news Troubled Canadian device manufacturer Research in Motion has made the new version of its operating system available to Australian customers, with the new platform being approved already for Government use and telcos Optus and Vodafone making it available to customers.

BlackkBerry OS 7.1 adds a number of new features to BlackBerry handsets such as the Bold 9900, the Torch 9860 and 9810 and the Curve 9360, such as BlackBerry Tag, which lets BlackBerry users with Near-Field Communications chips embedded in their smartphones tap their handsets against each other to share information, or pair their device with a Bluetooth device enabled for NFC. NFC is gradually being used across Australia to make small transactions with smartphones and other enabled devices.

The update will also let Australian customers turn their BlackBerry into a mobile hotspot that can be shared by up to five Wi-Fi-enabled devices, including, for example, laptops and tablets. This feature has been available to smartphone users with Google’s Android or Apple’s iOS platform for some time. It is commonly used to share a smartphone’s Internet connection to a laptop or tablet, meaning users don’t need to pay for an extra 3G mobile broadband connection for those devices.

Other new features include additions to the Universal Search capability found on BlackBerrys, as well as the ability to use the Curve 9360’s built-in FM radio. “The FM radio circuitry is already built in to the Curve 9360 model and BlackBerry 7.1 provides users with a new app that allows them to tune in and enjoy local FM radio stations,” said a statement from Research in Motion this morning. “Listening to the FM radio does not require a data plan or count as data usage.”

Customers who want to upgrade their handsets to OS 7.1 are able to do so by connecting their smartphone to their PC through a USB connection and updating the software manually. “BlackBerry 7.1 is now available from Vodafone and Optus,” RIM said this morning. “Devices powered by BlackBerry 7 OS – the BlackBerry Bold™ 9900, Torch 9860 & 9810 and Curve 9360 – are compatible for the upgrade.” Telstra has not clarified whether it will allow the update.

RIM also announced this morning that the Defence Signals Directorate, which certifies technology for government use, had already certified OS 7.1 for use by Australian Government agencies. “The certification from the DSD affirms that the BlackBerry 7 Operating System meets the Australian and New Zealand Government’s strict security standards for a wide range of the Governments’ information classifications, representing the majority of day-to-day operational communications,” said RIM.

“BlackBerry 7.0 and 7.1 Operating Systems, when used in accordance with Government guidance, can be used to secure information with a classification of up to and including PROTECTED for the Australian Government and up to and including RESTRICTED for the New Zealand Government.”

DSD also recently approved devices running version 5 of Apple’s iOS platform (including iPads and iPhones) for classified government communications, after a lengthy evaluation period and the production of a detailed security ‘hardening’ guide for the popular mobile products.

However, despite the fact that Google’s Android platform is rapidly outstripping RIM’s BlackBerry OS as the second major mobile platform of choice (along with Apple’s iOS) in Australia, last year DSD clarified it hadn’t yet started evaluating Android for use within the public sector just yet — seeing no immediate need.

The news also comes as RIM has recently been showcasing version 10 of its BlackBerry OS platform, which is expected to feature a radically overhauled user interface compared to previous versions.

opinion/analysis
It’s fascinating to see how streamlined the process of updating RIM’s BlackBerry software is in Australia, compared with Google’s Android. The company just issues one media release, on one day, with most of the major mobile carriers and the Government’s peak IT security agency already on board. Bingo! You get a new BlackBerry operating system.

In comparison, the situation with Android is so ridiculously convoluted that Vodafone has actually set up a whole page so that users can see what version of Android they can get on what device. And rumours persist of carriers such as Telstra being so frustrated with the Android updating process for their customers that they are considering dumping the platform altogether (although I don’t really believe this would actually happen).

Apple’s iOS platform, of course, is a dream to update. I updated my iPhone 4 to a new point release last night – all it took was hitting ‘yes’ on a prompt or two on the device itself, and Bob’s your uncle.

This release also makes me consider what the future of Australian enterprise mobile communications would look like, particularly in the public sector, if RIM’s financial and market share problems finally hit home and the company was sold or broken up somehow. The amount of BlackBerrys in use in Australia’s public sector, in particular, must be huge by now; at least in the hundreds of thousands.

It would be fascinating to see how departments and agencies around the nation would deal with a dying RIM; would DSD face increasing pressure to certify Android? Would Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 platform get a strong boost from public sector use? Or would Apple’s iPhone (already certified, after all), simply be moved in en-masse to replace the BlackBerry? It would be fascinating to find out, although I’m sure it’s a fate RIM would much rather avoid ;)

Image credit: Research in Motion

No related posts.

