State of the Australian Internet: Introduction

7:41 Sep 27th, 2009 | 0 notes

The telecommunications industry in Australia is characterized by immense development and progress in wireless technology. Our cell carriers operate nearly solely on 3G bands, with GPRS networks picking up the slack when it’s not available. The archaic CDMA network was switched off several years ago. Competition between the tier one carriers (Telstra, Vodafone, Optus and Three) has driven prices down on mobile broadband and led to a competitive pay-as-you-go market.

However, all this change and progress has come at the price of, in my opinion, the traditional terrestrial internet. In this series of blog posts I will explore choice within the Australian internet market, speed, bandwidth caps, cost, the emerging wireless market, and the future of the consumer market.

In short, the wired broadband market falls short of what consumers expect, what the internet offers and what the rest of the world enjoys. The next few years could define the Australian market as one which plans to keep up with the world, or one which stagnates, free from the diversity and competition demanded by consumers.

Coming soon: Part One: Choice

Don’t Lower The Voting Age

11:25 Jul 27th, 2009 | 1 note

35 years ago, the compulsory voting age for Australians was lowered from 21 to 18 year-olds. Since it was before my time, I can only guess that it would have caused some back and forth argument. Since I am alive now to witness another attempt to lower the voting age, I can voice my opinion that lowering the voting age to 16 or 17 would be a mistake.

Look at it this way: count the number of teenagers you know who care about politics. If the teenagers you know are like the teenagers I know, you will be able count the ones who care with one hand. The truth is; teenagers don’t care about politics. The reason why? 16 and 17 year-olds are not fully fledged members of society. We can’t get a bank/debit/credit card without parental permission, we can’t get a home loan, we can’t buy a house, we can’t pay bills, we can’t get a passport without our parents, we can’t join the armed services full time and we can’t stand for public office.  We can’t do anything. Ignoring the civil activities we 16 and 17 year-olds can’t do, there are also a slew of government services and departments that have no use to us such as the Department of Families, Housing and Community Services, the Department of Health and Aging, the Department of Human Services and anything to do with finance. Simply put 16 and 17 year-olds aren’t adults, we don’t care about any of this stuff. Until the time comes when we can do all of the above, when we are counted as adults, there is no adequate reason any government can use to justify lowering the voting age.

Along with this, the government needs to realize that 16 and 17 year-olds aren’t informed about politics enough to make a decision about who should run the country. Granted, that could be said about much of the electorate. So with that in mind, would it really be a good idea to make more uninformed people vote on the future of the country? No it wouldn’t. Once again, talk to the teenagers you know. More often than not they will say they don’t care about politics and will roll off a long incoherent spiel on how all politicians are “****ing ****wits who should be shot.” Adding 551,093 (Census, 2006) underage voters to the electorate is no way to improve a democracy that is perfectly healthy. This is a circumstance where it’s not broken, so don’t try to fix it.

Finally, I want the government to realize who they will be asking to vote should this plan come into fruition. Giving such a responsibility to 16 and 17 year-olds is giving another responsibility to students already stressed from the thought of going into higher school exams. As one of these average students, I don’t want this added stress. I want to concentrate on my future, not the future of the nation. The vote shouldn’t be given to us. We aren’t doing anything to help the country yet. We‘re still learning, still forming our values and opinions and still discovering the world around us. Let us keep those two years to find our footing in the world, to experience what the federal government can do for us.

Give us those two years, then we’ll get back to you on where our vote will go.

The post relates to this news item.

Update on the Australian Student… Netbooks

6:10 May 4th, 2009 | 1 note

Yay sources! Today I found out that testing of the student laptops would begin soon, with selected teachers from New South Wales pilot schools to be receiving them in the near future. I also managed to get this helpful pamphlet about the laptops detailing more of their specs and pre-installed software.

It has finally been confirmed that the laptops are not laptops. They are netbooks. I don’t think the government realize just how significant the difference is. Note the quote on the first page:

“Considering the device size these are impressive specifications.”

Sorry to burst your bubble Mr Deputy Director-General of Schooling, but they’re not. An Intel Atom processor? Are you kidding me?! What happened to these laptops costing $2200 each to make, or being “powerful enough for the IT needs of today’s students”? You’re handing me bronze and tell me its gold! If you honestly think that such a slow processor is powerful for what you want it for then you obviously haven’t look at computers since the late 90s.

The netbooks are the Lenovo IdeaPad S10e. Fine as a secondary computer, terrible if you want students to use them stand alone.

Here’s where the big problems arise: the installed software. Well, it’s not the software itself. It’s the combination of the resource demanding software coupled with the incredibly low power netbook hardware. Here is the installed software:

  • Adobe Photoshop Elements
  • Adobe Premier Elements
  • Adobe Acrobat Professional Extended
  • Adobe Flash CS4 Professional
  • Adobe Dreamweaver CS4
  • Adobe Presenter
  • Adobe Captivate CS4
  • Adobe Fireworks
  • Adobe Contribute
  • Adobe Device Central, Version Cue and Bridge CS4
  • Microsoft Office 2007 Professional

Now that’s quite an impressive list I admit. I wish I had all of that. What I love is how stingy Adobe were with Photoshop and Premier! Undoubtedly the two most used Adobe applications and they give students the dumbed down versions.

Truth is, it doesn’t matter. If the Government think that those machines will run Photoshop (let alone Premier) and the rest of CS4 at an adequate standard then they are sadly mistaken. In the end, this is another attempt by the Australian government to play catch up with some of the education systems across the world. These netbooks won’t sustain students through their schooling. These netbooks are not the latest most powerful technology, they have specifications from computers nearly 5 years old. These netbooks won’t be able to keep up with the IT needs of students and they most certainly won’t solve any of the problems they set out to achieve.

I’m not saying that these machines are useless, far from it. They are a fantastic device for email, web browsing, listening to music but by no means were they built to run Photoshop or or edit video. What I’m saying is that what we as students were promised was technology that will meet our needs. The government outlined those needs by installing CS4 on the them. Unfortunately, a netbook just doesn’t cut it.

What we’re left with is just an expensive exercise in PR.

So in the end it’s true. The fantastic dream of high powered technological classrooms will stay just that, a dream. Instead, politics and rhetoric have gotten in the way of reality. Again.