Today many homes are dependent on broadband, not for gaming or watching movies as Telstra like to spruik, today broadband is as much about the truly automated house, it’s about networked sound systems, security and IP based devices, which is why the Federal Government needs to step in and introduce laws that force Companies like Telstra to take action immediately to fix broadband services when they go down.
This week it really came home to me when Telstra went down on the 23rd of December in Mosman NSW, at first I thought it was a problem with my router or the old Telstra Motorola cable modem, it was not until I did a search of the Telstra site that I discovered that Telstra was not only down in Mosman NSW, but the problem would not be fixed till 19.00 hours on the 29th of December.
This is a Company that rakes in billions in both revenues and profits every quarter, this is also the same Company that is now spruiking their services for medical health in the hope that your local GP or your local hospital or pharmacy can deliver services over a Telstra broadband network.
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On the surface it appears that Telstra does not want to invest in having to pay penalty rates during a holiday period for someone to fix a network problem, that is either a failure in an exchange or the cutting of an external connection to the exchange.
Either way it is gross negligence by Telstra that they cannot fix a problem in under a week, even Christmas week.
Today IP connectivity is a key part of our lives and Telstra has no qualms spruiking everything that hangs off an IP network in the hope that they can make a dollar. But putting in place 24/7 support 52 weeks of the year appears to be another thing at Telstra.
What I believe is needed is a Federal committee to investigate the obligations of organisations like Telstra, TPG, Optus or Vodafone when a broadband service fails.
To have to wait a week to regain supply in a main metropolitan suburb is appalling and downright dangerous for people who have invested in IP based technology in their homes.
My broadband supply is cable as result; I have no Wi Fi connectivity resulting in several devices not working.
They include a Sonos system, my smart TV services, my security system, my recently installed Telstra TV box, my Foxtel iQ service which is connected to an IP network, unlike the prior boxes was unable to deliver recorded programs.
In other word’s my Christmas was utterly stuffed up by Telstra which is not great with four grand children snapping at your heels.
What the Federal Government needs to do as part of Malcom Turnbull’s innovation agenda is put a structure in place that forces carriers of broadband services to respond immediately, when services go down.
Organisations like Telstra need to be threatened with heavy penalties if they fail to respond in a fair and reasonable time frame.
A committee has to be formed made up of industry professionals who are able to set fair and reasonable time frames for repairs to be conducted, whether it be the cutting of a cable by a third party contractor of the failure of equipment in an Exchange or across a network.
Right now Telstra should be banned from supplying life threatening services such as what is outlined in their medical services initatives because at the end of a broadband cable a life could be in desperate need of help.
Then again the small print in any Telstra contract could absolve Telstra from any liability if someone died as a result of a broadband connection being cut off to a home network.
As you you will see from the below Telstra chart services to home phones, ADSL, cable and Foxtel services are affected in Mosman so if your life depends on Foxtel and you are looking at installing a Telstra medical service, I would invest in a back up plan.
Hollywood has not given up on nobbling Australian Internet Providers who openly allow consumers to access piracy web sites.
Local Hollywood Movie Distributor and Cinema Chain Owners Village roadshow is set to take advantage of a change made to the Copyright Amendment (online infringement) Act by taking action in the Federal Court against Internet Service Providers who have failed to block piracy website who are openly streaming content stolen from Hollywood Studio’s.
The move is akin to trying to close down pawn shops openly selling stolen goods said one observer.
The action is the first ever taken under the new act that was passed by the Federal parliament late last year when now Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was Communications Minister.
The site Village Roadshow and Hollywood studios are seeking to block is SolarMovie.
While Australian offenders won’t be prosecuted if Roadshow are successful, it will result in Australians being unable to access sites hosting stolen movies.
SolarMovie facilitates the free streaming of movies and television shows such as The Walking Dead.
The site has been blocked by court order in the United Kingdom and on Tuesday was the first site to be blocked through court action by Singapore ISPs since the its government’s own copyright legislation changes in December 2014.
Should the application be successful, Australian internet service providers (ISPs) such as Telstra, Optus, TPG and Dodo, will be required to block access to the infringing site.