The following photos were sent in by a number of readers over the past few weeks who wanted to show the other side of Telstra’s copper telecommunications network. It’s not all degradation and disaster out there, as these photos of well-maintained telephone exchanges show. Not much of it looks very ‘modern’, but it’s all functioning, clean, well-maintained equipment in good order. If you’ve got any more photos of well-maintained Telstra infrastructure, send the shots in to renai@delimiter.com.au and we’ll add them to this gallery.

In addition, you may remember this photo below from our ‘worst of the worst’ gallery. Well, following the publication of that gallery, Telstra sent its maintenance team out to this location and fixed this issue. So what we have here is a ‘before’ photo:

And this is the same location, after Telstra’s team cleaned it up. Not bad!

Image credit: Various

Related posts:

1. No pristine photos: Telstra rejects copper challenge
2. A challenge for Telstra: Show us your best
3. Worst of the worst: Photos of Australia’s copper network

news Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey has taken an axe to the Federal Government’s budget treatment of its National Broadband Network project, arguing that NBN Co is not an asset like previous government-owned companies such as Qantas or the Commonwealth Bank, which were eventually successfully privatised.

In a post-budget address to the National Press Club this week, Hockey said that one of the reasons why Government debt kept rising while the budget was “supposedly” in surplus was that spending on the NBN and other projects such as the Clean Energy Finance Corporation were “off-budget” and financed through increased Government borrowings. “If both entities are treated on budget then the $1.5 billion surplus forecast for next year would be a $4.3 billion deficit,” Hockey said. “Add in the $8 billion of money shuffles and the deficit would be $12 billion.”

According to a research note recently published by the Parliamentary Library of Australia last year, Labor is technically correct to account for the NBN on this matter, and the Coalition is wrong.
“Australia has adopted internationally accepted accounting standards, and these are applied in the budget treatment of the NBN,” the library’s Brian Dalzell, who works in its economics division, wrote in the report (available online here in PDF format). “While the applied accounting treatment depends on the specific transaction conducted between the Government and NBN Co, this treatment is governed by accepted accounting standards and is applied equally to all government business entities (GBEs). This treatment is not determined by the return generated by NBN Co (or any other GBE).” The NBN’s long-term return is currently projected to be between $1.93 billion and $3.92 billion.

But Hockey said he didn’t accept this explanation for the NBN’s budget treatment. “The Treasurer says this is normal accounting but the $50 billion NBN and the $10 billion CEFC are not “normal”,” he said in his speech. “Their size and asset quality are not on a par with a Qantas floated for $2 billion, Commonwealth Bank floated for $8 billion, or Medibank Private valued at around $4 billion.”

“Nor is their asset quality the same. For example the CEFC is offering taxpayer funded credit for green projects where the banks will not … and on this basis it does not seem a good business proposition. And the business case for the NBN is so poor that the government refuses to have a cost/benefit analysis.”

Hockey said if the Coalition won government, one of his earliest administrative tasks to improve public finances would be to “meet with senior public servants to identify the real commercial value of the NBN and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and their treatment in the Budget”.

However, Communications Minister Stephen Conroy didn’t take Hockey’s comments lying down, issuing his own statement following the Shadow Treasurer’s speech. “The Coalition has won the trifecta for economic illiteracy in their claims that the National Broadband Network should be treated as spending in the budget,” Conroy said.

“In his National Press Club Speech, Mr Hockey has once again shown he is unfit to be in charge of the nation’s finances. Mr Hockey not only masterminded the Coalition’s pre-election costings debacle – where the firm hired by the Coalition to audit its election promises was later fined and reprimanded for unprofessional practices – but now he wants to ignore international accounting standards.”

“The NBN is an investment in an asset from which the Government will receive a return. It is classified by International Accounting Standards as an equity investment rather than a budget expense. This is consistent with long-standing budget treatment applied by this and previous Australian Governments. Instead of wilfully misleading the public, the Coalition should support Labor’s NBN, which will provide fast, reliable, and affordable broadband to all Australians, regardless of where they live.”

opinion/analysis
As I have previously written, I believe Conroy is factually correct in his assertion that the NBN’s costs should not be on-budget as an expense. The facts of the matter are that the NBN is expected to make a return, and the government’s funding of the project is not an expense, for accounting purposes, but an investment. The Coalition has wilfully ignored the fact that even if the NBN makes a loss, that loss will not represent the entire cost of the project, but only its revenues minus its costs. Furthermore, the Coalition has not presented any analysis for what it estimates that loss might end up being.

