Classy Spam Fail

Got a belly laugh from a piece of spam I found trapped by my filters this morning, showing how truly classy spammers can be:

Gee, that’s an attractive email. Let’s open that one!

Not!

Coalition NBN Response Broadband Failure

In a most ironic twist, the Opposition Leader Tony Abbott, and his communications spokesman Malcolm Turnbull tried to deliver a response to this morning’s release by the government of the business plan for NBN Co.

As indicated in the screen grab, it was delivered “via broadband” – the same broadband infrastructure the opposition believes is more than enough for Australia’s future needs, after some “optimisation”.

They finished their speech, started taking questions, and the feed dropped out. The delivered “via broadband” feed.

Ironic – and surely an indication that what we have now just does not cut it. Roll on the NBN!

NBN Business Plan to Be Revealed

After months of arguments and counter arguments, the business plan for the National Broadband Network (NBN) is to finally be released today by the minister concerned, Stephen Conroy, almost two months after it was first received by the government.

What we see at midday will undoubtedly be a testament to how many black textas are owned by the department, with many details surely to be blanked out. My biggest interest however is to see if the question of how many Points of Interconnect (POIs) to be built has been answered.

NBN Co wanted just 14, other established telecommunications companies wanted around 200. It is believed that the ACCC review favoured a higher number against a lower number.

Personally, for the record, I believe the “correct” number should be – (or be close to) 66 – to closely match the 66 Call Collection Areas (CCAs) currently comprising the copper network the NBN will replace. This should be roughly analogous to the core infrastructure currently supporting those 66 areas.

We wait for midday!

Supermarket Lazy or Misleading

In the midst of the weekly shop, I came across the following special offer:

Seriously, what? Certainly confusing. I think in simple terms, you can see that you get two for ten dollars, no matter what items out of Plus, Cheerios, or Milo cereal you choose, but explaining how much you save depending on the combination is more than a tad confusing.

Probably not deliberately misleading, certainly confusing, and probably just too lazy to do a separate label for each product.

People shouldn’t need to stop and think so hard about it!

Guardian: Up, Down or Blocked?

The Guardian website appears to be down, amid reports that some level of blocking has occurred in regards to their WikiLeaks coverage.

I have heard reports that it has been officially blocked in Thailand, but I’ve not seen confirmation as yet. Certainly, it appears inaccessible from here in Australia at the moment.

So is it up, down, or blocked in some way?

Here is the tail of a traceroute I’ve just performed from my network to “www.guardian.co.uk”, with the trace losing results after it gets to the hosting provider involved, Prolexic:

Here is the tail of a traceroute for another site hosted by Prolexic – (in this case “www.legends.com”):

In the second instance, the trace makes it all the way through to the end server, and as you can see, travels the same route into the Prolexic network. Interesting, and demonstrates that Prolexic themselves are up externally, meaning the problem is internal to Prolexic or the Guardian themselves.

This also might not mean anything at all. Network engineers can deliberately cause this to happen, for reasons as simple as hiding network information. So the server may well be up.

It could just as easily be down for a legitimate reason.

It could be suffering some kind of DDoS attack from anti-WikiLeaks groups.

It could be blocked – but I doubt it, as doing that would create a dangerous precedent in the free-speech debate.

Overall, it is the timing that is interesting, given the publicity it is currently receiving in regards to WikiLeaks. My guess is it is under DDoS attack – as Prolexic themselves seem to be up – so the next few hours will be interesting until we hear some news.

The problem is, if the site is inaccessible for sinister reasons, that’s not what we will hear.

Ironically.

Geelong Advertiser Oopsy

Great to see a new look Geelong Advertiser website this morning – a great improvement on the previous cluttered mess. However, I think a few QC checks went astray:

Is it just me, or are these circled links in the wrong place?

Oops!

Telstra: The Return

Well, the saga is finally complete. After nine days of shenanigans, the phone lines in my street are completely underground again, with Telstra returning yesterday morning to finally string a cable through the new conduit and re-splice the street line – again.

So – nine days to fix a problem that blew most of the street off the phone network – hardly an inspiring effort, particularly when it could have been done in one effort, rather than the handful of “efforts” since the failure began on November 27th.

Roll on the NBN – at least they will have to care about their service levels!

