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Microsoft Critiques Australian IT Policies
StorminNorman writes: "Microsoft have criticised the Australian Government's handling of IT policy. It's not the first time they've done this either. Basically they talk about the lack of competition in the Australian broadband market, as well as the current Australian Government's boneheaded IT policy. Story here." Source aside, what do Australians (and anyone else for that matter) think of the conclusions? For a company which on some fronts decries government intervention, Microsoft seems to have a different tack here.
While I agree with these points, I find it ironic that Microsoft, of all companies, is complaining about "insufficient competition". And, with the US's current situation as far as AOL/TimeWarner and AT&T is concerned, they shouldn't be throwing rocks regarding the broadband market.
So the timing is "peculiar". Also, as some people pointed out, this is not new - Uncle Bill came downunder about 6 months ago and spoke at length about why Australian broadband had a long way to go etc etc ..(tried to find the link for this but couldn't oh well..it was done via webcast to all major Australian Universities)
Or perhaps it is because Bill is a little pissed about his treatment in the media (check out the headings on this search done of the fairfax web search =))
--
Jon - TheSpork
For reference, I'm not an Aussie (proudly USA).
One thing that has not been addressed..
I realize that any individual on the planet has the right to an opinion (some governments do not allow this right). But globally, what right does a corporation have to publish an opinion, and whose opinion gets published (CEO, stockholders, etc.)?
Assuming that a corporation does not have the same rights of speech that an individual does (treading on very thin ice here since I'm too tired to do the research right now), how the heck does microscrew expect their stupid commentary to influence anything? (Insert flames here)
Yes, Australia does have some interesting (and wrong) policies, but where does microscrew get the right to tell a sovereign what to do?
Gates: Hey France, you have less than 95% microscrew usage. Pick it up or we will install a virus into all your wine.
France: Shove it.
Gates: Licenses just jumped up 300%. Hahahaha.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
[I posted this in response to another comment, but I think it's relevant here too. :-)]
While I agree that the government here - on IT issues especially - couldn't find it's own arse if it used both hands and a map, I think Microsoft's suggestions are uniformly self-serving and would actually make the situation worse.
Our vaunted 'deregulation' has turned Telecom from a slothful but competent beauracracy into an agency that gouges more money from Australians than can be imagined, (biggest profits in australian corporate history) while sacking most of the technicians who actually run the system. Remember; they only started charging that $0.17/Mb in 1995 once they'd wrested control of AARNet from the vice-chancellors committee. As for the situation in the bush...
Frankly, what this nation needs is not more corporate investment and control, but:
* Nationalization of the telecom infrastructure (yes, you heard me) and deregulation only of services and support. Same for electricity, water, and all basic infrastructure; which is frankly why governments are supposed to exist.
* Significant government investment in education and basic research. Again.
* Sane and sensible policy on issues like digital signatures, privacy, and datacasting. (Die! Alston, Die!)
* Use of government clout to introduce new technology once past the incubator stage, which is where we have traditionally fallen down.
Of course, none of that is going to happen. I despair.
Jeremy Lee | Orinoco
And thank God. The plan is that for now they'll get some of Optus' bandwidth on that pipe, and in the long term AARNet gets their own transcontinental bandwidth to play with.
AARNet (Australian Academic and Research Network)are doing some very, very cool stuff. For instance, most Aussie unis (four actually have it up and running) are implementing Voice-over-IP PABX gateways. So if someone at a university calls someone at another university, the call goes over AARNet's IP backbone rather than the public telephone network. Even cooler, if a uni in Melbourne calls a private residence in Sydney, it goes VoIP to a university in Sydney, through their PABX and to the house in Sydney, avoiding local call charges.
http://www.aarnet.edu.au for the interested.
Now that's great : a democratically elected governement would have to consider critiques from a foreign corporation ? This is crazy. I hope Australians become outraged by this and that it backfires against M$'s image in the Australian public opinion.
Education Huge funding cuts to higher education and a focus towards full fee paying students (there is currently a senate hearing into full fee paying students getting passed when they should be failed).
I'm studying CS part time, my employer pays for it, they also have to pay fringe benefits tax (FBT) on it! If I was doing a private course, even one that cost several thousand dollars a day there would be no FBT but because it university FBT is applied.