In this sense, the Coalition’s continual claims that the NBN should be included in the budget papers as an expense appear to be quite ridiculous. If the Government did include the cost of the NBN in the budget as an expense, then later on, when it started making money from the NBN, it would then need to include those revenues as well. Frankly, this isn’t how accounting works, to my mind, and, it would appear, the mind of the Parliamentary Library, which produced a detailed paper on the issue.

I also want to address Hockey’s comments about NBN Co not being similar to Qantas and the Commonwealth Bank.

Frankly, NBN Co is the very definition of a company which is similar to Qantas and the Commonwealth Bank. And I note that there is a third company which Hockey should have included in that comment, but chose not to — another company which was also very similar to the first two and even more similar to NBN Co, because it also rolled out a national telecommunications network with government funding. A company which was also highly successfully privatised and made a stack of cash for the government in the process, and continues to make stacks of cash for its shareholders.

I speak, of course, of Telstra.

The Government’s creation of a national fibre broadband network is directly analogous to the creation of value inherent in Telstra, the Commonwealth Bank and Qantas, and my personal feeling is that this fibre infrastructure will end up being more important than any of these three companies to the long-term future of the Australian economy.

I think if we look ahead 30 years or more — and bear in mind that this time scale is “normal”, compared with the Qantas, CommBank and Telstra examples — the NBN infrastructure will continue to be worth an incredible amount to Australia, and my feeling is that the return on its investment will continue to grow over time. The estimates of NBN Co’s long-term value which we currently have, in my view, are quite conservative estimates and don’t reflect the way that financiers and the sharemarket will view the company in three to four decades.

I think at that time, the Government of the day may find that the private sector is willing to pay a very pretty penny for a well-established national company with a giant fibre network and a monopolistic grasp on its sector, with guaranteed customers. A very pretty penny indeed.

Image credit: Office of Joe Hockey

Related posts:

1. NBN detracts from productivity, claims Hockey
2. Joe Hockey and Kate Lundy: A new Democrats
3. ‘Cooked books’, ‘funny money’, ‘trickery’:
   Coalition on NBN budgeting

news The New South Wales State Government this week announced the Leighton subsidiary Metronode as the winner of its long-running and wide-ranging datacentre overhaul project, with the company to construct two new substantial facilities which will allow the state to consolidate its IT operations drastically.

A number of the state’s departments and agencies are currently believed to be hosting datacentre infrastructure in dilapidated facilities across Sydney and the rest of the state, often in back-office environments which are not consistent with modern datacentre practice. The state’s datacentre consolidation strategy — which has been under way for a number of years — will see it shift that IT infrastructure into two new, purpose-build datacentre facilities to be built by Metronode in Silverwater in Sydney and Unanderra (on the South Coast).

“The two centres will provide up to 9MW each of IT load allowing the NSW Government to consolidate Government datacentres and reduce unnecessary technologies used in its daily operations, with the decommissioning of existing data capacity to begin once the new facilities are complete,” said NSW Minister for Finance & Services Greg Pearce in a statement issued yesterday. “Much of the Government’s existing capacity is out-dated, inefficient and does not deliver a viable, cost-effective service for government agencies. These will be gradually closed and data migrated to the new centres as they open, enabling significant cost savings.”

The state estimates that 250 new jobs will be created across the construction sites on a short-term basis, as well as additional network and ICT-related jobs once the facilities are operational.
New South Wales will maintain exclusive rights to the ICT equipment and exclusive access to the data stored within the facilities, but Metronode will also be able to use the facilities to provide data storage capacity for other, non-NSW Government clients.

The news comes as the NSW Government a little over a week ago revealed a new wide-ranging ICT strategy, which it said was slated to make it “the leader in ICT” when it came to public sector service delivery and the development of the state’s technology sector as a whole.

“We are committed to making it easier for NSW citizens to interact with Government, to harness the opportunities provided by ICT to improve Government operations and to develop the ICT industry in NSW,” said Pearce. “The NSW Liberals & Nationals are committed to improving service delivery for residents in NSW, who expect fast, efficient and timely services. The NSW Government is committed to driving growth and investment in Western Sydney and the Illawarra and this news reaffirms our commitment to providing the necessary infrastructure and growth in ICT.”

opinion/analysis
To be honest, the NSW Government’s datacentre strategy confuses me a little.

