Ah no - the contents of a Bill once it is put before the Parliament is public knowledge. In full.
The "premature unnecessary debate" quote has arisen because the Government hasn't even decided whether it wants to go down this route yet. It's a discussion paper, not a proposal to actually do anything. The quote is actually fairly accurate - debate arising from the content of the document WOULD be premature and unnecessary if they end up going "nah, screw this idea".
Not that I agree with it being censored. But it's not quite as ominous as people are making it sound.
Goes to show you how people are different I guess. I would NEVER buy a phone on contract. Much prefer buying an unlocked phone outright from a retailer, then taking it home and popping the SIM card from my existing plan with a carrier in it, than be locked to a particular plan and network for 2 or 3 years (by which time better deals are usually around).
Last phone I bought cost me over $1000 AUD (which is ~$850 USD, so pretty expensive). But I used it for three or four years and my monthly phone bills were only $10 to $15 per month. The same phone on a two year contract varied from $59/month to $129 a month though, depending on the amount of included calls.
Do the sums - buying outright was the smarter thing. Maybe not for very heavy phone users... but for average to light users, you'd be made to lock yourself into a single plan with a single provider for years on end. OTOH, an unlocked, outright-purchased phone can be switched between plans and carriers at will when your circumstances (or the range of plans) change.
Yep I'd say it's lack of promotion, pure and simple. Buying phones in stores has nothing to do with it. Buying phone in stores, on contract, directly from a carrier, is only how the elderly and clueless buy phones. Anyone who knows what they are doing prefers to buy the phone outright (and often, online).
Hell, I haven't ever bought a phone anywhere OTHER than online. Usually the phone stores here (Australia) don't even have real phones you can play around with anyway... just plastic mockups so you can get an idea of the size and weight.
Although from what I understand the cellular market in the US is very different than here. Here, it's common just to buy a phone outright from a retailer (online or not) that has nothing to do with the carrier. The phones are all unlocked and can be used on any network. You just take the phone home and pop your SIM in it. The carrier doesn't even know you changed phones (unless they examine the IMEI logs). Your phone plan, and the phone itself, have nothing to do with each other. But in the US it seems that it's all about God-awful 2 year contracts and network-locked phones. Ugh.
I think it's something to do with how the US networks are provisioned - I only ever hear Americans on/. complaining of having a significant dropped call problem.
I can't recall a single call, ever, that has just 'randomly' dropped (other than stepping into an elevator or being in a train underground etc), and I've been using various (GSM) mobile phones since 1997. During that time I've had Nokias, Motorolas and now an iPhone.
This isn't just another 'troll Americans' post - I think there is a genuine issue over there. It even manifests it in the TV ads you hear for mobile networks in the US cf. anywhere else. US ads often focus on 'less dropped calls', or to quote AT&T, 'more bars in more places'. But elsewhere reception is simply a non-issue and is never the focus of (or even mentioned in), an ad.
Certainly networks in large countries often advertise their 'coverage' (e.g. Telstra NextG in Australia advertises that it covers 97% of the population or whatever). But that's not the same as advertising "if you do have coverage, our calls won't drop out as much as our competitors", like they are doing in America.
Why don't you just buy the best router, and if it's wireless, turn the wireless functionality off? I don't see why you need to specify 'non-wireless' as a requirement. Every router I have ever seen has an option called 'disable radio' or the like which completely turns off wireless functionality.
It's funny how an automatic redirect isn't acceptable, whereas the current landing page approach really just requires one extra click. And the redirect button fills most of the screen (and looks like a search window, so you think you're clicking in the box to put your cursor there and type something, but it's actually a link).
True but there are many other ISPs. So your 'opt out' in that situation is churning to another ISP. Plenty of ISPs wholesale Telstra services, so if you can get Telstra you can get service through another ISP... one exception to that is the Telstra and Optus HFC (cable) networks I suppose. But that will eventually become redundant anyway as the NBN rolls out and you will be able to choose any ISP in any location in Australia.
Agreed. Those opposing the filter (i.e. any thinking person who knows a bit about technology and the Internet) should be pleased with their efforts so far. This is fantastic news... and it's actually a much bigger backflip than the summary alludes to (for some reason,/. always tends to overstate any 'filtering will happen' news, and understate any 'filtering is looking like it probably won't happen' news - "delayed" in political terms means "possibly never going to happen, depending on feedback we get/election results").
But we have to keep the pressure on the Government.