The public school system is in shamble, especially for boys. Every year boys perform worse and worse in the HSC (sorta like SAT's). Boys literacy rates are truly scary.
Broadband: Up untill recently I could not get any affordable broadband, where did I live about 15 mins drive from Sydney's CBD. I can only get it now because I moved, and it's capped at 512kbs. ADSL has been increadibly slow to roll out, the govt. has (finally) ordered Telstra to open their exchanges and allow competing providers in so ADSL rollout should start to speed up.
TV: (The industry I work in) HDTV spectrum was GIVEN to the free-to-air broadcasters, no charge and no competition in it till 2008.
I Hate to agree with MS, but this time they're right on the money.
Australian? Join EFA
This is great! Microsoft goes to all the trouble to do a State by State study of lost revenue due to piracy and add up the cost. They are quick to point out the loss of TAX income to the state. When another country does tax, they cry foul because taxes may raise the price of something and encourage piracy. Is this a double standard?
The truth shall set you free!
This makes more sence: Microsoft's .net strategy is going to have it's whole 'downloadable aspects' of software bit going. Your office suite will be downloaded from Microsoft. Your Operating System will be downloaded from Microsoft. Your media player, web browser, paint app, game of solitare (well, maybe going overboard here) will all be downloaded from Microsoft.
Obviously 'taking to Microsoft over the net and downloading stuff' will be a big thing with .net, and Windows in a version or two. And now it all makes sence; Microsoft NEED a large rollout of high bandwith in places all around the world or their latest jihad has a major flaw. Why else would a company obessed with profit give out free advice to nations on their current flaws?
Xenex's thought of the day...
Maybe they're just doing some preemptive strikes to try and undermine Australian reputations in preparation for conflict. Check out this extract from hansard attributed to Christopher Pyne (South Australian member of the federal government) late last year:
"Far from closing small business down, that bane of the cheat, the ACCC, has proposed that we help small business by reducing the cost to them of computer software-but, of course, I would not expect [a member of the opposition who had been interjecting] to understand that. This could soon change for the worse. The Sydney Morning Herald reported last week that Microsoft Australia has announced a 10 to 18 per cent increase in the retail price of its software products, effective from December. Microsoft cites exchange rates as the reason behind the price hike, but there is little doubt that the price rises are largely due to a lack of competition in the software market.
This impacts on all facets of the Australian economy. The Yellow Pages Small Business Index of February 2000 showed that 84 6per cent of Australian small businesses and 100 per cent of medium sized businesses use a computer and therefore require computer software. The current monopolistic arrangement of allowing only one importer to source software product does not serve the long-term interests of consumers. Lifting the prohibition on the parallel importing of computer software and allowing people to compete in the alternative sourcing of products will help push down the price of software and promote product innovation and development. "
The ACCC is the consumer affairs commission, and prioritises fair and free marketplace competition. Could Microsoft be another monolith gearing itself up to avoid a slapping from the Australian authorities?
"..Labor are giving Australian consumers every indication that, despite being proved wrong on the deregulation of the CD market, they are prepared to trundle out the same tired old arguments in the current parallel import debate.
Mr Albanese -Just because Wham CDs are cheaper.
Mr PYNE -As a 1980s child, I am a great fan of Wham. They have moved, and now we are a fan of more modern music, especially some of our own home-grown South Australian music.
Mr Albanese -Name them.
Mr PYNE -I already have. I named them earlier in my speech. People like Kasey Chambers, Killing Heidi and Powderfinger.
Mr Sidebottom -Never heard of them.
Mr PYNE -You would never have heard of them. Of course you wouldn't. You are the troglodytes on the Labor side of the House. Mr Deputy Speaker, I must get on with my address-
Mr Albanese -Mr Deputy Speaker, I raise a point of order. The member opposite is not only insulting members with personal remarks but also misleading the House, because Killing Heidi are in fact from Victoria.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Jenkins)-The honourable member will resume his seat. Honourable members will cease interjecting."
Believe with me, my saplings.