While I understand that the state needs a stack of datacentre infrastructure, does it really need to build new physical datacentres to gain access to this level of infrastructure? When we’ve got HP rolling out a new colossal facility in Western Sydney (check out the photos; I think you’ll agree it’s going to be large), Bevan Slattery’s NextDC rolling out a new facility every minute or so (I’m exaggerating, but you get the point), and others such as Fujitsu constantly investing in this area, does it really make sense for the Government to build its own massive facilities like this? I’m unsure at the moment. It seems like there’s the potential for overbuild … especially when you consider the facilities which companies like Global Switch and Equinix already operate locally.

What I do know is that it’s overwhelmingly positive that the NSW Government is going to shift its IT infrastructure out of back-office mini-computer rooms and into dedicated, modern, datacentre facilities. To be honest, this kind of activity is more or less basic IT hygiene in 2012 (as is the state’s plan to virtualise everything it can), but often that’s too much to expect from state governments in Australia. I expect a number of departmental CIOs in other states are currently looking at NSW’s political mandate for positive IT change with envy.

Related posts:

1. NEXTDC finalises Sydney datacentre site
2. HP GETS BUILDING: New datacentre revealed
3. AGIMO releases draft datacentre RFT

blog There have been a couple of good interviews with Australian chief information officers done by various media outlets over the past couple of days — good enough that we thought them worth highlighting to readers on Delimiter.

At iTNews (click here for the full article), Ry Crozier (who we consider one of the best and most straight-up enterprise IT journalists in Australia) goes through the Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads three-year integration of two previous departments. A representative paragraph:

The department’s Information Division – internally known as iDivision – is a “hybrid” of the two former departmental ICT teams, according to [ chief information officer Chris Fechner]. “We didn’t try and subvert one or the other,” he says.

Over at ZDNet.com.au (click here for the full article), there’s a solid yarn by Luke Hopewell, focusing on Allianz chief information officer Steve Coles, who was at a CSC event this week talking about re-using technology. A sample paragraph:

“I hate the term ‘legacy’ technology,” [Coles said.] “Legacy means [a system has] got to be replaced, and we’ve got to get a shiny new one. For us, it’s been a key part of our strategy to reuse and simplify rather than rip and replace.”

What did we like about both interviews? They both went deep, and they both went into what we call “high” enterprise IT. In other words, not just surface-level questions such as desktop operating system upgrades or “how do you use iPads in the enterprise”, but into questions of enterprise IT architecture and technology strategy. Some very interesting themes came out of both. Kudos!

Related posts:

1. Australian CIOs optimistic about future
2. CIO gives top seven tips for cloud adoption
3. Good guy Gates on the NBN

news Taiwanese consumer electronics giant ASUS has started selling its Transformer Pad TF300T Android tablet in Australia, with the device to hit retailers this week starting at $499 for the basic model, and $599 with a docking station attached.

The Transformer Pad is the latest in a line of ASUS Android tablets which feature the ability to be connected to a keyboard docking station, as pictured above. The docking station also dramatically extends the device’s battery life.

The Transformer Pad is one of the first of an expected second-generation of Android tablets which are slowly arriving on Australian shores. The device features an NVIDIA quad-core Tegra 3 CPU running at 1.2GHz, a 12-core NVIDIA GeForce graphics processing unit, 1GB of memory and 12GB or 32GB of storage space, a 10.1″ WXGA touchscreen running at 1280×800 pixels, an eight megapixel rear camera and a 1.2 megapixel front camera, an SD card slot and other advanced tablet features. It runs version 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) of Google’s Android platform, and has a battery life of an estimated 10 hours, extendable up to 15 hours with its optional keyboard dock. THe device weighs some 635 grams, measures 263 by 180.8 by 9.9 mm, and comes in “”Royal Blue, Iceberg White and Torch Red” colours.

Delimiter’s review of the previous device in ASUS’s tablet line-up, the Eee Pad Transformer Prime, found that the device had great hardware, but was let down by its software. Reviewer Jenneth Orantia wrote:

“Based on the lag and stability issues that plague the Transformer Prime, we get the feeling that ASUS rushed the Ice Cream Sandwich update out just for the privilege of being first to market. What we’ve ended up with, then, is a beautifully-designed, extremely powerful tablet that fundamentally fails to deliver the performance improvements we were expecting. Yes, gaming and video playback is better, but performance for everyday usage actually seems to have gotten worse in some areas, and we can see a lot of unhappy customers kicking themselves over not having gone the more sensible route of buying an iPad 2 or waiting for the iPad 3.”

