[LINK] A non-sensationalist look at Australian internet speeds

[David Boxall]

<http://www.smh.com.au/technology/innovation/a-nonsensationalist-look-at-australian-internet-speeds-20160325-gnr0p7.html>
Australia has dropped down to 48th place in a global average broadband 
connection speed rankings list published by Akamai Technologies.

...
According to the report, the average broadband speed for Australia in 
the fourth quarter of 2015 was 8.2Mbps, putting it in the 48th spot 
(down from 46th) compared to the rest of the world.


In terms of average peak internet speeds, at 39.3Mbps, Australia fared 
far worse, plummeting to 60th position (down from 46th) in the quarter.

...
Australia's average and peak internet speeds have increased by 11 per 
cent and 6.4 per cent year-on-year, respectively.

...
With ABS data showing demand for bandwidth doubling every two years or 
so, that might be a problem.


--
David Boxall | "Cheer up" they said.
 | "Things could be worse."
http://david.boxall.id.au| So I cheered up and,
 | Sure enough, things got worse.
 |  --Murphy's musing
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Re: [LINK] A non-sensationalist look at Australian internet speeds

[JanW]

At 08:16 PM 25/03/2016, David Boxall wrote:

><http://www.smh.com.au/technology/innovation/a-nonsensationalist-look-at-australian-internet-speeds-20160325-gnr0p7.html>

I would just like to know why YouTube vids stop every 5 minutes. It's not my 
network connection/provider because it doesn't happen with other streaming 
services like Netflix. It's just Youtube. And of course if Youtube recognises 
there's a problem and shows me the Internode performance, there is nothing 
there to indicate it's an Internode problem.

As for speeds -- the avg is because the avg install is ADSL, with its plus or 
minus 8mbps top speed. If there has been increases month to month as the 
article says, that is the minor effect of people slowly slowly slowly being 
added to NBN type services.

Jan


I write books. http://janwhitaker.com/?page_id=8

Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
jw...@janwhitaker.com
Twitter: <https://twitter.com/JL_Whitaker>JL_Whitaker
Blog: www.janwhitaker.com 

Sooner or later, I hate to break it to you, you're gonna die, so how do you 
fill in the space between here and there? It's yours. Seize your space. 
~Margaret Atwood, writer 

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Re: [LINK] A non-sensationalist look at Australian internet speeds

[Frank O'Connor]

Actually I think the tone and (highly debatable that it exists) substance of 
the article was something along the lines of “Yeah bandwidth in Australia is 
abysmal, and yeah it doesn’t look like the NBN is gonna make it hugely better, 
but (he inserts BIG non sequitur here) in those countries that do have great 
speeds and internet they have censorship regimes that mean they don’t get all 
the content we get in a  free society.”

So, what he ostensibly does is admit Australia’s infrastructure is crap, and 
that the replacement infrastructure is gonna be a similar type of excrement, 
but says ‘at least we’re free to use the crap we have for whatever we want’. If 
so, this should have been filed under a political heading rather than a 
technology one.

To my mind … its not an argument for anything and a pointless filler on the 
part of Fairfax. Perhaps the standard of their editorial staff has reached new 
lows and they are simply desperate for content that their steadily shrinking 
stable of journalists can’t provide.

Just my 2 cents worth

> On 26 Mar 2016, at 8:50 AM, JanW  wrote:
> 
> At 08:16 PM 25/03/2016, David Boxall wrote:
> 
>> <http://www.smh.com.au/technology/innovation/a-nonsensationalist-look-at-australian-internet-speeds-20160325-gnr0p7.html>
> 
> I would just like to know why YouTube vids stop every 5 minutes. It's not my 
> network connection/provider because it doesn't happen with other streaming 
> services like Netflix. It's just Youtube. And of course if Youtube recognises 
> there's a problem and shows me the Internode performance, there is nothing 
> there to indicate it's an Internode problem.
> 
> As for speeds -- the avg is because the avg install is ADSL, with its plus or 
> minus 8mbps top speed. If there has been increases month to month as the 
> article says, that is the minor effect of people slowly slowly slowly being 
> added to NBN type services.
> 
> Jan
> 
> 
> I write books. http://janwhitaker.com/?page_id=8
> 
> Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
> jw...@janwhitaker.com
> Twitter: <https://twitter.com/JL_Whitaker>JL_Whitaker
> Blog: www.janwhitaker.com 
> 
> Sooner or later, I hate to break it to you, you're gonna die, so how do you 
> fill in the space between here and there? It's yours. Seize your space. 
> ~Margaret Atwood, writer 
> 
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Re: [LINK] A non-sensationalist look at Australian internet speeds

[JanW]

At 09:48 AM 26/03/2016, Frank O'Connor you wrote:
>To my mind … its not an argument for anything and a pointless  filler on the 
>part of Fairfax. Perhaps the standard of their editorial staff has reached new 
>lows and they are simply desperate for content that their steadily shrinking 
>stable of journalists can’t provide. 

Made me look up the writer, 

Spandas Lui

Started in Lifehacker section of Fairfax in 2015. Gets a byline but not a link 
to other articles, which is interesting. A quick search shows her to be in all 
the 'right' social media places if you want more info on her background.
Commenters have pushed back - hard.

Fairfax is dying. Their best journos jumped ship long ago, moving to places 
where scrutiny is valued. Murdoch press will follow.