If we keep the pressure up, this 'delay' will become a 'very long delay' and eventually 'indefinite'. I'm confident already that mandatory filtering will never actually happen in this country (the population are too against it, and rightfully so). It may eventually come to fruition in a watered-down version. But I think that's still a win. I personally have no problems with an opt-in or opt-out filter - so long as users have the choice, there's no harm in that. Even if that extends to whole ISPs - e.g. Telstra and Optus may filter compulsorily, but all the other ISPs out there won't (including those which wholesale Telstra services, which you can get anywhere that you can get Telstra so you will always have another choice).
I think they knew what they were doing. I mean, look at the music video for Land Down Under. At the point where the riff does the part equivalent to 'Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree...', the flautist is, in fact, sitting in a gum tree.
Exactly. Do people seriously need these giant amounts of local storage (1 TB, 2 TB?) on their machines?
Maybe it's just me but I've never even half filled the 150 GB drive (10000 rpm Velociraptor FWIW) in my main home computer. And that includes all my photos and music, and a couple of large games. The only things that chew up heaps of space are video files (i.e. home movies, downloaded TV shows and stuff), which sit on the uPnP-capable NAS so I can stream them to my TB (which has inside it, two 1 TB 7200rpm Seagates in RAID1).
So this isn't to say that large rotational drives are unneeded - they definitely are for media storage, backups and other situations where you need a heap of space but random access speed isn't really that important. But when I build my next computer, it seems to be a no-brainer that you'd pick an SSD over an HDD for the primary (or only) drive. I simply don't need much local space... a few hundred GB is more than enough to fit my OS, whatever games and software I want installed at a given time, and a large library of music and photos. Video is really the only thing needing more space and that gets whacked on a server (or if you don't have one at home, a cheap and large external HDD).
- If you are living in a Western developed country, you have far, far, far, far more chance of getting toxo from eating a bit of fruit or some vegetables that you didn't wash well enough. Or from that nice medium rare hamburger you had a few years ago. Owning a cat is a very minor risk by comparison. Especially if that cat is essentially an indoor/house cat.
- This parasite is as common as mud. Look around an average room and a couple of people will likely have it. Hell there's a decent chance you already have it (rates in most developed countries are still upwards of 10%... I believe it's 12% for the US). Avoiding it completely would be nigh on impossible. It's essentially down to luck (where you live, and what you eat or have ever eaten).
- But it's harmless to anyone with a healthy immune system. The deactivated cysts will persist in muscle and brain tissue but the link between them and behavioural changes is weak (and even if real, very slight). Depending on your personality before you got it, it may even provide a 'beneficial' behavioural trait (e.g. if it slightly increases agression, that could be good for someone that's naturally very shy and non-assertive)
Indeed. The problem with a word like 'football' is how generic it is. It's not just North America that doesn't call association football, 'football'. It ain't usually called football in Australia or New Zealand either. Or Canada. Or South Africa (ironically enough).
"Soccer has been the prevailing term for association football in the U.S., Canada, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, where other codes of football are dominant."
So yeah, afraid to say it but, among countries whose main language is English, that leaves only the UK where football generally means association football.
But it's a stupid thing to get worked up about considering that it's normally obvious from context what game is being talked about. I mean, in news articles about/match commentary for a World Cup match here in Australia, they'll often still call it football, because it's bleeding obvious what game is being talked about. But if you just said 'football' to someone in the street they'd usually assume you were talking about either rugby (northern/eastern Australian states) or AFK (southern/western Australian states).
Summary mentions Big W, which is a low-end Australian chain. For Americans, it's virtually identical to Walmart in fact, right down to the smiley faces and the font they use in the signs/labels (although I do realise that Walmart changed their branding/logo in the last year or two... Big W's branding is like the 'old' Walmart look and feel).
However you are right - the summary should have specified in the case of the parent company Woolworths, since there are a couple of unrelated companies in different countries that go by that name.
I work in IT and yes we are expected to keep up with our own professional development. But we do not have to do it in our own time. We have a specific number of days of training per financial year which we should aim at using (i.e. standard, paid work days). We can browse around and choose whatever training we'd like to do (within reason) and the boss will approve payment for it and off we go. In fact, he gets grumpy if we don't do this, because he gets a training budget for each quarter and if our team doesn't use it, it just goes to waste.