Engadget has published a broadly positive review of the Transformer Pad, writing: “Even as more mid-range, 10-inch Android tablets start hitting the market, the second-gen Transformer still feels like the best deal, with smooth, Tegra 3-powered gaming, good endurance and an understated design that calls to mind ASUS’ other Transformer, the $500 Prime … the tablet is eminently usable, and ultimately a pleasure to live with.”

opinion/analysis
I don’t expect the Transformer Pad to set Australia on fire, but right now if you’re considering an Android tablet, this is one of the better options available in Australia. Of course, you’ll need to decide not to buy an iPad first. This isn’t an unreasonable choice. While Apple’s still out in front, many people won’t buy anything which was designed by Cupertino, and the quality of Android tablets is gradually increasing.

Image credit: ASUS

Related posts:

1. Flock of ASUS tablets hits Australia
2. Review: Asus Eee Pad Transformer
3. ASUS Eee Pad Transformer Prime: Review

news Shadow Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull has delivered a major speech in Malaysia in which he criticised the publication of “worst of the worst” photos of Telstra’s copper telecommunications network and argued that the National Broadband Network debate should be about real end user outcomes and not about technology per se.

In early May, Delimiter published a photo gallery of so-called “worst of the worst” photos of Telstra’s ageing copper telecommunications network, which provides telephony and broadband services to the majority of Australia. This aimed to provided a realistic view into the infrastructure which the nation relies on, in the context of the current debate about upgrading it — especially the Coalition’s interest in re-using the copper in a fibre to the node scenario, where fibre would not be deployed all the way to premises as under Labor’s NBN plan.

“Over the last year there has developed a narrow but extremely aggressive campaign by supporters of the NBN to frame the debate as being a contest between copper versus fibre,” Turnbull said in a speech to a broadband conference in Kuala Lumpur this week. “One Internet site recently posted photos of some egregiously run-down components of the old copper network and then asked me ‘is this infrastructure worth upgrading?’”

“Let me make two points about this,” he added. “Firstly, politicians are relieved when the damaging photos being sent to their office are of naked copper connections, as opposed to naked other things. But secondly, and more seriously, I would make this very important point: The longevity of the copper network should be decided by the market’s desire and willingness to still purchase internet services over that network – and not by arbitrary decisions made by politicians in Canberra or elsewhere on when to shut it down.”

“In so doing, we shouldn’t think of this debate as a purely technical one – that is, which technology is best at this very moment. Rather, we should think of this about two alternative upgrade paths where the endpoint will be very superfast broadband that exceeds the capacity of current networks. In a question of technologies, the answers tend to be simplistic and absolute. But in a question of alternative upgrade paths, the trade-offs are often complex and you need to take a hard headed approach.”

Turnbull said some people in Australia had become “obsessed” with pursuing the best “theoretical technical broadband solution”, rather than searching for the best practical solution to meet the “unique needs” of Australia’s broadband market.

For example, he said, throughout the Asia-Pacific region, most Fibre to the Home (FTTH)-style broadband rollouts had focused on areas which had a high incidence of multi-dwelling units such as apartment blocks, where the rollout of infrastructure would be utilised by high numbers of people. “In Australia, however, only 34 percent of premises are MDUs,” he said, citing McKinsey data.

In questions of technologies, answers tended to be “simplistic and absolute”, Turnbull said. But in questions of alternative upgrade paths, the trade-offs were often complex, and legislators needed to take a “hard-headed approach”. Because of these factors, he said, the Coalition’s telecommunications policy would see Australia’s infrastructure upgraded with a mix of technologies — whether that be fibre to the home, fibre to the node, next-generation mobile solutions or upgraded HFC cable. “They all have their part to play,” he said. “We need a complementary combination of solutions introduced incrementally, and tailored to local needs.”

Turnbull reiterated several key planks of Coalition telecommunications policy which he has previously outlined:

• Encouraging facilities-based competition, including reversing the shutdown of the HFC cable networks operated by Telstra and Optus and the NBN anti-cherry-picking legislation
• Providing “open and transparent subsidies” to enable broadband services in rural areas
• Focusing on a technology agnostic approach including FTTH, FTTN and potentially wholesale access to HFC networks.

