Telecommunications - News, Features, and Slideshows

News

• Victorian ESTA to upgrade core network

  The Victorian Emergency Services Telecommunications Authority (ESTA) has announced it is running a Core Network Services project aimed at integrating four of the organisation’s major sites.

• Telstra separation announced next Thursday?

  The eerie quiet that has descended over the once very public stoush between the Federal Government and Telstra (ASX:TLS) could be the clearest indication yet that a deal on the separation of the telco is close at hand.

• AFACT v iiNet: ISPs split on potential outcomes

  Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are waiting with bated breath as Justice Cowdroy is poised to hand down judgment on the legal wrangling between Perth-based iiNet and the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT) in the Federal Court in Sydney.

• Haiti digs out from communications disaster

  Carriers and aid workers are scrambling to rebuild communications in Haiti following the catastrophic Jan. 12 earthquake near the capital city of Port-au-Prince, which left many residents with no means of communicating inside or outside the country.

• China restores text messaging in cut-off Muslim region

  China has restored mobile text message services in a Western province where they were suspended for months following unrest. Limited Internet access is also returning to the region.

• ACMA outlines Telstra, Optus and AAPT performance

  The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has released commentary and analysis on the telecommunications performance of Telstra, Optus and AAPT over the 2008/09 financial year.

• IDC Telco Predictions 2010

  IDC has released its 2010 telco market predictions making the pretty safe bets that the Australian market will make a stable recover in 2010 and that the NBN Co and Telstra strike a deal. But believes that there’ll be no NBN fibre rollout on the mainland during the year.

• Budde: Worries remain over ISP-level content filter

  The Federal Government's decision to go ahead with a controversial ISP-level content filter will raise more questions than it answers, according to a leading telecommunications analyst.
  

• Technology fails asylum seekers

  Blocked websites and outdated ICT facilities continue to hinder the education and potential social integration of refugees and asylum seekers incarcerated in Sydney’s Villawood detention centre.

• ACCC to freeze access pricing

  The ACCC is to hold current pricing principles and indicative prices for fixed line services until 31 December 2010 while it carries out a review into telecommunications access pricing.

• Optus chief outlines telco "megatrends"

  Optus chief executive, Paul O’Sullivan, has flagged Optus’ vision of the "megatrends" that will drive the elecommunications industry. Detailing his view in a speech to the Committee for Economic Development Australia (CEDA), O’Sullivan said there was an explosion in bandwidth happening across all the major communications technologies.

• Thodey restructures Telstra

  Telstra CEO David Thodey has announced a shakeup of the company's structure which has seen the creation of two new product units to enable the telco to compete effectively in fixed and mobile markets.

• Record complaints for telecommunications industry, again

  Complaints from consumers and small businesses about phone and Internet providers rose 54 per cent in 2008-2009 over the previous 12 months, according to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO). In the TIO’s annual report, the Ombudsman, Deirdre O’Donnell, called for the industry to pick up its game as the level of complaints around customer service were still "unacceptably high".

• Nortel staff and customers to keep on waiting on fate of jobs and product roadmap

  Nortel employees won't find out their fate until mid-November and the vendor's customers will have to wait until at least the end of the year before they can see a new product roadmap, according to the company's Australian chief.

• Qwest to deploy network capable of 100Gbps

  Qwest Communications International is deploying equipment that will allow the carrier to deliver data at 100Gb per second (Gbps) all the way across its network to a customer's location.