This has been the same for both small (~100 employee) and large (>100,000 employee) IT companies I've worked for. You're getting a bad deal:(
Many workplaces (and almost ALL ~Government~ workplaces) have their web access filtered to a greater or lesser extent. My wife works for a government department (here in Australia) and she can't access any webmail, facebook, twitter etc. Any site that their BOFH deems productivity-killing. Of course, that just means everyone checks those sites from their mobile phones instead, so it's kinda pointless.
Therefore I see this as being a bit of a non-issue. TSA employees can see whatever they want on their personal connections (at home, via their phones etc.) I suppose there is an argument that 'controversial opinions' is a bit of a weird criteria to block by, even for a Govt. department. But at the end of the day, it's their connection and as an employee you have agreed to abide by their policies.
The point is that the actual original policy, DESPITE being US policy and regarding a US event, was given in metres.
I only understand metric, but I'm no unit Nazi - I'm happy to whip out google and type "x feet in metres" so I can visualise in my head how far that is (not very!). But the point is that things should always be reported in the units of their source. If the original source said 20 metres, it should be reported as 20 metres. Otherwise what you have is only an approximation and not accurate.
The whole issue could be avoided though if/. submitters simply used both. E.g:
"20 metres (~65 feet)" (if the source was in metric); or
"2 miles (~3.2 km) (if the source was in US units)
That way it's clear what the actual source said, but also saves people doing conversions. Win win.
Yes ACMA is able to censor/take down/prohibit content hosted within Australia, or linked to within Australia. This is done under the standard classification scheme.
I'm free to go browsing prohibited content all day if I want. I just can't host it in Australia, or link to it on a website hosted in Australia. Which sucks, yes, but it's not equivalent to a 'filter', which was the point I was originally addressing. I'll say it again - yes there are some restrictions on what you can HOST here. But there is no China-style filter that affects what I can ACCESS.
The only access filter ATM is the ACMA one, which is completely optional. From your link:
"In accordance with the code, ACMA has notified the above content to the makers of IIA approved filters, for their attention and appropriate action. The code requires ISPs to make available to customers an IIA approved filter."
There's nothing wrong with any of that. People who want to use a filter can (and an ISP is required to make such a filter available). This is not equivalent to some kind of compulsory filter.
The political reality is that in its current form, the proposal is dead. It may come back in a different incarnation (e.g. opt-in, or opt-out, which would be fine). But there is simply no way the compulsory filter could get through the Senate at the moment (and likely with an increased Greens presence after the election, the next Parliament will probably be even more hostile to it).
It only had an (unpopular) proposal to do so courtesy of a couple of retarded senators. Which has now basically been scrapped. The legislation never even made it to being drafted, let alone introduced into Parliament and debated.
Problem with Slashdot is that people read a few hyped up, overly dramatic headlines and think they know what's going on;)
Even better, use something like Proxifier to forward ALL traffic, from ALL applications, on ALL ports through the tunnel. You are then, for all intents and purposes, using the Internet as if you were sitting where the proxy server is, not where you actually are.
Even better, make one yourself. Grab an old box you have lying around, whack a copy of Ubuntu on it (or other Linux distro of your choice), enable SSH server and leave it running on your net connection at home. Then using PuTTY or whatever on your laptop you're taking to China, make SOCKS proxy/SSL tunnel to your home box and you are good to go.
Free software and simple to do. Speeds are limited by the speed of your connection in China, and obviously the upstream speed of your net connection back home. But should be enough for basic browsing.
Yep same across the ditch here in Australia. Telstra used to have a CDMA network used in rural areas, while using GSM in urban areas. But that was turned off many years ago, and now it's just GSM everywhere, on every carrier.
What the... how did this get modded informative? It's wrong in so many ways I can't even begin to describe.
There is only one iPhone. It is a GSM phone (i.e. 2.5G EDGE, 3G UMTS/WCDMA). And the Japanese carrier is Softbank, which is a standard GSM network.
CDMA in the context of this article (CDMA2000 as used by Verizon) is not WCDMA (which is an extension of 3GSM). There ain't many places left in the world that still use it in any widespread fashion. The US obviously. But most other countries have partially or totally shut down their CDMA networks years ago.
Slashdot Mirror
Ah no - the contents of a Bill once it is put before the Parliament is public knowledge. In full.
The "premature unnecessary debate" quote has arisen because the Government hasn't even decided whether it wants to go down this route yet. It's a discussion paper, not a proposal to actually do anything. The quote is actually fairly accurate - debate arising from the content of the document WOULD be premature and unnecessary if they end up going "nah, screw this idea".