“With this approach we are satisfied that we can complete the construction of a national broadband network faster, because a mix of technologies will upgrade services sooner than near universal FTTP, at less cost to the taxpayer and more affordably for end users, because the combination of a less expensive network and the return of competition will put downward pressure on prices,” TUrnbull said.

“In my judgement the scarcest resource is not bandwidth, or even technology, but rather technological imagination. And it is no accident that innovation is at its greatest in the markets with the most competition and the most freedom. Our opponents have accused us of wanting to destroy the NBN. Nothing could be further from the truth. Rather we are determined to set it free.”

opinion/analysis
I really like much of what Turnbull is saying here. The Liberal MP, as he so often does, has brought a level of analysis and understanding to the issue of the NBN which is sadly lacking in the way which almost every other politician (including, sometimes, Communications Minister Stephen Conroy) talks about the issue. Turnbull just ‘gets’ this space much more than anyone else commenting in the area, and I like that his voice is a strong one in the debate about Australia’s national telecommunications infrastructure.

Points such as focusing on facilities-based competition; keeping the HFC networks alive and providing wholesale access to them; deploying a mix of FTTH and FTTN to match Australia’s heterogeneous geography; keeping the debate on outcomes instead of technologies and so on: All of these are very valid points which should be considered in the overall NBN debate.

The only problem for Turnbull is that it is really too late for these points to be considered.

The right time for these points to have been raised was between the years from 2005, when Telstra first proposed building a national broadband network in the form of upgrading its copper network to FTTN with government financial assistance, and 2009, when the then-Rudd Labor Federal Government outlined its ambitious FTTH-based NBN project.

The Coalition had no less than four years to debate this issue at that point, and as I and others have repeatedly pointed out, a succession of Coalition Communications Ministers and Shadow Ministers failed to do so, from Howard-era Minister Helen Coonan to Turnbull’s predecessor in the portfolio, Tony Smith. The telco policy which the Coalition took to the 2010 Federal Election was pretty much a bad joke compared with the comprehensive NBN project, already well-advanced in the planning stages at that point.

At this stage, Labor’s NBN project is very well advanced and is delivering on a wide scale throughout Australia, with a large number of sensitive agreements, contracts and pieces of legislation worked out. If a Coalition Federal Government, following an election victory in 2013 or thereabouts, rolls back key planks of the NBN, such as the requirement on Telstra and Optus to shut down their HFC cable networks, switching to FTTN in some areas instead of FTTH, and separating Telstra through different methods than Labor has arranged, it will cause, at the very least, two to three years of chaos to Australia’s telecommunications sector.

It will likely take up to six months alone for the Productivity Commission to produce the much-vaunted cost/benefit analysis into the NBN, which Turnbull has consistently said would be the first action taken by a Coalition Government, if it took power. And most of the other aspects of telco policy which Turnbull has described in his speech — re-working agreements with Telstra and Optus, investigating wholesaling their HFC cable networks, plotting which areas of Australia would receive FTTN and FTTH — would take a similar or greater amount of time.

If Coalition telecommunications policy is as Turnbull has described it this week, it could take a Coalition Government its whole first electoral term — three years — merely to unwind much the current NBN project and set its new framework for the future. In fact, many observers will note, it took most of the Rudd Labor Government’s first term, from 2007 through 2010, to set up the NBN in the first place. Only now, mid-way through its second term, is the project delivering at something like full speed. The exact same timeframe will hamstring the Coalition’s approach, and it is entirely possible that we could still be debating Turnbull’s principles in 2016.

The speech which Turnbull gave this week was visionary. It was nuanced. It demonstrated a sharp and deep understanding of the dynamics of modern telecommunications policy.

But what Australia needs right now, when it comes to Federal Government broadband projects, is not principles. It needs powerful, strong and fast implementation. We’ve been talking about this issue for long enough, and the time for words is over. Now, in the telecommunications portfolio, is the time for action.

Image credit: Office of Malcolm Turnbull

Related posts:

1. Copper maintenance cost not an issue, says Turnbull
2. Turnbull has no NBN plan, says Conroy
3. Conroy’s attacks lack “hard evidence,” claims Turnbull

news The nation’s largest telco Telstra has declined a challenge to provide photos highlighting good examples of the best-maintained infrastructure in its national copper telecommunications network, following the publication several weeks ago of a “worst of the worst” gallery of photos of the network.