Listen up Australians: Your economic policies are not pro-business enough. You have been warned. If you dont change your policies you 'will not be competitive in the new global economy'. This alone should be the basis of your governments actions - you MUST address the concerns of Microsoft Corporation or face economic sanctions from them.
The arrogance that some company would trot around spouting this kind of drivel astounds me. What makes these corporate $WHORES$ think that the people of Australia should be concerned that M$ isnt given enough tax breaks????
The whole world needs very aggressive/progressive reforms to the 'corporate entity' -- the whole idea that a private organization, whos sole purpose is to make the lives of a few better than the lives of the rest (profit) will be 'listened to' by our governments regarding policy. I thought the government was supposed to represent citizens equally? Does anyone think that they might have a little bit of bias -- that they should therefore not be 'listened to'
Its amazing how governments now have to serve these lobbies instead of their people...
How did we get so far 'off track' and allow these bastards to gain this kind of power?
The dilemma is that there isn't one around. However, with my new-found ability to vote in the election we will have this year, I'll be voting for "not Liberal". I don't know if they alternative will be better, but these guys have been in control for too long now.
It's not suprising that MS is bitching about Broadband - They got severely dissed by Telstra for not delivering on a service agreement last year. It was their biggest site in the souther hemisphere and one of the biggest in the world. And Telstra said that basically their software was shit. So no real suprises there.
The Australian government and business are both lacking when it comes to IT initiative - but that isn't going to change any time soon. Business wants the government to pay for everything and investors are used to mining investment where they can make their money back by fleecing the public.
Add to that the fact that IT professionals in Australia routinely head overseas (Asia or Britain) where they can earn serious money and avoid the short sighted policies of Australian management weened on 80's techniques. Hot-desking being a current fave.
Fun all round
.sig
It is somewhat ironic that as far as I'm concerned, one of the most serious screwups in Aus. Govt. IT policy is the fact that several state governments have made outsourcing contracts which include provisions binding them to Microsoft for ludicrous lengths of time (20 years for the South Australian govt., I believe, via a contract with EDS). It boggles the mind that one could even contemplate signing an exclusive contract with a company for nearly as long or longer than that company has existed.
Also for the record, keep in mind the following
Insufficient investment incentives:
Totally agree, reducing the concession rate was a very bad move (not just for IT, in general). As others have pointed out, this is *business* R&D - Australia is very competitive on the academic side. We do occasionally come up with some good stuff, but end up selling out to overseas due to lack of local support.
Inadequate infrastructure and bandwith:
Cable prices have been a lot more reasonable since about Feb. last year (2000) once there were two players. ASDL is now rolling out with a lot more people becoming able to access the 'net at reasonable speeds. As pointed out elsewhere in the article "...other studies had found that Australians had good access to bandwidth and a high level of Internet penetration."
Insufficient support for information economy R&D:
Redundant, should be rolled into point 1 - Investment incentives
Failure to create local centres of excellence:
Again, probably partly due to population levels / distribution. Without a resonable definition on exactly how we failed its hard to responds to this point. Anyone would benefit from carrying out MS's generic suggestion, USA included.
Failure to protect against piracy:
Don't know enough to respond to this aside from the fact its probably partly due to Australia being a target market for Asian pirates due to its locality. Why they supposedly think our laws make it easier to counterfeit stuff I have no idea...?
A skills shortage:
And who doesn't have a skills shortage?
Technology security:
More meaningless waffle no more or less relevant to Australia than anywhere else in the world.
Lack of access to capital:
Journalist is getting desperate at this point I think. More meaningless, generic stuff. Again, can be equally true for anywhere in the world. We've actually recently had the corporate tax rate reduced by 3% anyway? Just because MS doesn't see us as an attractive investment doesn't mean we should change "Australia's banking and finance laws". Sheesh.
Inability of some groups to have Internet access:
Woo, even more generic, unsubstantied stuff - which groups? Where? Who? Oh, and thanks for the tip, never would have thought of that....
Again, this is journalism at its finest, rush something to press, make it sound good, hope the reader doesn't actually critically think about what they've written and whether its meaningful or not.
The only potential good thing about this is that the Australian Government might do something positive about this (but then again, they might turn round and do something stupid, they've done it before....).