Not that I agree with it being censored. But it's not quite as ominous as people are making it sound.
Goes to show you how people are different I guess. I would NEVER buy a phone on contract. Much prefer buying an unlocked phone outright from a retailer, then taking it home and popping the SIM card from my existing plan with a carrier in it, than be locked to a particular plan and network for 2 or 3 years (by which time better deals are usually around).
Last phone I bought cost me over $1000 AUD (which is ~$850 USD, so pretty expensive). But I used it for three or four years and my monthly phone bills were only $10 to $15 per month. The same phone on a two year contract varied from $59/month to $129 a month though, depending on the amount of included calls.
Do the sums - buying outright was the smarter thing. Maybe not for very heavy phone users ... but for average to light users, you'd be made to lock yourself into a single plan with a single provider for years on end. OTOH, an unlocked, outright-purchased phone can be switched between plans and carriers at will when your circumstances (or the range of plans) change.
Yep I'd say it's lack of promotion, pure and simple. Buying phones in stores has nothing to do with it. Buying phone in stores, on contract, directly from a carrier, is only how the elderly and clueless buy phones. Anyone who knows what they are doing prefers to buy the phone outright (and often, online).
Hell, I haven't ever bought a phone anywhere OTHER than online. Usually the phone stores here (Australia) don't even have real phones you can play around with anyway ... just plastic mockups so you can get an idea of the size and weight.
Although from what I understand the cellular market in the US is very different than here. Here, it's common just to buy a phone outright from a retailer (online or not) that has nothing to do with the carrier. The phones are all unlocked and can be used on any network. You just take the phone home and pop your SIM in it. The carrier doesn't even know you changed phones (unless they examine the IMEI logs). Your phone plan, and the phone itself, have nothing to do with each other. But in the US it seems that it's all about God-awful 2 year contracts and network-locked phones. Ugh.
I think it's something to do with how the US networks are provisioned - I only ever hear Americans on /. complaining of having a significant dropped call problem.
I can't recall a single call, ever, that has just 'randomly' dropped (other than stepping into an elevator or being in a train underground etc), and I've been using various (GSM) mobile phones since 1997. During that time I've had Nokias, Motorolas and now an iPhone.
This isn't just another 'troll Americans' post - I think there is a genuine issue over there. It even manifests it in the TV ads you hear for mobile networks in the US cf. anywhere else. US ads often focus on 'less dropped calls', or to quote AT&T, 'more bars in more places'. But elsewhere reception is simply a non-issue and is never the focus of (or even mentioned in), an ad.
Certainly networks in large countries often advertise their 'coverage' (e.g. Telstra NextG in Australia advertises that it covers 97% of the population or whatever). But that's not the same as advertising "if you do have coverage, our calls won't drop out as much as our competitors", like they are doing in America.
Why don't you just buy the best router, and if it's wireless, turn the wireless functionality off? I don't see why you need to specify 'non-wireless' as a requirement. Every router I have ever seen has an option called 'disable radio' or the like which completely turns off wireless functionality.
It's funny how an automatic redirect isn't acceptable, whereas the current landing page approach really just requires one extra click. And the redirect button fills most of the screen (and looks like a search window, so you think you're clicking in the box to put your cursor there and type something, but it's actually a link).
http://google.cn/ if you want to check it out for yourself.
So subtle a difference, really, from a practical point of view. Yet this is acceptable where the other approach wasn't.
True but there are many other ISPs. So your 'opt out' in that situation is churning to another ISP. Plenty of ISPs wholesale Telstra services, so if you can get Telstra you can get service through another ISP ... one exception to that is the Telstra and Optus HFC (cable) networks I suppose. But that will eventually become redundant anyway as the NBN rolls out and you will be able to choose any ISP in any location in Australia.
Agreed. Those opposing the filter (i.e. any thinking person who knows a bit about technology and the Internet) should be pleased with their efforts so far. This is fantastic news ... and it's actually a much bigger backflip than the summary alludes to (for some reason, /. always tends to overstate any 'filtering will happen' news, and understate any 'filtering is looking like it probably won't happen' news - "delayed" in political terms means "possibly never going to happen, depending on feedback we get/election results").
But we have to keep the pressure on the Government.
