This newsletter has been designed to maintain links with customers and provide an information service for internet users generally.

Please visit us at http://www.engadineweb.com.au and signup for this monthly newsletter.

Review old articles in our Newsletter Archive

In this Issue:

• Featured Site - Sydney Clay Target Club
• Govt to break up Telstra
• Aussie web data consumption doubles
• Minchin calls Conroy on late ISP filter
• eBay offloads Skype for US$1.9 billion
• Quotes of the Day

Featured Site  

Sydney Clay target Club

Welcome to the Sydney Clay Target Club Ltd. Originally the Sydney Gun Club, formed in the early 30s with shooting grounds at the rear of the Pagewood Film Studios and Eastlakes Golf Course, Pagewood.

With the construction of the Southern Freeway the club had to move. With the assistance of the Department of Main Roads we moved to our current location on Heathcote Road just North of New Illawarra Rd Menai.

Our club strives to provide members and visitors the most enjoyable shooting experience possible. Through our Corporate Shooting Days, we offer the community an opportunity to understand and experience our sport within a safe environment. This has become possible as a result of recent law changes which means we are able to teach people to shoot without them requiring a Shooting Licence, as we operate under our club licence. Visit the Sydney Clay Target Club website...

Govt to break up Telstra  

The Rudd government has announced a package of reforms to telecommunications regulations that will pave the way for a break-up of Telstra.

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said the reforms would address the telco's high level of integration with the aim of promoting greater competition and consumer benefits.

"For years industry has been calling for fundamental and historic micro-economic reform in telecommunications," he said."Today we are delivering this outcome in Australia's long-term national interest."

The reforms would address the structure of the telecommunications market and provide Telstra with the flexibility to choose its future path.

"It is the government's clear desire for Telstra to structurally separate, on a voluntary and cooperative basis," Senator Conroy said. "The government believes it is possible to achieve a win-win outcome in the interests of Telstra, its shareholders and, more broadly, all Australians."

Telstra was one of the most highly integrated telecommunications companies in the world across the fixed-line copper, cable and mobile platforms, Senator Conroy said.

ZDNet Australia September 2009. more >>>

Aussie web data consumption doubles  

Australian internet users now consume twice as much data than they did a year ago, but figures by Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) reveal there are still over 200,000 businesses and government agencies on a dial-up connection.

Last June, over a three-month period, Australia downloaded around 55.4 terabytes (TB). This year the figure almost doubled to 99.9TB as more subscribers ditched dial-up for faster ADSL-style fixed line connections or wireless broadband.

The largest cohort of Australian internet service provider (ISP) subscribers in Australia are, according to the ABS's latest figures, on download speeds of 1.5Mbps to 8Mbps. In total there were 2.5 million, roughly 30 per cent of Australia's 8.4 million, internet subscribers (counted as individual services). The number of Australians opting for services that offered these speeds almost doubled in the past year.

The new ABS figures, however, reveal a large number of Australian businesses remain on dial-up connections. The number fell by 15,000 over the past six months, but there are still 215,000 out of a total 1.4 million internet connected businesses on dial-up. There are 1.1 million dial-up subscribers in Australia. ZDNet Australian September 2009. more >>>

Minchin calls Conroy on late ISP filter  

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has hit back at Shadow Minister for Communications Nick Minchin's call for the Federal Government to end its ISP-level filtering "farce".

Conroy hit back at Minchin's criticisms of the government's plan. "Nick Minchin and the Liberal party should explain why they don't support using the latest technology to restrict access to child abuse content and other Refused Classification material," he said.

Minchin today launched a renewed attack on the government's live ISP (Internet Service Provider) filtering trials, announced in February this year, for being late, having unclear objectives and being too small to provide meaningful data. The largest of the nine ISPs that have participated in the live trials include Primus, Unwired, Optus.

"Almost two years after coming to office with a plan to censor the internet, Senator Conroy has not even managed to release results for long overdue filtering trials, let alone come close to actually implementing this highly controversial policy," Minchin said in a statement today.

ZDNet Australia September 2009. more >>>

eBay offloads Skype for US$1.9 billion  

Online auction giant eBay announced Tuesday it has agreed to sell 65 per cent of its stake in Skype to a group of investors in a deal that values the web communications service at US$2.75 billion.

eBay, which will retain a 35 per cent equity investment in Skype, said it will receive US$1.9 billion in cash upon the completion of the sale and a note from the buyer for US$125 million.

The buyer group, which will control a 65 per cent stake in Skype, is led by private equity firm Silver Lake Partners, whose portfolio includes Ameritrade, Intelsat, NASDAQ, Travelocity and Seagate Technology.

Its other members are London-based Index Ventures, an early investor in Skype, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and Andreessen Horowitz, a venture capital firm founded by Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen.

Andreessen, whose investments include LinkedIn and Twitter, is a member of the boards of eBay and Facebook and is chairman of the board of Ning, an online platform for creating social networks.

The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of the year.

ZDNet Australia September 2009. more >>>

Quotes of the Day  

Every journalist has a novel in him, which is an excellent place for it. Russel Lynes

If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail. Abraham Maslow (1908 - 1970)

In the future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes. Andy Warhol (1928 - 1987)

At the present rate of progress, it is almost impossible to imagine any technical feat that cannot be achieved - if it can be achieved at all - within the next few hundred years. Arthur C. Clarke (1917 - ), 1983

Brought to you by The Quotations Page

Have any questions relating to the internet or your computer? Let me know and I will research an answer and use this for future entries in our newsletter. Pass on your questions via the Enquiry Form on our Web-Site or send me an email.

If you have a friend or associate that you feel would benefit from receiving this newsletter please forward it to them for their review...

You have received this newsletter as you are an Engadine Web Services Customer or you have subscribed via our web-site.

To Unsubscribe from this newsletter 'click' the link and send an empty email...