They're kind of right about the broadband situation though. There's two main cable networks but it's common to only be able to connect to one of them. ADSL is in it's infancy and satellite is an inferior option (IMO).
For the record, I live and work in Australia and the points that MS raised are absolutely and utterly correct to the very last point.
Looking at some of the posts on /., who cares if MS has a vested interest, who cares if the timing is suspect, who cares that a corporation is critising a government, the fact of the matter is that MS has raised perfectly valid points with what needs to be improved to help grow the Australian IT industry.
We should be applauding that someone has brought these issues to the attention of our bonehead government - not critising them. Sheesh.
To wit, the censorship regime was first introduced when the government was trying to garner the support of a moral conservative in the Senate (Brian Harradine) for a controversial piece of tax legislation. Coincidence? Hardly. (The senator in question just said "Thank you very much" and voted against said tax legislation anyway.)
Similarly, the new digital broadcasting regime is simply an attempt to appease the most powerful television mogul in the country (who also happens to be the richest man in the country), Kerry Packer. (There was an excellent piece on the ABC's Four Corners program about this, but I don't know whether there's a transcript online.)
And the underfunding of universities is simply another facet of the conservative "privatise everything that isn't nailed down" ideology that's rampant in this country right now.
In short, don't blame malice when utter, total stupidity will do.
Seeing that a good deal of the threads on this topic are of the flavour "Telstra Sucks", here's my 2 cents worth.
Having lived in Australia for the last oh, 17 years, but currently working in the UK, there are a few things to point out about the supposed poor quality of service in Australia provided by Telstra and that provided here by BT and the other telephone service companies.
After spending the last 7 months or so in Australia, I have to chuckle at people having a go at Telstra (I used to run an ISP, so I have had my fair share of dealings with them in the past). The service I used to get from them far exceeds the level of service I can get here for anything like the same money.
Here in the UK, you pay 3p per minute for a local call at peak times, in Australia the rate was 25c (I think it might have gone down since) for an untimed local call (go figure that's 10p or about what you pay for a 3 minute call in the UK) try. I used to use Telstra's Big Pond service (their 150 hour service) when I was in Australia $44/month for 150 hours. Never (repeat after me, never) had a problem dialing in, getting frequent engaged signals etc. That's a better experience than I've had with any other ISP I've found (though yes it is more expensive), but again adding the monthly cost and the call cost and the line cost my total Internet usage bill was SIGNIFICANTLY smaller in Australia than it is in the UK. I wont even mention the experience I've had so far with the free Internet access/phone line from my UK cable company, suffice to say that I've given up.
As ar as broadband goes, comparing the cost of an 512Kbps ADSL connection in Australia to those in the UK. For a HOME user installation runs at $110 (or about £45) and monthly rental runs at $89(or about £35). There are no bandwith costs, but things are subject to a fair use policy (fair enough). From what I can gather, the same service here costs about £275 to install and about £99 in monthly rental.
So far in a comparison between services available here and those in Australia, no contest. Those available in Australia win hands down, even taking into account income differences and especially when you consider Australia's large size and low population density.
BTW as a footnote, to those people who consider bandwith costs to be a bad thing (having run an ISP), figure it out. Your ISP is paying for bandwith in one way or another. Bandwith is a LIMITED resource, just like any other (electricity for example). Laying fibre/cable installing hubs, routers etc. and maintaining networks to a high standard all costs money. All the more when you consider the current rate at which equipment becomes obselete. Companies need to recoup their costs.
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The article was poorly written. Further reading shows that Microsoft was bitching that the government cut the tax incentives.
Mmmm.. Donuts
I am an Australian, but I have been living outside of Australia for the past three years, however I think I can offer a few perspectives.
Firstly, Australia is a geographically large country, although the majority of the population is strewn along the eastern coast. Also, the major cities tend to be large urban sprawls. What this means is that the costs and economies of scale for cable networks are perhaps a little different than other countries. Complete market freedom may not produce a good result for everyone (I am an advocate of market freedom and competition, but I also realise that in some cases, regulation and control is necessary - I don't think that I have enough knowledge to judge whether it is appropriate in this case, but I making this point). It is interesting to note that attempts to provide pay television (notably Australis) were not very successful - the market did not grow very fast, and there were several companies competing for what is a small market (and a large financial and infrastructure investment). Consider the difference between mobile networks in the US and Europe. In Europe, there is network competition, but fortunately just about everyone offers that competition on the GSM network - so there is no technological competition, perhaps it would be more useful in Australia if there was a common technological platform, on which competition could occur, that would be more beneficial in the long run, than wasted competition between different technological platforms.