Carrie Bickmore Fail

You have to hand it to Twitter and the good humour that can come from it, especially given today’s revelation that Carrie Bickmore has painted Australians as “blokes” and “sheilas” who socialise at “fancy” places called McCafe.

Big fail.

But here is some of the gold coming through online:

“Carrie Bickmore says we go to McCafes for meetings and catch-ups. What a joke! Right; I’m off to Hungry Jacks to meet my accountant.” Original Tweet

“Richard Wilkins is reporting that Carrie Bickmore has died in a McCafe, after Oprah fell on her.” Original Tweet

“Sarah Murdoch says Oprah died RT “@OhCrap: Richard Wilkins is reporting that Carrie Bickmore has died in a McCafe, after Oprah fell on her.”” Original Tweet

“BREAKING: Carrie Bickmore explodes and crashes over Indonesia after uncontained brain explosion, say Reuters – more details @7pmproject” Original Tweet

“I don’t care about Oprah, Carrie Bickmore or McDonalds. I just want a free f*&cking car.” Original Tweet

Telstra Shenanigans

As I discussed in my article in regards to the structural separation of Telstra, there have been some major issues with my own copper phone line over the last week.

For some time – (actually, the entire time of more than five years I’ve lived at our current address) – every single time a significant amount of rainfall is delivered, the nearby Telstra pits fill with water, and phone service goes down. DSL connectivity is usually still available, but becomes intermittent – and annoying.

After a massive downpour, it went down late-afternoon on Saturday November 27th. As usual DSL sync was available, but intermittent and certainly not delivering full speeds.

On the Sunday afternoon, a Telstra technician arrived to investigate. Engaging in a carefully scripted conversation with him, I determined that it has long been known by local Telstra engineers that our street has problems when it rains.

After peering into two VERY full pits, he stated “I don’t think it can be fixed this time, not without replacing all the lines.”

Mind you, no attempt to pump the water out of the pit was made – even if the lines were unservicable, you’d think that would have been a reasonable first step that would only have taken a few minutes. It might have helped, but we’ll never know now.

Then nothing until the following Wednesday.

Telstra arrived and replaced a pit three doors down the road, then a new cable was spliced into network within this new pit and then strung 35 metres along the gutter, with phone service and stable DSL sync returned at around 10am.

A large trench was then dug along the nature strip, and a PVC pipe that stopped at the corner of our property was laid. The other end of the new cable was spliced into the network in an existing pit – the same pit the new pipe stopped at.

Curious. Here is the spliced cable emerging from the new pit:

And travelling through a guard strip so people’s cars didn’t crush it:

And along the gutter:

On the Thursday, Telstra was around for a little more work, but nothing seemed to change. They certainly didn’t touch the cable, as my DSL sync was never lost.

On Friday morning, workmen arrived to replace the pit at the corner of our property, but the cable still disappears into the dirt and wasn’t disconnected. Here is the cable disappearing into the ground before the second new pit:

There was a single workman on site on Sunday, doing I know not what – certainly no disconnection and he was only there for about 30 minutes.

It is now Monday morning – (nine days since the failure) – and the work is still not complete.

Yes, perfect service is restored, but at some point, someone is going to have to disconnect the cable running down the gutter, run a new one through the PVC pipe which has been there since Wednesday, and re-splice at each end.

And the cable is lying exposed on the street, ready for some nefarious individual to tamper with it or sever it for a cheap laugh.

The grand total of works has taken about 8 or 9 hours – some of which seems to have been pointless – and all of this could have been completed in a single day, even after they took four days to actually start any repair work.

I mean, seriously, WTF Telstra? We are paying you to deliver this kind of service?

As I suggested in my previous article:

“Waiting [nine] days for my phone line to be fixed is unacceptable, but typical. Ultimately, Telstra don’t care because there’s nowhere else I can go for a fixed copper line. NBN Co will have to care … and the legislation will compel them to maintain the network.”

Nine days Telstra, and it’s still not completed! And you’ve known about the problems in our street for years!

The sooner Telstra are not responsible for the network, the better!

Telstra Separation Goodness

With the passing in federal parliament on Monday of the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment Competition and Consumer Safeguards Bill 2010, the structural separation of Telstra is finally in sight, laying the foundations for the full establishment of the National Broadband Network (NBN).