Village Roadshow co-chief executive Graham Burke told Fairfax Media that site blocking needs to be accompanied by two initiatives.
“The legislation has to be accompanied by sincere passionate communication to win people over and we have to continue to provide product in a timely and affordable way,” Mr Burke said.
Mr Burke, a long-time anti-piracy campaigner, said that the legislation was an effective way for copyright holders to protect their content.
“The pirates, they steal other people’s creativity and they have advertising and its millions of dollars and they provide nothing. Not one job or any creative input into the community,” he said.
At an Unpack event in New York overnight Samsung has launched a brand new Galaxy S6 Edge+ and a Note 5 that include new software developed by Samsung.
The Korean Company who is under pressure from Apple who will reveal a new iPhone in September is betting on getting tens of thousands of Australians who own a Note 4 to step up to the new device.
Samsung Australia plans to hold a media event on September 18th in Australia.
A Company executive said “Following the global announcement, we look forward to launching the Galaxy S6 Edge+ and Note 5 in Australia soon” In the UK the Note 5 is being held back.
The upgrades that Samsung have revealed while delivering significant hardware overhauls also deliver a number of new software capabilities.
The S6 Edge+, which is expected to be available with carriers and selected retailers on September 4, has a 5.7-inch Quad HD Super AMOLED display and the same curved glass design that debuted with the S6 Edge. Samsung and carriers are tipped to start taking pre-orders between August 18 and the 24th of said sources.
The phone features a new aluminium frame, which Samsung claims is 1.7 times stronger and 1.3 times more scratch-resistant than its predecessor, and a super-slim bezel, which means that the overall device is narrower than some smartphones with 5.5-inch displays.
With research showing that consumers in Australia are turning to video due to carriers offering more data bandwidth Samsung has positioned the new S6 Edge+ as a multimedia device, and has introduced several new video features such as steady video recording with face recognition on the front-facing camera, for smoother selfie-videos, and native live broadcasting supported by YouTube.
It has also added new video editing options, such as “collage mode”, which allows users to film several videos and have them playing back side-by-side in a collage, and series mode, which allows you to cut together several video clips into a continuous film.
Audio quality has also been improved, with the addition of a ultra-high-quality (UHQ) Upscaler, so the ordinary MP3s on your phone can be upscaled to 24-bit 192kHz sound, and a dedicated clock to minimise sound distortion and noise.
Shortly before the announcement LG announced 24bit streaming for their G4 smartphone.
As part of their software upgrade program Samsung has developed its own UHQ Bluetooth codec, so users can stream music from their S6 Edge+ smartphone to a Samsung Galaxy Pro headset or speaker via Bluetooth, and still experience premium quality sound.
In terms of the core specs, the S6 Edge+ is not hugely different from its predecessor. It has the same processor as the S6 Edge, the octa-core Exynos 7, and the same camera combination (16MP on the back and 5MP on the front). It also features Samsung’s “defence-grade” security platform, Knox.
Samsung has improved its wireless charging technology, so despite having a bigger battery than the S6 Edge (3000mAh compared to 2600mAh), the S6 Edge+ takes one hour less to charge wirelessly. Wired charging takes 5 minutes longer than on the S6 Edge.
The S6 Edge+ also comes preloaded with SideSync 4.0 which allows users to sync their smartphone with their PC over Wi-Fi and easily move images and files between devices by dragging and dropping. They can even manage incoming text messages and phone calls from their PC.
As well as the “People Edge”, that was introduced with the Galaxy S6 Edge and allows people to quickly call, text or email their most frequent contacts, Samsung has added an Apps Edge that allows them to quickly access their favourite applications.
The People Edge has also been enhanced, so users can now send pokes, pictures and emoticons to their top contacts as well as calls, texts and emails.
The Galaxy Note 5,
Apart from having a flat screen and a stylus that pops out of the bottom, the only real difference is that the Note 5 is ever so slightly bigger and heavier (153.2 x 76.1 x 7.6mm, and 171g).
The mid-August launch puts Samsung’s new smartphones on the market ahead of arch-rival Apple’s next iPhones.