Secondly, Australian media is control by a few interests - kerry packer, rupert murdoch, the fairfax family, kerry stokes and others. And these constitute some powerful groups that have political weight. Unfortunately, this can lead to some regressive media policies.
-- Matthew - matthew.gream@pobox.com, http://matthewgream.net
Don't make a lot of sense.
In Illinois (in the U.S. for you international folks) a lot of cities grant tax breaks to industries for locating in their towns. The idea is that it's a chance for citizens to find jobs in their home town. On the surface it sounds like a great idea (workers have a shorter commute therefore less pollution, less strain on the inadequate road system, better quality of life, etc, etc.). Most of the time the complaints about these corporate tax benefits come from normal citizens who wind up taking up the slack. Also, the corporations wind up shutting down just before the tax break period ends leaving town and a large empty building that no one's paying taxes on.
Why Microsoft would be complaing about a tax break that largely benefits corporations is beyond me.
I sort of agree with the poster who asked whether this was Microsoft's way of testing the waters of how far they can push governments around. Dear Prime Minister of Australia: Don't let them do it.
If Microsoft has anyone to complain about the lack of broadband it'd be the telecomm industry. They're much too busy getting everyone to walk around with a cell phone glued to their ear to find the time to install decent broadband to most of their customers. IMHO, their take on broadband is something like: ``We still don't get this packet thing... but we do understand people talking across wires.''
--
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
Oh boy. This is NOT going down well.
.NET. Make of that what you will.
:-) Most of that 'piracy' happens on an individual level. Software swapping with friends, etc. Small and 'backyard' businesses run a lot of 'grey' software. Large companies tend to be utterly legit, though.
I really should read the whole 'Accellerating Innovation' paper before commenting on details, but I can give a first-glance perspective:
On Bandwidth:
Australia was significantly behind the US in terms of broadband until about six months ago. Cable and DSL have arrived here with a vengance! $60 a month will get you 400kbit/s DSL. Really. The technical implementation has been rock-solid: none of the problems the US has been having. There are still political issues with the 'duopoly' telco situation, but the ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Comission) should do a good job of sorting out the more draconian stupidities in their 'Acceptable Usage Agreements' if they try to enforce them.
(The ACCC is way cool. They're currently having a spat with the MPAA over DVD regional coding.)
Home users here are in the best position they've ever been in. The biggest problem is that Telstra keeps running out of cable modems.
Academic and Business users are, however, in a position of paying rather more for interet access than is really sane. Telstra and Optus C&W both charge about $0.17 per megabyte for inbound traffic, (yes, you heard right) something which deregulation should have put an end to. But Optus likes the money too. Things should change with the recent landing of the Southern Cross Network pacific fibre.
Microsoft wants more broadband in Australia because they've targeted us as one of the prime test markets for
As far as accessibility goes, anyone who wants net access can get it. It's in every library, government department, and medium to large business. ISP's and net cafe's abound. The only people who don't have access are those too lazy to get off their fat arse and walk down the street.
On Taxes:
Yes, Australia has fairly high income and corporate taxes. We have correspondingly higher 'socialist' programs like decent state-sponsored Education, Medical care and Welfare. Australians are, on the whole, happy with this situation. Similar to Canada, in many respects. Multinationals don't like high taxes, though.
On R&D:
There is a cultural difference in what R&D means. We still have a very strong Academic research tradition: most really innovative stuff in Oz gets done by the CSIRO (commonwealth science and industry research organisation) and the universities. I think this is fine. Corporations suck at real R&D. I think Microsoft are just complaining they can't twiddle their thumbs inventing things like "Microsoft Bob" and get massive tax rebates for it.
Besides, what most US companies would call R&D, we call 'getting shit done'. We're an emminently practical people in many ways.
