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In this Issue:

• Qld Rail Wi-Fi plan goes ahead
• Broadband won't come cheap
• $43bn NBN figure plucked from air
• Mozilla switches on Firefox 3.5 update
• Quotes of the Day

Qld Rail Wi-Fi plan goes ahead  

Queensland Rail has gone to market for a supplier to provide a Wi-Fi service on the state's suburban trains that would offer wireless internet, security and other services.

In April, the state's Transport Minister Rachel Nolan revealed Queensland Rail had conducted a trial of the technology on the Gold Coast line network and wanted to blanket its Citytrain network, including stations, with Wi-Fi coverage.

In a request for information document released this week, Queensland Rail said it wanted a communications service that would allow it to:

• Stream CCTV images from carriages back to a central monitoring office
• Deliver Wi-Fi services to passengers
• Provide a channel that would allow the delivery of customised data and media from Queensland Rail to on-board passenger mobile devices and fixed display screens in the trains; for example, LCD screens

ZDNet Australia August 2009. more >>>

Broadband won't come cheap  

THE first national broadband network rollout, in Tasmania, will cost an estimated $20,000 for each premises that takes up the superfast internet connection -- and business leaders say its impact may be minimal.

The Rudd and Bartlett governments, which are jointly undertaking the rollout, refuse to reveal the taxpayer-funded plan's cost, business plan or an estimate of the take-up.

However industry sources told The Australian that the take-up rate had been estimated at 17 per cent of the 200,000 target premises -- homes and businesses.

Aurora Energy, the state-owned power company undertaking the rollout via overhead cabling, would not confirm or deny this estimate, claiming it was "commercial in confidence".

A trial of high-speed internet in Tasmania had a take-up rate of 14-15 per cent, which other industry sources said was more realistic a target for the NBN.

With the rollout in Tasmania expected to cost $700 million, a 17per cent take-up (34,000 premises) would mean a unit cost of $20,588.

Tasmania's peak body for information and communication technology industry, TASICT, said without a take-up rate of 80-90 per cent, NBN would lack the "critical mass" needed to become the focus of service and information delivery.

TASICT president Peter Gartlan said even a take-up rate of 20-40 per cent would not "make a big enough difference". AustralianIT August 2009. more >>>

$43bn NBN figure plucked from air  

WHEN Kevin Rudd proudly announced the government's plan for a national broadband rollout in April, it was a political triumph. The headline figure of $43billion instantly captured the national imagination.

But the $43bn estimate always owed more to political artifice than any detailed financial analysis. Its usefulness was primarily as a shiny big number that would prove to voters -- and to Telstra -- the government was serious.

Cost? Priceless.

In reality, the federal government couldn't know what its grand scheme to provide a high-speed fibre network to the home would cost. There were far too many variables. That's also why there was no business plan -- something the government-appointed Infrastructure Australia was insisting on before it would consider public funding for any infrastructure projects put forward by state governments.

Instead, the $43bn number was the product of a dazzling political manoeuvre, backed by just enough financial assumptions and figurings to allow key departments such as Finance and Treasury to give it their imprimatur.

Initial departmental estimates had varied wildly, from $50bn to about half of that. But the final negotiated agreement on costs allowed the government to announce an estimated cost of $38bn to $43bn for the project.

Even the relatively specific numbers had the political advantage of sounding more credible than round numbers would have -- although any of these could have been regarded as equally valid. So much depends on just what is built and who builds it and what prices are paid for existing network assets that can be sold into the new NBN Company.

Those types of negotiations are only just beginning. AustraliaIT August 2009. more >>>

Mozilla switches on Firefox 3.5 update  

A month and a half after Mozilla issued a significant update to its open-source web browser, the organisation has begun encouraging users of Firefox 3 to install version 3.5.

Firefox 3.0.13 users will see an offer to download the latest iteration of the newer version, 3.5.2, according to a blog post.

Users can go ahead with the update, postpone the reminder, or shut it off altogether, but don't expect this latter option to permanently mute the reminder. Firefox 3.0.x will stop receiving stability and security patches in January, so further coaxing will be likely.

Mozilla touts better performance in version 3.5, along with various features to make the browser a better foundation for running web applications. But getting people to upgrade can be a problem. One of the biggest obstacles for Firefox, aside from the universal hassle of upgrading, is that Firefox extensions often break with a new version.

Mozilla, though, said more than 90 per cent of Firefox's add-ons now work with Firefox 3.5. Meanwhile, Mozilla coders are at work on Firefox 3.6, codenamed Namoroka.

Browser upgrades can be a tricky issue. Microsoft is trying to coax users off Internet Explorer 6, a product now eight years old. Google's newer Chrome browser, by contrast, automatically updates itself to the newest version with no user intervention, though IT administrators can throttle the behaviour.

ZDNet Australia August 2009.

Quotes of the Day  

I was walking down the street wearing glasses when the prescription ran out. Steven Wright (1955 - )

I hate life, I hate death and everything in between just doesn't interest me. Chris Rapier

The sad truth is that excellence makes people nervous. Shana Alexander

If God had wanted us to vote, he would have given us candidates. Jay Leno (1950 - )

Brought to you by The Quotations Page

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