A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets and in the media and places — and what a productive week it has been!
Articles
- You know super-fast ain’t so super: Optus, and…
- ACCC says Optus pitch is misleading, for ZDNet.com.au, both covering the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s case in the Federal Court in Sydney against Singtel Optus for allegedly misleading or deceptive advertising. I particularly like Optus’ lawyer saying that broadband is not a bottle of shampoo, and the argument that even if an advertisement is technically misleading in and of itself this can still be “cured” with more information later in the sales process. The judge’s decision is expected early in the coming week.
- Turnbull v Conroy: how Coalition broadband plan stacks up, for Crikey, comparing the Coalition’s new broadband policy with the Labor government’s National Broadband Network.
Podcasts
- Patch Monday episode 62, “Why can’t Labor sell the NBN’s benefits?”. I reckon that Labor has been crap at selling the concept of the NBN. After running through the week’s NBN-related political news, I cover some ideas for broadband applications that might help sell the thing.
- A Series of Tubes episode 118. Karl Horne from Ciena talks about that company’s views on traffic growth and network architecture, and I rabbit on about the spate of anti-NBN scare stories in The Australian, the new USO (Universal Service Obligation) inquiry, and the ACCC’s proposed inquiry into ADSL wholesale service prices.
Media Appearances
- On Monday I was interviewed by community radio’s current affairs program The Wire about the NBN. An audio file is available.
- On Wednesday I did a quick spot on ABC Radio Statewide NSW with Paul Turton, covering the ACCC v Singtel Optus hearing and also the death of Limewire’s file sharing service. It wasn’t recorded, sorry.
- On Friday I was interview by Melbourne’s SYN Radio about — you guessed it! — the NBN. I’ll see if I can get hold of an audio file.
Geekery
- We finished a batch of updates for the website at Nolans Road, including adding the new home page and some pages for Dee Nolan’s lush new book, A Food Lover’s Pilgrimage to Santiago De Compostela. Nothing earth-shattering, just some routine updates to an existing site.
Corporate Largesse
- HTC threw a more-than-adequate BBQ with plenty of drinks for the Australian launch of the HTC Desire HD smartphone. The venue was the Astral Bar and Restaurant at Star City Casino.
Elsewhere
Most of my day-to-day observations are on my high-volume Twitter stream, and random photos and other observations turn up on my Posterous stream. The photos also appear on Flickr, where I eventually add geolocation data and tags.
[Photo: Sydney CBD at dusk, taken from the Astral Bar and Restaurant on level 17 of the Star City Casino in Pyrmont.]
