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AU Goverment To Break Up Telstra; Filtering News
benz001 writes "The Minister who has pushed the ridiculous broadband filter plan has at least won a few brownie points with yesterday's press conference, in which he promised to force Telstra to split its network and wholesale businesses. Australia's largest ISP, and the country's main infrastructure owner, will be given a chance to implement the structural separation voluntarily; if it does not, the Government will step in with legislation. Here is the Minister's official press release." And speaking of the filtering program, reader smash writes "After several years of debate and electioneering, some statistics on the Australian national web filtering effort have been disclosed. Apparently, the typical Aussie web surfer is 70 times more likely to win the national lotto than stumble across a blocked page. Additionally, despite the claim that the main aim of the filter is to block child pornography, only 313 of the 977 total sites blocked is on the basis of child porn. At $40M AU so far in taxpayers funds, the cost so far is around $40,900 per blocked URL. Government efficiency at work..."
At [Internode ISP's] Simon [Hackett]'s request, we're transplanting a post from WP Internode forum [to WP Broadband forum]:
From: http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=1280230
To: http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=1280474
(There's a Poll [on the first thread] on the Q of whether you feel that, an ISP [with] "too many" plan options
may deter you from choosing any of their plans, as Barry Schwartz suggests in his earlier TED talk.)
---
First, some background from an -earlier- post (in the above thread;
reply to the thread in which your comment(s) are most relavent):
In a TED talk, Barry Schwarz (author of "The Paradox of Choice") notes that:
- when there are "too many" alternatives to choose from,
- fewer people will make a choice
Cf: http://www.ted.com/talks/langâ/eng/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_choice.html
(eg, where supermarket demonstrators showing many jams,
fewer people buy any of the demo'd jams (By contrast,
where just a handful of jams are demo'd, more people buy;
-or-
If [US] companies offer many mutual funds to employees;
employees miss out on employer mathing-comtributions,
of up to US$ 5,000.00, by not making a choice of fund.)
Extrapolating to WP Broadband Choice's tabbed-page with
Internode's many (too many?) plans, I wonder:
How many people give the 'node a miss, eg, due to the
"excess" number of Internode plans shown on offer there?
cf: http://bc.whirlpool.net.au/bc/isp-9/internode.htm
(My guess is that ISPs offer from several to many plans,
eg, to keep Aussies focussed on analysing plans for the
"best" deal for them, in part, so that they will have less
energy to -demand- cheap, unlimited plans, such as are
the norm, in many other countries in Australia's "class.")
--- Here comes the post, shifted from forum Internode:
--- (Although it was originally about Internode, feel free to ;-)
--- read this post with -your- choice of ISP, ie, in place of
--- "Internode" where it appears, & maybe let us know
--- which ISP you're thinking about in any replies.
[In WP's Internode forum] Simon Hackett [wrote]:
"[coming up with a new Internet plan] a lot of work and it has to fit in around some other major new project initiatives that are also in the pipeline"
With all due respect, Simon, I â" for one â" urge Aussie ISPs to redirect all the creative energy & programming/implementation time needed to dream up & implement YAPBP (Yet Another Pricy Broadband Plan) ...to find better ways to deliver what Aussie customers know is possible (since so many other countries' ISP provide it, while we drool in envy that they got it right, while AU continues to lag):
- cheap, fast, unlimited, unrestricted Internet ...not: you can use it for -this- (eg, watch TV -or- access -our- choice of files) purpose for free/cheap, but -that- (eg, research or remote medical imaging, etc.) usage is gonna cost you
For far too long, Aussie ISPs have hugged Telstra's "data allocation & penalty (pick one: huge 'excess' fee or get dial-up speed)" model.
Other Aussie ISPs are -starting- to help us to move to cheaper (if not cheap) unlimited plans, if only on an After Hours (during non-peak periods) basis.
Canberrans enjoy perhaps the -cheapest- AH-unlimited plans (speed "only" 2 Mb/Sec, eg, from their local ISPs that resell TransACT), paying from $20/mon for access to it all.
Why should such plans be reserved -only- for those living in Canberra (eg, pollies & C'th gov't officials & public servants)?
What is Internode missing that TransACT has got right?
In a sports-cent