most (first fully native IPv6 residential connections in Australia being one recent example). Previously I was with iiNet who are also top notch IMO.

In Australia we have http://bc.whirlpool.net.au/
A one stop shop for Internet choice. Unlike the apparent inadequacy of the afore mentioned government service, this site actually give accurate information.

Here you go, now the N900 can have CD drives, thumb drives, and many other USB devices working connected to it

Just go from here and fill out the forms as you go: http://bc.whirlpool.net.au/

Those access fees are quite high compared to some of the competition. Possibly why they are using dishonest advertising to trick people who dont know or care that much into using them instead. Just looking at broadbandchoice.com.au shows several providers offering 150gb for $90 a month. A bit more than 12gb. Worth looking at this comparison http://bc.whirlpool.net.au/bc/?action=search&state=any&class=0&type=res&pre=3000&cost=100&speed=512&upspeed=0&ip=1&contract=99&upfront=999999&needhw=yes&conntype=1&conntype=4&conntype=5&sort=0

Yup. Plus they can just use VoIP

From reading the article, I believe what he means is power redundancy.

Specifically, right now, if the burglar cuts power to the home or business, the 48V (or so...) on the line lets the alarm system ring home and tell the company the power's out.

If only the were to put some kind of battery backup option for the ONT...

ONT battery backup information

http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=1511009 That will help answer your question.

To save people from trawling through all the other posts, this filters the thread posts to MickJT only.

Forum post from the guy involved. Scroll up for some more info.

Although Telstra would dearly like to be a monoploy again those days are long gone. These days there are plenty of ISP's to choose from. The Optus cable plan I have been on for over 10yrs years had a 20GB cap, when I recently started bumping up against the cap for a couple of months in a row they rang me up and said for an extra $5/month I could have a 170GB cap. It was win-win, I was happy they noticed and offered a cheap solution and they are happy to be getting an extra $5/m. I know Optus are far from the chapest ISP out there but they sure beat the shit out of the luddites at Telstra.

The only reason I haven't switched to iiNet or one of the other cheap ISP's is because of the excellent service I have recieved from Optus over the years. Since I often work from home a responsive helpdesk is more important to me than minimum price, even better is the fact I've only needed to use said helpdesk a few times in the last decade.

And no I don't work for Optus, I just happen to think I get exactly the kind of reliable service I'm willing to pay for.

Great, these gigabit links will be real handy! Especially with Australia having about 8 terabits of cabled overseas bandwidth.

Lets see, 8000 gigabits divided by 10000000 households with just 1% (100000) trying to have all you can eat = 80 megabits per household with nothing left over for the other 99%.

We only need 92 terabits more overseas connection bandwidth to meet that insatiable 1% (the ones downloading torrents 24 hours a day).

Woohoo go gigabit.

Contention ratio is a bitch.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_in_Australia#International

http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies-archive.cfm/1436043.html (post by Duideka)

http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/0/6C0F2180158809B9CA2573D20011048E?opendocument