Looks like the average person on the street are not the only people unhappy with the way Telstra Broadband pricing is going. Check out the full story here. And check out Whirpool for more comments.

http://whirlpool.net.au/article.cfm/733?show=replies

The Pots calling the Kettle black now :)

But Mr Alston's spokesman said the onus was on industry to develop new ways of bringing broadband services to homes, such as the use of satellites.

Hello! Can this government get any more clueless? I think that statement alone is a good indication that we have completely turned around and started going backwards. If I had the money I would seriously consider moving out of Australia.

DEFINATELY a conspiracy Hunter`

Eh?

oh s*** there is a van outside my house, this connection is not safe

Shutup.

What dosen't your linux protect you from vans outside your house hunter?

No but a big lump of wood does.

Is that lump of wood released under the GPL?

Yes it is, you can have a copy if you want.

Cool but if I put a nail in I have to tell everyone else how to do it, sigh.

Yes that is correct.

This isn't the first time Microsoft has critised the pricing structure of Telstra

I recall an article way way ages ago where Gates went on record saying that he wanted to bring MSN to Australia in all its apparent glory however, the system in place (Big Pond ADSL & broadband) were overpriced for the quality of service that it provided

I wonder if a link to the article will show up on whirlpool....

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAhAHA at all the gpl jokes an' shiz

Wonder what effect Microsoft's comments will have on Telstra shares? Lets hope they tumble even more so ziggy gets sacked.

Hahaa, the only ones with the power to sack ziggy are the shareholders, and they are hardly going to do that given the huge profits Telstra are pulling in shafting broadband customers.

Unless of course "Ziggy goes to Zurich" with all of their moneey...

yea well i voted for labor not like most of your parents who voted for stupid liberals couldnt get a f*** in a brothel those pricks,They will f*** telsta more John f***ing Howard sucks cocks!

i find it funny that one monopoly is bitching about another company use monopolictic (is that a word?) practices and slowing down the rollout of new technology.

Well, you could be nice about it and say that microsoft is trying to do something nice... (even if it is for their own financial gain, and of no use anyway cos telstra sux :P)

Ara true, but at least MS dont seem to be using thier monopoly to slow down technology.
Even if they do do thier fair share of muscling and ripping off.

They're able to monopolise because of constant inovation and good marketing, Telstra monopolise because of thier government funded infastructure.

Dan. As much as I hate Telstra, Telstra have fully paid for the infrastructure from the government. Telstra FULLY OWNS IT. It was the government's short-sightedness (read: WE WANT MORE MONEY) that Telstra has the network infrastructure in the first place.

yea well i voted for labor not like most of your parents who voted for stupid liberals

So true!

If its one thing I hate more than anything its Telstra, really thats the only thing I truly hate. If I were able to meet Ziggy I would say but one thing to him: f*** YOU.

I would say but one thing to him: f*** YOU.

is that all? really, hunter, i was expecting so much more.

Maybe a punch in the face.

Ziggy's reply: Shut you CS script warez kiddie who can't even come up with a decent insult.

most of your parents who voted for stupid liberals couldnt get a f*** in a brothel those pricks

so madmax your saying that my parents couldnt get a f***, yet im their child...right

i suppose i should say something like 'madmax represents the average labour voter', but im not that retarded to make sweeping gerneralizations :)

Shutup taco.

Ziggy's reply: Shut you CS script warez kiddie who can't even come up with a decent insult.

Who the hell here plays CS? That game eats ass.

Hunter reminds me of that old man in Series 7 who lives in a trailer with aluminium wallpaper, no electricity and an emergency radio who is paranoid of the whole world.

I voted Labour, at least they had decent technology plans.

Ahh, innosence and naievity...If you guys think voting labour would have got you cheaper/more reliable/available broadband or increased competition in the market place, you are in serious need of a rhetoric-cleansing enema to clear out all those election promises they have been shoving up your arse's.

Telstra will do what it wants to right up until they are brought to a halt by sheer economics. We have a situation here where a majority government owned telco is being regulated by a government controlled (well, appointed at least) authority/ies. Telstra are trying to keep (voting) shareholders happy by continuing to milk the (current) minority users for all they can. Why would one government body want to stop another from making continued huge profits which in turn generate enormous tax revenue? The way things will change is when enough people have taken up broadband and the like to actually have an economic influence over the behemoth, which is exactly what they are trying to discourage with their pricing, policies and attitude toward broadband users.

It really wouldnt matter who was in government.

What dosen't your linux protect you from vans outside your house hunter?

yes apparently it does
im using fully encrypted partitions (except for swap) and booting the computer from trusted media (my mini cdrom) which contains my decryption key (which is protected by a passphrase)
as well as a tripwire integrity check after the loop back device has been mounted to check the cdrom

and im communicating with the other 'party' who uses a similar set up with email encrypted by pgp
i physically exchanged keys with him using a cdrom which was destroyed

and no network services are running
a full bug sweep is also conducted pre-boot up

even though this is not true, it is possible
it would be very difficult for any law enforcement in the world to counter this setup

the only major flaw is the fact that swap can't be encrypted
but the chances that useful data would be found on swap is very low
also if they raided while i was logged on with the user who has permissions to access and i didnt have time to turn off the computer or log off then data would be compromised
though the usual practice for collecting data off computers for evidence is to make a copy of the drive which would prove useless since the data is encrypted