The US Company is reportedly preparing for its largest initial production run for new phones so far by the end of the year.
While the Note 5’s screen size stays the same at 5.7 inch, but it gets slightly skinnier than the Note 4.
Both phones get their RAM upgraded to 4GB, up from 3GB. The Edge+’s application processor stays the same with Samsung’s internally-developed 64-bit, quad-core Exynos 7420 built on a 14-nanometer node. The Note 5 gets a processor upgrade with the Exynos 7420 from the Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 processor found in the Note 4 (or the Exynos 5433 found in Korea version of the Note 4).
The Edge+ packs a larger battery of 3,000 mille-ampere hour, over the Edge’s 2,600 mAh. The Note 5, however, gets a battery downgrade, going from 3,220 mAh in the Note 4 to 3,000 mAh in the Note 5.
The Note 5 uses higher-quality materials. Instead of a plastic back, it’s now glass. This is bad news for Samsung consumers who liked the removable back that allowed them to switch out the battery or expand their phone’s storage capabilities.
Similar to the S6 Edge, the Edge+ packs a 16-megapixel camera on the back and a 5-megapixel on the front.
But some of the more important changes are coming in software.
A new feature called App Edge gives users quicker access to their favourite apps from any screen on the Edge+. The menu can appear anywhere the user decides to place it along the side of the Edge+. It works similar to the People Edge feature on the Edge, where users can get quick access to their top five contacts. This makes it so the user doesn’t constantly have to be pulling up the home screen to get to their favourite app.
The Note 5’s S Pen stylus gets a little more useful. Without even having to wake up the screen, users can start writing on the Note 5 and take notes like on a piece of paper. The S Pen’s air command features have been improved. Air commands lets users hover the S Pen over the screen and a menu pops up. In the new version, users can add their favourite S Pen apps. The S Pen’s performance has also been boosted with decreased latency between when the screen is touched and when the markings start showing up on the screen.
The new devices also improve Samsung’s SideSync, which syncs a user’s phone together with a PC or TV. The 4.0 version makes it easier to connect. As soon as a user gets home, their phone starts syncing up with their computer if they’re on the same network. SideSync will allow users to do anything they want on their phone directly on their computer (respond to texts, take phone calls), as well as drag and drop files from either the PC or the phone. The software will also be available on the Mac soon.
The two phones also give users the ability to scroll capture the images on their screen. That means users can grab and save a long web page from top to bottom in case they want to save it for later. This could be useful if the user wants to save directions to go somewhere for later when they might not have a data connection.
Samsung is putting more effort into kick starting Samsung Pay, its effort in the mobile wallet space.
Right now, it’s being piloted in the South Korea and it plans to launch in the U.S. in September.
Currently Samsung Australia executives are talking to financial institutions and retailers about a Samsung Pay system in OZ.
Samsung’s devices use both MST (Magnetic Secure Transmission) and NFC (Near Field Communication) technologies, so users don’t have to wait until stores roll out NFC-enabled point of sale terminals to pay for goods with their phones. For Apple Pay, users have to wait for this roll out.
Finally, perhaps one of the quirkiest new software features on the two new phones is the ability to live broadcast video directly to YouTube. In both phones’ camera app, there’s a live broadcast mode where users will be able to immediately start broadcasting. “The benefit of that is that it’s accessible to any platform,” said Drew Blackard, director of product marketing at Samsung. “Users can play it back on a phone, laptop, TV, anyone with access to YouTube.”
While the big standouts will be some of the software improvements, it makes sense Samsung is focusing on hardware updates for its S6 Edge device and not the S6. Although sales figures weren’t released for either phone, Samsung apparently didn’t anticipate how much demand there would be for the S6 Edge. Consumers had been wanting to buy the Edge, but they were not always finding it in stock.
“Samsung recognizes that the curved screen on the Edge is a differentiator for them,” said Charles Golvin, founder of Abelian Research. “It’s different from the iPhone. It has unique functionality.”
But will this be enough? Even though Samsung is trying to get ahead of Apple in the competitive launch cycle, the iPhone 6’s larger screens really hit Samsung’s advantage in the premium smartphone market.
