NBN Co adds apartments to FTTP rollout. Build a business case: developing custom apps NBN Co – via Telstra Wholesale – has revealed which apartment blocks will be the first to get FTTP under commercial trials of a rollout plan designed to thwart cherry-picking by competitors.
The Telstra Wholesale rollout publication (PDF or Excel, here) obliquely identifies suburbs in Sydney (Millers Point and Haymarket), Melbourne (Docklands and South Melbourne) and Brisbane (Teneriffe in Fortitude Valley, and New Farm) as reaching ready-for-service status on 24 September 2014. The move is formally designated a commercial trial, and will cover a total of around 2,000 premises within the connected MDUs (multi-dwelling units). SubPartners confirms plan for Perth-Sydney sub cable. Australia is to get its fourth Perth-Sydney fibre connection, but it's got a twist: instead of thousands of kilometres of trenching, SubPartners is planning a submarine cable for the build.
Designed to connect to its planned APX-West Perth-Singapore cable, the APX-Central will skip around Western Australia's south-western peninsula and swing past Albany, then head east across the Great Australian Bight, south to round Tasmania (with a branch to Hobart), then head north to Sydney. The company notes that branches to Adelaide and possibly Melbourne are options for the future, although co-founder Bevan Slattery last week told the Sydney Australasia Submarine Cable and Bandwidth Forum that SubPartners won't be offering interstate connections.
Nstruction industry outlook is bad news for Turnbull's alt.NBN plan. When Senator Stephen Conroy, Australia's former Communications Minister and the man who drove the early years of the nation's National Broadband Network (NBN) build, recently admitted that the rollout targets he signed off for the network's construction were too ambitious it was taken as further evidence his failings.
Australian pub to serve beers for bitcoin. A 107-year-old Australian pub has decided to accept the world's newest currency: Bitcoin.
Garry Pasfield, publican at The Old Fitzroy in Sydney's bohemian inner city suburb of Woolloomoloo told The Reg he likes the idea of getting in early on Bitcoin. Pasfield said he's no idea if Bitcoin will take off, but likes the idea of being among the first to accept it as payment. “I am interested in bitcoin because it is progressive,” he said. He also thinks it is a finger in the eye of Australia's big banks, four of which make colossal profits and are often felt to squeeze out smaller competitors. Australia's unemployment rate climbs to 5.8 per cent to its highest level in four years. By business reporter Pat McGrath Updated Thu 12 Sep 2013, 7:28pm AEST Australia's unemployment rate has climbed to a post-global financial crisis high of 5.8 per cent, in line with economists' forecasts.
The figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show the jobless rate edged up by 0.1 per cent in August. Full-time jobs fell by 2,600, while 8,200 part-time jobs were lost. But there was an increase in the total number of hours worked during the month. It increased by 1.1 million hours to 1.65 billion hours. Youth unemployment climbed to 17.3 per cent, its highest level since October 2010. Unemployment has been rising since November last year, and is now just 0.1 per cent below the peak seen during the depths of the global financial crisis four years ago. The participation rate, which measures the number of people working or looking work, fell by 0.1 per cent to a near seven-year low of 65 per cent. Australia's economic growth better than forecast. 4 September 2013Last updated at 03:31 GMT Australia's central bank has in recent months lowered borrowing costs to a record low Australia has reported better-than-forecast growth numbers for the April to June quarter, boosted by gains in consumer spending.
Its gross domestic product (GDP) expanded 2.6% during the quarter, from a year earlier. Compared with the previous quarter, growth was 0.6%. Most forecasts were for an annual growth closer to 2.5%. Analysts said the data was likely to see the Australian central bank hold back on easing its policies further. "This is probably a touch above what the Reserve Bank of Australia was expecting and this would decrease the probability of a near term rate cut," said Matthew Johnson, an interest rate strategist at UBS. Wall Street Journal: Australian Housing a Bright Spot in Weak Economy. Oz retailers crying wolf over incomplete data. High performance access to file storage The Australian Bureau of Statistics has inadvertently re-ignited Australia's Internet shopping debate by trying to get a handle on how much Australians might be spending online.
The scale of Australia's Internet retail is ill measured and hotly debated, not least because bricks-and-mortar retailers squealing the “Internet ate my homework” when explaining any dip in sales, then asking for a rework of the tax regime in their favour to stop offshore raiders stealing their customers. The object of retailers' resentment is the Australian Customs Service, which decided long ago that collecting Australia's ten per cent Goods and Services Tax (GST) on imports under $AU1,000 is a waste of time and money. NSC Group slurped by Telstra. High performance access to file storage Telstra has acquired voice systems integrator NSC Group, saying it will integrate the 230-head unified communications and contact centre specialist into its Network Application and Services business.
The 1989-founded NSC – founded as North Shore Connections and at the time a Sydney PABX dealer – claims 600 customers in Australia, New Zealand and the Asia Pacific. The company passed the 100-staff mark in 2002, and in 2004 took on Avaya as its key vendor. It also has Gold Partner status with Microsoft and signed on with ShoreTel in 2011.