Infrastructure - was Re: [LINK] 'Smart' cars as fuel-efficient as hybrids & [link] fibre & [link] Broadband & [link]Narrowcasting

Wed May 16 08:40:48 AEST 2007

Jan Whitaker wrote:
> At 10:02 PM 15/05/2007, Eleanor Lister wrote:
> 
>> i know some folk will say that they live in places that never will have
>> much public transport, or they need to be able to go to various places
>> by some whimsical route, so clean up their cars, let them drive .... but
>> keep them out of cities, have carparks at the transport nexii around the
>> edges of the cities.
> 
> 
> I'm with you on this, EL. I just sent an email to my MLC in Victoria 
> about our line. And Paul Mees at Melbourne Uni just said tonight on TV 
> that the rail lines stopped being extended in the 1930s!! That is 
> disgraceful! My point to my member was that the petrol price increase 
> has made the train more attractive -- but there is NO more parking at 
> any local station. Our bus services are woeful, adding at least 30 
> minutes to get to the station, which is only a 10 minute drive for me, 
> including parking and walking a short distance, increasing a 1 hour+ 
> commute to at least 1.5 hours. There is a limit on extra services that 
> can be added because of the merging of three lines onto one tunnel line 
> PLUS VLine from the Gippsland regional areas. We are to get a third 
> railline from Dandenong in a few years <yawn>.
> 
> And your point about the various places is real. Melbourne is hub/spoke 
> -- all lines lead to Melbourne. To get to a different part of compass is 
> nearly impossible by train.
> 
> Now, coming from a place that had NO trains/light rail, just busses that 
> were even worse than useless, this is heaven. But if you have to live in 
> the outer burbs because that's all you can afford, the answers are few 
> and far between.

the problem of urban sprawl/quarter acre block idea is a disaster - just 
look at Canberra/Perth and LA...

In Sydney busses now run along the old tram routes...and trams on the 
old train lines
"The chronic run-down of capital maintenance and technological 
investment following the Depression and during World War 2, going 
hand-in-hand with the advent of the private motor car and diesel buses, 
saw the wholesale abandonment of tramways in the 1950s."
<http://www.railpage.org.au/tram/goddmack.html>

> 
> to put it back on topic for link, did anyone else hear Phil Burgess of 
> Telstra saying they will have a 45Mb video link service? Gee, as if that 
> level of resolution is at all required. 256kb to 512kb is just fine for 
> most communication. He's just a snob. 45Mb is near broadcast quality. 
> What an ASSS!!!! Just their way of overcharging for unnecessary 
> bandwidth. I guess Telstra shareholders would be proud. He's a lousy 
> technologist. Oh, and it won't reduce meetings. Australia is in love 
> with jets. I've never seen so much commuting for wasteful meetings as I 
> see here. One I was involved in recently flew all but 2 attendees of a 
> group of about 9 to Sydney. One third were based in Canberra as far as I 
> know, maybe more.
> 

Yes, I saw big Phil on the 7.30 report along with  bright eyed and bushy 
tailed Stephen and do you think I know what I am talking about Helen and 
the bloke from the ACCC hopefully contemplating whether this is a 
consumer or a competition issue.

In response to Phil's threat of taking their money OS, as a minor share 
holder in Telstra - I think they should diversify their portfolio and 
Invest elsewhere.
Further, Telstra is not the largest Telco in Australia -

"Singapore, 8 May 2007 -- Singapore Telecommunications Limited (SingTel) 
[OWNER OF OPTUS] today announced that the aggregate number of mobile 
subscribers in the region, including its associates, has increased to 
124 million as at 31 March 2007.  This is the largest mobile customer 
base in Asia outside of China."
<http://home.singtel.com/news_centre/news_releases/2007_05_08.asp>

"Vodafone is the largest mobile telecommunications network company in 
the world, with equity interests in 25 countries and Partner Networks in 
a further 36 countries. At 31 December 2006, Vodafone had approximately 
198.6 million proportionate customers worldwide."
<http://www.vodafone.com/start/investor_relations/vodafone_at_a_glance.html>

Is it possible we can be duped twice - the perfectly good Telstra 
(&optus) cable is still sitting in my and many other streets around 
Australia  unused! Why fork out for another Legacy technology. The 
nearest fibre optics should come to the home is in the form of those 
horrid lamps of the 70's and even then it is debatable!

Why can't we have wireless subscriber TV....we already have subscriber 
satellite TV?

Of interest and relevance

> The Third ACM International Workshop on Wireless Multimedia Networking
> and Performance Modeling (WMuNeP'07) will be a one-day workshop, held in
> conjunction with the 10th Annual ACM Symposium on Modeling, Analysis and
> Simulation of Wireless and Mobile Systems (MSWiM?07). The demand for
> wireless multimedia communications thrives in today's consumer and
> corporate market. The need to evolve multimedia applications and
> services, and their associated protocols for emerging networks is at a
> critical point given the proliferation and integration of wireless
> systems to intelligent and broadband networks, mobility of people,
> data/voice convergence and the integration of computing and
> communication in mobile devices.
> 
> This workshop is devoted to cover different aspects of wireless
> multimedia networking and performance modeling for WLANs, WPANs, WMANs,
> WWANs, MANETs and sensor networks such as wireless video and wireless
> streaming, systematic design methodologies, algorithms, synchronization,
> analysis and performance modeling. The workshop will provide a forum for
> researchers and practitioners to present their contributions related to
> the above high-level aspects.
> 
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
> TOPICS
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Topics of interest include (but are not limited to):
> 
> -Wireless multimedia network management
> -Wireless multimedia traffic modeling
> -Middleware and reflective systems support for wireless multimedia
> -Proxy-based systems for video transcoding and content distribution
> -Performance modeling, monitoring and evaluation of wireless multimedia networks
> and systems
> -Multipoint, multicast wireless multimedia services
> -Deployment of wireless multimedia applications, services and networks
> -Protocols for wireless multimedia networks
> -QoS and Resource Allocation in wireless multimedia networks
> -Integration of wireless multimedia networks to broadband networks
> -End-to-end IP multimedia wireless communications
> -Coding and transmission for wireless multimedia networks
> -Distributed wireless multimedia services
> -Content-based wireless multimedia information retrieval tools
> -Video, streaming, real-time wireless multimedia communications and applications
> Security in wireless multimedia networks
> -Wireless multimedia right protection and watermarking
> -Pricing mechanisms for wireless multimedia networks
> -E-Commerce and related applications for wireless multimedia networks
> -Multimedia evaluation and processing for wireless networks
> -Cross layer design for wireless multimedia networks
> -Software tools for system performance and evaluation of wireless multimedia
> networks
> -Case studies showing the role of evaluation in the design of systems
> 
<snip>
> Program committee of the workshop can be found in the following URL:
> _http://wmunep2007.cti.gr/committees.php_
> 

-- 
Marghanita da Cruz
http://www.ramin.com.au/
Telephone: 0414-869202