“Samsung is putting effort into software to extend their differentiation in other ways,” said Golvin. “They’re continuing to iterate and fine tune. But it doesn’t make a big difference. There’s not a lot to differentiate these devices these days.”
Under siege supermarket group Woolworths who also own BigW and the struggling Masters Hardware chain has suffered a 12.5 per cent slump in its full-year net profit to $2.15 billion.
Total group sales were down 0.2 per cent to $60.7 billion and earnings before interest and tax plunged 12 per cent to $3.3 billion.
BigW is fast becoming a train wreck despite the mass retailer expanding their consumer electronics offerings. Sales slumped 5.7% from $4.3 Billion to $4.1 Billion.
Comp sales were down 7.2% while the cost of doing business rose 167bps.
The losses from Masters also continued to grow, blowing out to $245.6 million for the full year on sales of $930 million. Last week, the rival Bunnings hardware chain who have recently started to add brands like Belkin in an effort to attract home automation customers, unveiled a record $1.1 billion profit result, from an 11.6 per cent jump in sales to $9.5 billion.
Woolworths also said chairman Ralph Waters would step down on September 1, to be replaced on the same day by Mr Cairns.
The appointment of former Lion Nathan chief Gordon Cairns as chairman is seen by analysts as a vital step in preparing the ground for the appointment of a new chief executive to replace the retiring Grant O’Brien.
This is the first full-year net profit drop in 19 years (excluding one-offs), as it battles to fend off a sustained price attack from Aldi and Coles and as they struggle to stem losses from its Masters Hardware operation and turn around Big W.
The Daily Telegraph wrote of thew Woolies saga, ‘Watching Woolworths is increasingly the corporate equivalent of car crash TV. There’s the sudden departure of Big W boss Alistair McGeorge after complaints about his “workplace behaviour”, the ongoing “leadership” of lame duck CEO Grant O’Brien and a series of PR disasters (the “Fresh in our Memories” Anzac social media campaign, anyone?) just for starters’.
Ice TV the Company that is still trying to sting consumer $99 for a TV Guide despite most TV’s delivering a guide for free is now trying to slug consumers $499 for a Personal Video Recorder or $599 for ad skipping software that does not work all the time.
Called the Skippa because it skips advertisements in 30-second increments the device is three years late, the catch is that if you want an Ice TV program guide you have to pay an additional $100.
Back in 2012 the CEO of Ice TV Colin O’Brien told ChannelNews that he was about to release a personal video recorder that was being taken up by mass retailers, the only problem was that when ChannelNews checked not one single retailers was able to confirm the ranging of an Ice TV box.
When O’Brien was asked to nominate which retailers were set to stock the new device he said “it’s confidential”.
Even now the Skippa box is only being sold online via the Ice TV web site.
The device which competes head on with other products from Beyonwiz, Humax, Strong, Topfield and UEC, or computer-based PVRs such as Windows Media Centre and Elgato EyeTV is expensive when compared to what’s on offer from other media centre devices. It also has no Netflix, Stan, Presto or other mainstream streaming services, though it does deliver HBB TV.
It features three high-def MPEG-2/4 digital TV tuners and has a 1TB drive which is standard in several PVR’s.
A big disadvantage is that if you one records a series of shows the device will not add padding either side of the show similar to what one can do with the new Foxtel iQ3 or the Fetch TV box.
Nor can you set Series recordings to only keep a certain number of episodes before deleting them to save space.
An IceTV subscription costs $99 per year or you pay $599 to get a lifetime subscription when you buy a Skippa which retails for $499 without the Ice TV guide.
You also get stung $49 per year for the auto ad-skipping features if you don’t pay for lifetime subscription.
Fairfax Media said after reviewing the product “AutoSkip can’t work its magic while you’re watching a live broadcast. Nor does it work if you’re watching on a slight delay because it needs time to process the recording, which takes about as long as the length of the show. It doesn’t delete the ads, it simply marks where they start and finish”.
They added “The AutoSkip feature is surprisingly good but not foolproof, IceTV says it’s around 90 per cent accurate”.
