[LINK] National Broadband Network - except it's not national.

[Kim Holburn]

I have to agree with Roger.

I remember years ago when there was a huge fight with Telstra, perhaps  
it was called Telecom then, about timed local calls.  The customers  
won at that time but clearly the telecoms have won that now.  All  
calls to or from mobiles are timed.

Here's some interesting comparisons:
SMS: the cost of SMS text is roughly US1500 per KB
http://gthing.net/the-true-price-of-sms-messages/

I'm sure you could do a similar costing for voice calls data rates.  I  
can't find one off-hand in googleland.  My rough calculation would be  
about AU$5 per MB for a mobile voice call.  (2KB/sec at 60 cents / 
min).  The telcos deliberately make it very hard to do this  
calculation but it's way more than normal internet data rates.

The problem is that the incumbent telecoms are sitting on a gold mine  
and have an interest in stopping or slowing internet broadband.  So in  
many ways do content distributors.  Telstra-Foxtel would have a  
doubled interest then.

As far as cell phone call quality goes there was an article in New  
Scientist where they were examining why talking on a cell phone was so  
dangerous while driving a car.  They found out that if you have a good  
clear connection (like a land line quality connection) then talking on  
the phone was not so dangerous.  When you are talking on a connection  
with the same quality as a normal mobile call your reactions were  
seriously slowed.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg18725105.000-the-real-reason-cars-and-cellphones-do-not-mix.html

On 2010/May/07, at 11:02 AM, Roger Clarke wrote:

> At 10:31 +1000 7/5/10, Tom Worthington wrote:
>> ... mobile services are now cheap enough and
>> normal enough that few would bother with [a dual mobile and cordless
>> landline handset].
>
> It seems that people generally do think that "mobile services are now
> cheap enough".
>
> Without having gone back to my old records, it seems to me that:
>
> -   many people are paying quite a lot for 'call from lots of places,
>     lots of the time' (more on that below).  That's a service not
>     provided by landlines, so we don't have a prior price-comparison
>
> -   people are paying a lot more to 'call from fixed locations,
>     but use a mobile phone to do it'
>
> -   people are paying a great deal more when they call from a
>     landline but can only reach the target via the target's mobile,
>     e.g. because the person doesn't have a landline any more
>
> Even with the current plunge in value, I'm sitting happily on my
> Telstra shares, picking up dividends of 8.25% p.a. on funds employed
> ...
>
>
> Re mobile service-quality:
>
> I continue to regard it as appalling.  I frequently encounter
> connection difficulties, dropouts, people who don't have a
> functioning answering-machine arrangement, and poor sound-quality.
> (I'm talking about reaching other people's mobiles from a landline.
> I have a genuine need for a mobile phone half-a-dozen times p.a. and
> either borrow someone else's or go without).
>
> Recently, I was sitting with my nephew in the centre of Picton (one
> of the first major towns out of Sydney, good red-neck country).  His
> mobile phone didn't have coverage.  (He uses 3 - in order to get an
> affordable iPhone.  He said he understands that 3 uses Optus towers
> and has comparable coverage to Optus.  I haven't checked that out).
>
> The even bigger surprise to me was that he just shrugged his
> shoulders.  That seemed to partly reflect his Generation (he's 18),
> but also the fact that he often encounters out-of-range problems,
> even though he lives in the now-heavily-urbanised Macarthur area (5km
> from Campbelltown, a major satellite, 50km south of Sydney).
>
>
> -- 
> Roger Clarke                                 http://www.rogerclarke.com/
>
> Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd      78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611  
> AUSTRALIA
>                    Tel: +61 2 6288 1472, and 6288 6916
> mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au                http://www.xamax.com.au/
>
> Visiting Professor in the Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre      Uni of  
> NSW
> Visiting Professor in Computer Science    Australian National  
> University
> _______________________________________________
> Link mailing list
> Link at mailman.anu.edu.au
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-- 
Kim Holburn
IT Network & Security Consultant
T: +61 2 61402408  M: +61 404072753
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