In early May, Delimiter published a photo gallery of so-called “worst of the worst” photos of Telstra’s ageing copper telecommunications network, which provides telephony and broadband services to the majority of Australia. The publication of this photo gallery was aimed at providing a realistic view into what the infrastructure which the nation relies on day in day out really looks like in some places, in the context of the current debate about upgrading it.

Following the publication, however, a number of readers and external parties expressed strong criticism of the photo gallery, stating that it didn’t fairly represent Telstra’s network, which does usually function well for the majority of those users using it. Because this, Delimiter subsequently issued a challenge to Telstra to submit a gallery of good photos of well-maintained areas of its copper network, writing at the time:

“We want to see pristine, well-maintained, properly functioning areas of its copper network. Clean exchanges, well-maintained ducts, new network equipment with fancy blinking lights and so on. We’ll commit to publishing the same number of photos we published yesterday, giving the story the same degree of prominence, if Telstra will come to the party. This shouldn’t be too hard a task for Telstra, given that it has publicly talked about how it regularly cleans its telephone exchanges.”

Unfortunately, Telstra has declined the opportunity. A Telstra spokesperson said in response: “Telstra operates a telephone network over a geographical area probably larger than any other single network provider in the world. Telstra is responsible for around 9 million telephone lines, and millions of cable joints, manhole covers, and pit lids. Nationally there are hundreds of thousands of kilometres of copper in Telstra’s network. In 2010/11, Telstra operated and maintained more than 11,000 telephone exchanges.”

opinion/analysis
Some who read this article will immediately jump to the conclusion that Telstra isn’t meeting Delimiter’s challenge to provide “best of the best” photos of its copper network infrastructure because there aren’t any such good examples of well-maintained cables. However, I don’t think this is the case — of course there are many well-maintained areas of Telstra’s network. I anticipate that Telstra has declined the opportunity to participate in this challenge because it doesn’t want the dialogue about the quality of its copper network to continue — it doesn’t want to fuel the fire. And, with the abysmal photos of the copper which were submitted for our last photo gallery … who can blame it?

Having said that, I am disappointed that Telstra hasn’t taken up our challenge. The publication of actual photos of the degrading copper network several weeks ago drove a huge amount of community interest, and I think it’s important that we continue to try and put a face on this kind of infrastructure, if we’re going to talk about upgrading it.

Image credit: Telstra

Related posts:

1. Pristine Telstra network photos: We sourced our own
2. A challenge for Telstra: Show us your best
3. Worst of the worst: Photos of Australia’s copper network

This sponsored post is written by Phil Goldie, Business Group Lead at Microsoft Australia. Click here to find out more about Microsoft’s private cloud solutions.

sponsored post If you could provision a new copy of your organisation’s entire internal application environment for development purposes in just ten minutes, and you could do whatever you liked with it, what sort of new systems and processes would you build?

That’s the question which ING Direct’s team of software developers are now facing, after the bank successfully (with the assistance of Microsoft, Cisco, NetApp and Dimension Data) implemented a private cloud solution to virtualise its entire banking platform. Combined with automated deployment tools, what this means is that the bank is literally able to provision a new copy of itself — a so-called ‘bank in a box’ — within minutes.

Now, I don’t want to go too far into detail about that deployment for this blog post; it’s already been comprehensively covered in articles on iTNews, The AustralianIT and Delimiter, as well as in a case study produced by Microsoft.

However, what I do want to do is start a bit of a discussion around what the implications are for other major organisations from this new style of deployment, and why it’s so different from the kind of advanced virtualisation or Infrastructure as a Service solutions which are what we’ve mainly been talking about in Australia over the past several years, when we talk about the term ‘private cloud’. With this in mind, here’s three things we can learn from ING’s recent private cloud deployment.

1. The cloud argument isn’t always about cost

ING Direct’s private cloud rollout wasn’t about taking cost out of the business, which is often the argument around cloud computing. Instead, it was a project driven to address a higher level business issue.

ING Direct’s basic problem was that it had a team of developers which wanted to innovate: Fixing bugs, developing new online banking features, and launching new customer applications. To do so, those developers needed development environments that were segregated from the bank’s production systems. ING Direct was capable of deploying such environments. But, given the complexity and interconnectedness of any modern banking platform, it used to take three months and eight full-time staff to deploy them. Not exactly an ideal situation.

This had created a situation where the bank’s ability to innovate and progress its systems had become stifled, with an extensive backlog of development work pending. It wasn’t easy, but through its private cloud deployment, the bank was able to get around that issue and provide a new copy of its platform to any developer who wanted it. This unlocked ING Direct’s ability to be agile and innovate; it sped up its time to market. Consequently, the project was viewed internally as a strategic business enabler, and received top-level executive support right throughout its life, rather than being viewed merely as another infrastructure project.