Failure to create local centres of excellence:
Rubbish. See above. The main issue seem to be the existing centres of excellence contain people who work outside the corporate domain and are, therefore, fairly unpoachable. ie: No talent pool waiting for Microsoft to snaffle them all.
On Piracy:
Australia has one of the highest rates of 'Piracy' in the western world. And literacy too. We are significant users of information products, even if we can't quite afford it.
There are some historical reasons for that, mostly due to semi-monopoly locks on imports of information products (the mentioned "parallel import restrictions") like software and music that kept the price artificially high for a long time. These have been changed recently, and will change again, since anyone with a net connection and credit card essentially ignores it.
A skills shortage:
"Australia faces many specific hurdles to train and retain skilled people."
Duh!! You know why? Because of the famous 'brain drain'. US/UK companies tend to make our best and brightest offers they can't refuse. We'd have better people if Microsoft stopped poaching them all.
On Capital:
Australia doesn't have anywhere near the level of Venture Capitalism that exists in the states. (but who does?) Yes, this does hurt us. He has a point here. But, if microsoft want to fix it, all they need to is start investing themselves. A billion US dollars goes a long, long way here. Microsoft has no lack of access to capital. I think what they mean is; there's no easy pool of money for Microsoft to suck from.
Technology security:
I can't think of any Oz sites that have been DoS'd, or even defaced. (I'm sure there's been some. Nothing to the level of Yahoo or Ebay. Mostly a US phenomenon) All major banks in Australia now offer internet service, and I've never heard of any problems. What has the writer been smoking?
Summary:
Yes, as many people would expect, Microsoft are complaining about local factors that tend to favor individuals and small businesses over large multinationals like them. There are one or two decent points in the dross, specifically those about lack of telecom deregulation and capital availability.
The gist of the complaint seems to be "give us more money or we won't invade your nation".
Sounds fine to me.
Jeremy Lee | Orinoco
Insufficient investment incentives
The government seems so preoccupied with their own internal expense account scandals, the introduction of GST and the preservation of their 4 year term to do anything for the long term future of the country.
Inadequate infrastructure and bandwith
Since the government floated Telstra and deregulated the telecom industry, service level has only dropped. Instead of investing in infastructure development, subsidies are given to Telstra to guarentee that remote regions will continue to receive the same service. This was necessary to convince the public to allow the float of the company (which was just a quick dash-for-cash to make them look like they're managing their money better) but doesn't really solve the problem. It just compensates for it.
Insufficient support for information economy R&D
See point one.
A skills shortage
If you're interested in getting Honours in Computer Science, Australia might just be the easiest place. At least in several Universities I know of, a credit average (65%) is all thats required to be eligable for Honours in CS Major degrees. Theres a huge number of people that seem to be doing computer science for the wrong reasons, bumming through the course and coming out with a degree but few skills. I personally have several Chinese friends doing their final Master's year in Computing Science who have never done a single year of CS prior to now whom will return to China at the end of the year to collect a wealthy salary. The government has it all wrong about the IT shortage. Theres plenty of people, just not enough GOOD people.
I won't go through all the other points but I agree whole-heartedly with all of them. On this issue Microsoft seems right on the mark so the MS bashing really is unjustified.
Of course, in 1997 Bill Gates met with Tony Blair...I see an article in The Independent of the time where they claim that Microsoft immediately claimed that he was a special advisor to the UK Govt. on Computers in schools - a claim that the Govt quickly denied after complaints from Oracle, Sun etc.
~~~~~ BigLig2? You mean there's another one of me?
If I was a community college writing teacher, and Microsoft kept on turning in reports to me where they used the word 'innovation' everytime they meant 'good', I would start marking their papers down.
I would have taken this paper as almost a serious critique of communications policies, but the minute I see that damn word, I realize that is is more M$ propaganda. And for a company that probably spends more on propaganda then the budgets of many countries (and infinitly more then they do on taxes :)), M$ really needs to come up with something fresher then the word innovative. Maybe they need to form a committee called "Freedom to Innovate into Using New Adjectives"...okay, enough rant for me for right now.
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
The bad thing is I just spend the past 13 years in that system.