If we keep the pressure up, this 'delay' will become a 'very long delay' and eventually 'indefinite'. I'm confident already that mandatory filtering will never actually happen in this country (the population are too against it, and rightfully so). It may eventually come to fruition in a watered-down version. But I think that's still a win. I personally have no problems with an opt-in or opt-out filter - so long as users have the choice, there's no harm in that. Even if that extends to whole ISPs - e.g. Telstra and Optus may filter compulsorily, but all the other ISPs out there won't (including those which wholesale Telstra services, which you can get anywhere that you can get Telstra so you will always have another choice).
Lol just realised I typed 'AFK' instead of 'AFL' in my post above. /. really needs an edit button.
I think they knew what they were doing. I mean, look at the music video for Land Down Under. At the point where the riff does the part equivalent to 'Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree...', the flautist is, in fact, sitting in a gum tree.
Exactly. Do people seriously need these giant amounts of local storage (1 TB, 2 TB?) on their machines?
Maybe it's just me but I've never even half filled the 150 GB drive (10000 rpm Velociraptor FWIW) in my main home computer. And that includes all my photos and music, and a couple of large games. The only things that chew up heaps of space are video files (i.e. home movies, downloaded TV shows and stuff), which sit on the uPnP-capable NAS so I can stream them to my TB (which has inside it, two 1 TB 7200rpm Seagates in RAID1).
So this isn't to say that large rotational drives are unneeded - they definitely are for media storage, backups and other situations where you need a heap of space but random access speed isn't really that important. But when I build my next computer, it seems to be a no-brainer that you'd pick an SSD over an HDD for the primary (or only) drive. I simply don't need much local space ... a few hundred GB is more than enough to fit my OS, whatever games and software I want installed at a given time, and a large library of music and photos. Video is really the only thing needing more space and that gets whacked on a server (or if you don't have one at home, a cheap and large external HDD).
Some things to consider:
- If you are living in a Western developed country, you have far, far, far, far more chance of getting toxo from eating a bit of fruit or some vegetables that you didn't wash well enough. Or from that nice medium rare hamburger you had a few years ago. Owning a cat is a very minor risk by comparison. Especially if that cat is essentially an indoor/house cat.
- This parasite is as common as mud. Look around an average room and a couple of people will likely have it. Hell there's a decent chance you already have it (rates in most developed countries are still upwards of 10% ... I believe it's 12% for the US). Avoiding it completely would be nigh on impossible. It's essentially down to luck (where you live, and what you eat or have ever eaten).
- But it's harmless to anyone with a healthy immune system. The deactivated cysts will persist in muscle and brain tissue but the link between them and behavioural changes is weak (and even if real, very slight). Depending on your personality before you got it, it may even provide a 'beneficial' behavioural trait (e.g. if it slightly increases agression, that could be good for someone that's naturally very shy and non-assertive)
Indeed. The problem with a word like 'football' is how generic it is. It's not just North America that doesn't call association football, 'football'. It ain't usually called football in Australia or New Zealand either. Or Canada. Or South Africa (ironically enough).
From Wikipedia (From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_(word)):
"Soccer has been the prevailing term for association football in the U.S., Canada, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, where other codes of football are dominant."
So yeah, afraid to say it but, among countries whose main language is English, that leaves only the UK where football generally means association football.
But it's a stupid thing to get worked up about considering that it's normally obvious from context what game is being talked about. I mean, in news articles about/match commentary for a World Cup match here in Australia, they'll often still call it football, because it's bleeding obvious what game is being talked about. But if you just said 'football' to someone in the street they'd usually assume you were talking about either rugby (northern/eastern Australian states) or AFK (southern/western Australian states).
Summary mentions Big W, which is a low-end Australian chain. For Americans, it's virtually identical to Walmart in fact, right down to the smiley faces and the font they use in the signs/labels (although I do realise that Walmart changed their branding/logo in the last year or two ... Big W's branding is like the 'old' Walmart look and feel).
However you are right - the summary should have specified in the case of the parent company Woolworths, since there are a couple of unrelated companies in different countries that go by that name.
Wow that sucks.
I work in IT and yes we are expected to keep up with our own professional development. But we do not have to do it in our own time. We have a specific number of days of training per financial year which we should aim at using (i.e. standard, paid work days). We can browse around and choose whatever training we'd like to do (within reason) and the boss will approve payment for it and off we go. In fact, he gets grumpy if we don't do this, because he gets a training budget for each quarter and if our team doesn't use it, it just goes to waste.