2. It’s OK to think big

Every time ING Direct provisions a new ‘bank in a box’ for a developer, it switches on around 220 new virtual machines in total, and duplicates around 5.5 terabytes of data. IT departments are now pretty much used to the concept of provisioning new virtual machines — even dozens of them — and allocating storage to them. But hundreds of new virtual machines? Every time a developer needs a new testing environment? Most IT managers would run in horror from such a concept. To many, it would seem like using an axe to fix a problem requiring a scalpel.

But when you consider how much effort it took ING Direct previously to stand up testing environments of this nature, the axe starts to look like a good idea. The reason this is possible is the increasing maturity of automation tools like Microsoft’s System Center 2012, which let you provision large numbers of new virtual environments in a much more streamlined fashion than was previously possible.

Right now, a new class of ‘workflow’ or ‘automation’ developers are emerging, who are building solutions on top of platforms like System Center. Their work is unlocking the value of such automation tools in sizable environments so that others can make full use of them. This means that it’s becoming increasingly possible to provision very complex environments — such as a whole ‘bank in a box’ — in an automated fashion. This would have been unthinkable only a few years ago.

3. Focus on where the pain is

Now sure, not every company has a whole banking platform sitting in their datacentre, and a team of several dozen developers who need to test against it. But there are still immediate implications from ING Direct’s style of private cloud deployment for many other types of organisations, both in Australia and globally.

In the manufacturing and retail sectors, for example, IT organisations are struggling with similar questions regarding development around their enterprise resource planning (ERP) platforms. Many government organisations operate giant databases and record-keeping systems which need to interface with each other and with the private sector. In telecommunications, it’s often billing and provisioning systems which sit at the core. Dynamic education environments such as universities sometimes have to stand up new systems in only a short period as a new campus or faculty opens, or as a new wave of courses come online.

In all of these sectors, there are times when laborious work regularly slows down organisations’ time to market. In ING’s case, it was provisioning new development environments. In other sectors, the business might have different requirements, such as provisioning a new environment for a new brand, geographic storefront rollout, or product launch. In all of these areas, automation might be able to save effort and cut the time to market. But in each case, focusing on where the pain is will help elevate the conversation around private cloud deployments beyond a discussion about IT infrastructure and towards one about direct business benefits.

Often, as was the case with ING Direct, early successes in this area can also unlock future projects. The bank’s successful private cloud rollout in Australia has stimulated an internal conversation about how the technology can be deployed globally. And it’s also looking at how it can further automate other internal applications and processes, taking advantage of the techniques it’s already developed with its banking platform. It’s this kind of ongoing revolution that cloud computing should be all about.

What good examples of cloud deployments have you seen in Australia? What do you think are the most interesting aspects of cloud computing? Click here to find out more about Microsoft’s private cloud solutions.

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blog Pre-ordered hit Diablo III from dying Australian video game retailer GAME? Frustrated that you won’t be able to play this year’s biggest game when it launches at 5PM today, as GAME has been blocked from selling Diablo III? Worry no more. Blizzard’s got your back. From the Battle.net forums, via Kotaku:

“We’re aware that some Australian GAME customers have been left out in the cold on what should be the hottest night of the year — the launch of Diablo III. To help with this situation and get these players into the game as soon as possible, we’ve put the following process in place.

Australian GAME customers with a valid preorder/prepurchase receipt dated before May 15, 2012 can do the following:
1. Purchase the digital version of Diablo III from http://www.diablo3.com now or anytime before May 21, 2012.

2. Download and start playing when the servers go live!

3. Submit your GAME Australia preorder/prepurchase receipt to us before June 30, 2012.

4. Receive a credit from Blizzard, for the amount you paid in advance to GAME Australia for Diablo III. This credit will be applied to the payment method used for the digital purchase.

We’ll post further details here on how to submit your GAME Australia receipt to our customer service team as soon as possible. Stay tuned, and we look forward to seeing you in the Burning Hells!”

Now that’s customer service worthy of Deckard Cain. Of course, our advice would have been to just have bought Diablo III direct from Blizzard in the first place like the dark demon gods of capitalism would have preferred in the first place (as yours truly did). But then, there are still many people sacrificing themselves on Australia’s retail gaming altar.

Image credits: Blizzard

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