Some cynics in the local IT press have even gone so far as to suggest that there must be votes in pissing off the local IT and, more broadly, the "knowledge" sector, they do it so effectively.
To list just some examples of screwed up policy in the area:
Take it from me, I could go on for a *lot* longer.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
but blame Telstra.
For years now Telstra has had the monopoly over phone lines and internet, suddenly with the advent of competitive competitions its lucious profits have to be found some other way.
The best way to do that and to maintain competition is to up the charge to which all other phone companies would have to pay. Telstra own the phonelines, therefore they have the power. The up the charges for use of the phone lines, other phone companies pay that charge, which in turn is passed onto the consumer in the form of an added service charge.
The thing that really gets me angry is Telstra's marketing of their broadband, in one of their television ad's they try to portray their satellite service as a 'just as good' alternative to cable or adsl. Funny how they dont' mention that you also need a dial up ISP. Add that to the charge of having the satellite dish installed.
Lets do some math in AU dollars
Installation - $300
Monthly Fee - $80
---
Now the costs their reluctant to inform people about
Dialup Fee - $30-$60
Add to that the cost of a second line
Second line, Installation - $100 (maybe more, maybe less)
Monthly fee - $30 at least.
And woe betide anyone who needs to make a STD (long distance) phonecall to reach an ISP.
The other major problem Telstra have created is their weak links to major rural centres. I live in a semi rural town (around 100k population), yet it only has a 1Mbit connection to Melbourne (the nearest major city), no wonder they don't want broadband in use everywhere yet. They don't have enough bandwidth, hence their AUP gets enforced incredibly tightly.
Their lack of movement in such areas seems to be only the result of their constant adoration with high profits. And since most of Australia owns Telstra shares, there's not much that can be done to upseat the board, or anything else that might help.
Cheers,
leroy.
Well, you can't expect much from the government in regards for IT, especially since the minister who has been in charge of it (Richard Alston) for the last 5 years hadn't even used the internet until about 2 years ago (and apparently still doesn't use it enough to be knoledgeable about it, let alone represent it in parliment). The whole internet thing isn't helped here when a partially-government-owned telco (Telstra) owns virtually all of the bandwith in oz, and gets away with charging 18c for each MB of traffic over all non-consumer links (don't forget, those are links going to other *cough*competing*cough* isp's). If Optus@Home hadn't had come around, people on cable connections would still be charged per MB charges if they went over their 500mb per month limit ;p - Thanks to competition, I'm now on a relatively unlimited download cable connection (though O@H, of course).
Cool. I'll match that offer - I'll donate an unlimited license for Debian for all Victorian public schools ;-)
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Broadband in Australia is expencive, limited, and almost totally controled by one company (Telstra).
Nothing in Australian law is hurting Microsoft.
Your response, which embodies standard "correct" usage, embodies the former: what subject-verb agreement is sensitive to is not the semantics of the subject, but the morphosyntactic categories "plural" and "singular". The poster, apparently, has semantic (not morphosyntactic) subject-verb agreement, which is non-standard, but no less logical. Consider the fact that the very same "error" can be attested in many languages.
Of course, this all rests in the assumption that there is such a thing as purely morphological plurals (i.e. that plural marking on nominal represents plural semantics in a completely iconic fashion). This is not an uncontroversial assumption, since the typical purported counter examples ("sissors", "pants", etc.) are frequently argued to be (at least potentially) semantically plural. But of course, such a topic would take us far afield.
There are a few people to blame here. First of all Little Johnny Coward, for making all the wrong decisions - look at Ireland, tax breaks galore, that works so lets do it!
Secondly Richard Alston, that old man who doesn't understand these new fangled computer things...Internet censorship bill, yeah, why not...
Third, telstra, they don't care so much about broadband, as long as they make money (which they will, no matter what we use.
As far as I can tell the only way to fix the problem is elect a govenment that gives a shit about the way the world looks at us.
Remember, it takes 42 muscles to frown and only 4 to pull the trigger of a sniper rifle.
And does the US Embasy really have really have a machine that makes the toilet flush the correct way?
Where do they get off? How do they even expect the Australian Gov't to have good policy regarding IT when they don't even know what IT is? Sheesh...
Think outside the... Hey, where'd the friggin' box go?