This has been the same for both small (~100 employee) and large (>100,000 employee) IT companies I've worked for. You're getting a bad deal :(
TSA is a pretty big department and I'm sure a few don't fit that description.
As an aside, I wonder if /. needs a 'GrossGeneralisationGuy' to go along with its 'BadAnalogyGuy'. ;)
Agreed.
Many workplaces (and almost ALL ~Government~ workplaces) have their web access filtered to a greater or lesser extent. My wife works for a government department (here in Australia) and she can't access any webmail, facebook, twitter etc. Any site that their BOFH deems productivity-killing. Of course, that just means everyone checks those sites from their mobile phones instead, so it's kinda pointless.
Therefore I see this as being a bit of a non-issue. TSA employees can see whatever they want on their personal connections (at home, via their phones etc.) I suppose there is an argument that 'controversial opinions' is a bit of a weird criteria to block by, even for a Govt. department. But at the end of the day, it's their connection and as an employee you have agreed to abide by their policies.
The point is that the actual original policy, DESPITE being US policy and regarding a US event, was given in metres.
I only understand metric, but I'm no unit Nazi - I'm happy to whip out google and type "x feet in metres" so I can visualise in my head how far that is (not very!). But the point is that things should always be reported in the units of their source. If the original source said 20 metres, it should be reported as 20 metres. Otherwise what you have is only an approximation and not accurate.
The whole issue could be avoided though if /. submitters simply used both. E.g:
"20 metres (~65 feet)" (if the source was in metric); or
"2 miles (~3.2 km) (if the source was in US units)
That way it's clear what the actual source said, but also saves people doing conversions. Win win.
Yes ACMA is able to censor/take down/prohibit content hosted within Australia, or linked to within Australia. This is done under the standard classification scheme.
I'm free to go browsing prohibited content all day if I want. I just can't host it in Australia, or link to it on a website hosted in Australia. Which sucks, yes, but it's not equivalent to a 'filter', which was the point I was originally addressing. I'll say it again - yes there are some restrictions on what you can HOST here. But there is no China-style filter that affects what I can ACCESS.
The only access filter ATM is the ACMA one, which is completely optional. From your link:
"In accordance with the code, ACMA has notified the above content to the makers of IIA approved filters, for their attention and appropriate action. The code requires ISPs to make available to customers an IIA approved filter."
There's nothing wrong with any of that. People who want to use a filter can (and an ISP is required to make such a filter available). This is not equivalent to some kind of compulsory filter.
The political reality is that in its current form, the proposal is dead. It may come back in a different incarnation (e.g. opt-in, or opt-out, which would be fine). But there is simply no way the compulsory filter could get through the Senate at the moment (and likely with an increased Greens presence after the election, the next Parliament will probably be even more hostile to it).
Oblig: Australia does not have a web filter.
It only had an (unpopular) proposal to do so courtesy of a couple of retarded senators. Which has now basically been scrapped. The legislation never even made it to being drafted, let alone introduced into Parliament and debated.
Problem with Slashdot is that people read a few hyped up, overly dramatic headlines and think they know what's going on ;)
Even better, use something like Proxifier to forward ALL traffic, from ALL applications, on ALL ports through the tunnel. You are then, for all intents and purposes, using the Internet as if you were sitting where the proxy server is, not where you actually are.
Yep, mod parent up.
Even better, make one yourself. Grab an old box you have lying around, whack a copy of Ubuntu on it (or other Linux distro of your choice), enable SSH server and leave it running on your net connection at home. Then using PuTTY or whatever on your laptop you're taking to China, make SOCKS proxy/SSL tunnel to your home box and you are good to go.
Free software and simple to do. Speeds are limited by the speed of your connection in China, and obviously the upstream speed of your net connection back home. But should be enough for basic browsing.
Yep same across the ditch here in Australia. Telstra used to have a CDMA network used in rural areas, while using GSM in urban areas. But that was turned off many years ago, and now it's just GSM everywhere, on every carrier.
What the ... how did this get modded informative? It's wrong in so many ways I can't even begin to describe.
There is only one iPhone. It is a GSM phone (i.e. 2.5G EDGE, 3G UMTS/WCDMA). And the Japanese carrier is Softbank, which is a standard GSM network.
CDMA in the context of this article (CDMA2000 as used by Verizon) is not WCDMA (which is an extension of 3GSM). There ain't many places left in the world that still use it in any widespread fashion. The US obviously. But most other countries have partially or totally shut down their CDMA networks years ago.