Author Archives: Michael Wyres

Hypocritical Turnbull Strikes Again Over Quigley

NBN Co, the company building Australia’s National Broadband Network (NBN), this morning announced that founding CEO Mike Quigley, would be retiring from that position, after initially coming out of retirement in 2009 to head up the company. NBN Co Chief Executive Announces Retirement “NBN Co CEO Mike Quigley today announced that he will retire from […]

Time For Transparency On V/Line Punctuality

With the federal election approaching, the continuing Regional Rail Link (RRL) project in Victoria is likely to be in the news more and more, particularly since such a large slice of the funding comes from federal coffers. From its own website, RRL is: “Dedicated regional tracks will be built from West Werribee Junction to Deer […]

Zumbo NBN Opinion Piece Has Fatal Flaw

Everyone – (and particularly media outlets) – has an opinion on the NBN. In a free democracy, having an opinion and being allowed to express it is a fundamental premise. A opinion piece on the NBN by Frank Zumbo – (an associate professor at the school of business law and taxation at the University of […]

Albanese Shafts The Iron Wires

Putting all seriousness over the NBN debate (mostly) aside for the moment, Anthony Albanese – (the current Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) – dragged up a great response to an NBN ‘Dorothy Dixer’ question in the House of Representatives yesterday: Jokes aside, the speech was actually a fair point. For the record, here is the […]

Brisbane Trip From Above

When flying, I prefer to take a window seat. Mainly because I feel more comfortable than when I’m in an aisle, with people brushing past up and down the plane. I also prefer to being able to look outside and watch the world go by. I usually end up taking a few photos as well, […]

Snowden Passport Cancellation Irony

I read with a chuckle last night, a Bloomberg article reporting on the apparent cancellation of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden’s US passport. “Former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden’s U.S. passport has been revoked, according to a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity.” On “condition of anonymity” hey? So presumably shouldn’t have been […]

The Telstra Copper Ship Of Theseus

There were some interesting comments yesterday from Telstra CEO David Thodey, about his company’s opinion as to the state of the current copper Customer Access Network (CAN), the lines most of us use for telephone calls and internet access. The condition of the network has been at the forefront of the alternative National Broadband Network […]

This NBN Or That NBN?

Generally speaking, apart from the recent asbestos incidents, things have been relatively quiet on the National Broadband Network (NBN) front of late. There have been some regulatory issues going on, but largely there hasn’t been much noise. With the election approaching, broadband will go in one of two directions in Australia, depending on the result. […]

Why Are We So Shocked About PRISM?

Ever since The Guardian started revealing details of secret internet surveillance against private citizens undertaken by US government agencies – (such as the NSA) – which ultimately lead to the whistleblower Edward Snowden outing himself as their source, there has been international outcry as to the nature of these activities. As there should be. Many […]

Asbestos: Lets Just Fix It

Shall we be honest here for a moment? There’s been a lot of heat in the last week over the issue of asbestos lining in thousands of telecommunications pits around Australia, being remediated as part of the National Broadband Network (NBN) rollout. Certainly, it would seem that a number of Telstra sub-contractors – (and probably […]