Jan


I write books. http://janwhitaker.com/?page_id=8

Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
jw...@janwhitaker.com
Twitter: JL_Whitaker
Blog: www.janwhitaker.com 

Sooner or later, I hate to break it to you, you're gonna die, so how do you 
fill in the space between here and there? It's yours. Seize your space. 
~Margaret Atwood, writer 

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[LINK] Where is the GOV.AU Alpha prototype?

[Tom Worthington]

The Digital Transformation Office released a "prototype" of GOV.AU: 
http://dto.us10.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=18f172213d32ca205c7e524bd&id=33ca021784&e=094181f64a


But where is the GOV.AU Alpha prototype? I followed the link to 
http://www.gov.au/alpha/ but that was just describing some aspects, not 
a functional gov.au website.


The term "prototype" refers to a functional system. If instead DTO are 
releasing a set of example screens showing typical use (such as "Matt 
starts a business"), this is a "mockup" not a prototype.


What DTO seems to have mocked-up is only a tiny fraction of the gov.au 
web site, which is like designing the the cup-holders for a car and 
claiming it is a prototype of the whole vehicle.


At ANU I help mentor and assess student software projects and start-ups. 
A team of three to five students undertake six to twelve month projects. 
The GOV.AU Alpha prototype looks similar to what the students produce 
after their first few weeks work. I had expected much more of DTO. 
Perhaps the government could have students do the mock-ups: 
https://cs.anu.edu.au/TechLauncher/industry.html



--
Tom Worthington FACS CP, TomW Communications Pty Ltd. t: 0419496150
The Higher Education Whisperer http://blog.highereducationwhisperer.com/
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia  http://www.tomw.net.au
Liability limited by a scheme approved under Professional Standards 
Legislation


Adjunct Lecturer, Research School of Computer Science, College of 
Engineering & Computer Science, Australian National University

http://people.cecs.anu.edu.au/user/3890 http://orcid.org/-0003-4799-8464
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Re: [LINK] Where is the GOV.AU Alpha prototype?

[Scott Howard]

On Fri, Mar 25, 2016 at 4:29 PM, Tom Worthington <
tom.worthing...@tomw.net.au> wrote:

> The Digital Transformation Office released a "prototype" of GOV.AU:
> http://dto.us10.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=18f172213d32ca205c7e524bd&id=33ca021784&e=094181f64a
>
> But where is the GOV.AU Alpha prototype?


Scroll down a screen or two and click on the "Start" button.  (eg, the one
under Start a Business)

  Scott
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Re: [LINK] A non-sensationalist look at Australian internet speeds

[Frank O'Connor]

> On 26 Mar 2016, at 10:28 AM, JanW  wrote:
> 
> Fairfax is dying. Their best journos jumped ship long ago, moving to places 
> where scrutiny is valued. Murdoch press will follow.
> 

Mmmm … I’ve noticed that. There are still a few worth reading (Michael West, 
Kate McKlymont, Adele Ferguson etc etc) but there’s a long coterie of younger 
bods that seem to have trouble distinguishing between 
government/industry/political public relations and real news.

As an example, Nicole Hashem did a piece yesterday on people ‘ripping off’ DFAT 
overseas by taking out emergency loans (for emergency medical treatment and the 
like) and not repaying them. Apparently the cost of this heinous activity in 
one year alone amounted to $215,000, and some people even took out loans for a 
whole $15,000 and didn’t repay them. No mention of course that this is 
precisely what DFAT is supposed to do for Australian passport holders (it’s 
part of their job description), and that DFAT makes approximately $240 million 
per annum from those of us who take out or renew passports - aside from what 
they get from the government. It looked like the whole article was a neocon 
plant written simply to make out that Joe Hockey's ‘leaners' were taking 
advantage of the DFAT lifters again. It looked like it was written by DFAT.

Another example, Nassim Khadem has been on the back of the ATO generally for 
more than 2 years now on the subject of taxpayer’s rights (you know, those 
things neocons promote for multi-nationals and the Big End of Town, but deny to 
the rest of us), and lauding the ‘Inspector General of Taxation’ (God I love 
that pretentious title!). She’s been essentially cheerleading for the tax 
avoidance industry and using the Big 4 accounting firms, perennial tax avoiders 
and those who don’t pay their tax to support her commitment to the cause. She’s 
moderated her approach recently (as nasties concerning the tax avoidance crowd 
she’s so enamoured with keep surfacing with monotonous regularity) … but now 
the bottom is falling out of the revenue, I guess she feels 'her work is done’.

Bottom line; Of late I look to the Age and the SMH for far more trite and PR 
handout driven articles and analysis than was customary in the past. Fairfax is 
fast losing its edge, and as you say a lot of good Fairfax journalists have 
migrated to media which appreciates their talents. 

Sign of the times I suppose … paper really is dead, and most of the incisive 
and hard edged journalism is moving to digital, blogs, twitter and the like. I 
thought years ago that hubs for news and opinion would appear, places where 
content was aggregated and (sadly) tailored for individual consumers/readers … 
but it’s all happening faster than even I predicted. Now all they need to do is 
find a business model that works … but I subscribe to a few of them for actual 
money, advertisers seem to be coming onboard, and I’m guessing we’ll push to 
some public funding or other model in future.

The good thing is that Rupert (who’s digital efforts have not been particularly 
successful - some would argue disastrous) and his maniacal right wing neocon 
outlets will also be subsumed in the conflagration, and that his content 
business (Foxtel, film production, national geographic) will have to actually 
fight for online space with far more nimble, distributed and offbeat content 
distribution competitors … but it’s sad to see a once proud mainstream media 
company like Fairfax going down in flames.

Just my 2 cents worth …
---
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