Up until now I have held off making any comment since the passing of the legislation – I’ve been trying to absorb the ramifications and get my thoughts in order. Regular readers will be well aware of my position in support of the NBN, however the final form that the network will take is still somewhat fluid.

The passing of the bill starts to draw a more definite line around how it will appear as it is rolled out over the next decade. However, this legislation is about so much more than just the NBN.

It provides for the structural separation of Telstra, and even if the NBN was to never eventuate, the effective breakup of Telstra is a significant result for the telecommunications sector in this country. So what does this “structural separation” really mean?

Firstly, a quick history lesson.

In 1992, the then Australian Telecommunications Commission/Corporation (ATC, trading as “Telecom Australia”), and the Overseas Telecommunications Commission (OTC) were merged into the Australian and Overseas Telecommunications Corporation (AOTC, trading as “Telecom Australia”), and finally changed its name to “Telstra” in 1995 – (although the “Telstra Corporation” name had already been in use for their overall corporate activities, and offshore operations since April 1993).

The process to create the company we have today was started by former Prime Minister Paul Keating, while he was still Federal Treasurer in the Bob Hawke-leb Labor government. Keating was in favour of privatising the new company, but Hawke refused to allow it.

After Keating ousted Hawke and took over the Prime Ministership in 1991, the privatisation agenda was back on. However, it wasn’t until the era of the John Howard Liberal government that the company left government ownership, in three steps in 1997, 1999, and 2006.

The privatisation in and of itself was not a bad thing, but it was ill thought out. Suddenly, instead of having a government controlled monopoly telecommunications provider, we had a monopoly public company answerable to financial shareholders with a completely market dominant position, given that it owned upwards of 95% of all telecommunications infrastructure in Australia.

If you wanted to play in the telco space in Australia, you had to play ball with Telstra, who could effectively put any price on their wholesale offerings that they chose. To coin a phrase, they “had the market by the nuts”.

What should have happened was that the network arm of ATC and all of OTC be merged into a single entity, and the retail arm of ATC become another single entity. The retail arm should then absolutely have been sold, and the network operations either maintained as a government body, or sold separately to the retail operations.

In its current form, Telstra can – (and does) – put the pricing screws on competitors, to entrench their market position. Many telecommunications companies – (particularly smaller ones) – are charged wholesale prices higher than Telstra is charging its retail customers.

Hardly fair.

The ACCC, the competition watchdog in Australia, have brought many cases against Telstra in the intersuing years in regards to anti-competitive abuse of their market power. In most instances, the ACCC have either won, or Telstra have backed down.

Major ISP Internode through their managing director Simon Hackett, is in the midst of a very public spat with Telstra with respect to wholesale pricing.

So how does structural separation change things?

Well, with the NBN – a federal government enterprise – set to takeover as the owner and operator of the base network, Telstra will become a retail provider only. NBN Co will replace Telstra’s ancient 60-year-old copper network with optical fibre to 93% of Australia’s population, providing a quantum leap forward in capacity and technological possibilities.

For you and me the difference boils down to a simple equation.

Currently, Telstra has little or no incentive to improve/upgrade its copper network. Such an endeavour would be expensive – (the price tag for the NBN appears to be settling around the $36b mark) – and not in the interests of their shareholders. So it won’t happen, ever, while Telstra own the network. They’ll keep patching up what they’ve got, and they’ll always have customers, as they are the only provider available to most locations in Australia.

Fixed line is not their only source of revenue, so even if fixed line revenues drop by way of decreasing reliability, it doesn’t kill the company. Letting some parts of the network degrade is actually beneficial to them, because they aren’t spending as much money on running repairs.

Even as I write this article, my own Telstra supplied phone line at home has been out of action for almost five days due to water damage. Their workmen have only turned up this morning.

In a world where NBN Co own and run the network, their number one priority will be that network, as without it they don’t have revenue. Not only will it be their core business, it will be their only business.

Waiting five days for my phone line to be fixed is unacceptable, but typical. Ultimately, Telstra don’t care because there’s nowhere else I can go for a fixed copper line. NBN Co will have to care – yes they will still be a monopoly – but they still have to make money, and the legislation will compel them to maintain the network.

More than enough reason to support the NBN and the structural separation of Telstra, and celebrate what this piece of legislation means for Australia.