Ruslan Kogan is out spruiking again, after failing in his predictions that Apple was set to dump their retail partners the mouth from the south (Melbourne) is now claiming that he wants to branch out of consumer electronics and take on the likes of David Jones, Myer, Target and K Mart.
In other words, his sales of CE products and the related margins are slowing and he now needs to find new markets to flog cheap gear
He claims that he doesn’t want cheap televisions to define his business any more.
Speaking to Fairfax Media he said “I had a guy at my place to fix the air conditioner a few weeks ago and he walks in and was like ‘oh, so you’re Kogan, the guy that sells the TVs’.
“I was like ‘we’ll there’s 30,000 products on our site right now and TVs are just a portion of that’.”
Recently his Company has moved into categories as diverse as fashion and outdoor goods but now he wants to flog as many categories as possible.
“From a financial perspective, they’re industries that have much-higher margins than consumer electronics, so it gives us the ability to really smash the competition,” Mr Kogan said.
Kogan has quietly rolled out private-label brands of sports equipment, power tools, Manchester, travel goods and even pet supplies in the past year.
When asked how he would approach the new categories he said “We’ll think ‘Is there a demand for towels’? and we’ll take a look at the number of Google searches for towels, then we’ll look at how much we can get them manufactured for,” he said.
“Then we’ll look at how much we can get them delivered to the customer for, see what the other price in the market is, and then say ‘go’.”
Core to his success is a back-end bidding system that manufacturers and suppliers use to compete for contracts.
“What Amazon is letting the customer do at the front end, we’re doing at the back end,” Mr Kogan said.
“You could go onto Kogan and order an iPhone a week, and over the space of a few months one would arrive from France, one would arrive from Hong Kong, one would arrive from the US, one from Singapore.
Kogan who owns his company won’t reveal customer numbers or sales figures.
SanDisk whose high priced memory products generate excellent revenues for Australian retailers is up for sale with Samsung tipped to have now entered the bidding war for the US based Company, Toshiba a part owner of factories with SanDisk has given their blessing to a sale.
Back in April ChannelNews tipped that SanDisk would be put up for sale and that Samsung would be a bidder.
Takeover speculation is now reaching fever pitch with several Companies tipped to be in the race to buy the struggling memory Company who earlier this year was dumped by Apple.
Among the Companies said to be running the ruler over SanDisk are Micron Technology, whose market capitalization is $20 billion, Western Digital, capitalization $19 billion and Seagate whose capitalization is $11.5 billion.
The potential sale comes as the storage sector has fallen on hard times in 2015, following a broad sector rally in 2013 and 2014.
If Samsung get the business, the Australian and regional management at SanDisk are set to be retrenched with Samsung taking over sales.
During the past two years, SanDisk gained 125% while peer players like Micron rallied over 450%. Prior to last week’s rally, SanDisk shares were down 37% year to date for 2015.
Micron is one of the rivals that is said to be considering putting in an offer, which would make some sense although could be tricky to consummate. SanDisk jointly operates flash memory factories with Toshiba, so Toshiba would have to sign off as well.
But the good news is that Toshiba is reportedly open to the idea. Western Digital is the other company that is tipped to be interested.
There is also speculation that Apple could be in the bidding for the struggling Company.
“For Apple, it’s a drop in the $115 billion in (its) net-cash-and-investments bucket.” said one analyst.
The analyst believes the “pay out” would be rather quick and manifest itself in the form of lower NAND costs along with negotiating leverage with other suppliers.
Last year Apple acquired Beats for $3 billion. SanDisk’s current market cap is currently over $14 billion.
Motley Fool suggested that It makes a lot more sense for a peer to acquire SanDisk since operational similarities would yield significant cost-saving synergies. Considering the commodity nature of the memory market, cost discipline is almost as important to long-term viability than product innovation.
If there are multiple suitors, a potential bidding war could conceivably drive SanDisk’s final price to close to $20 billion.
That total would be almost seven times the size of the Beats deal.
Australian appliance and consumer electronics buying group Narta is on a roll and growing at three times the industry average executives at their annual conference in whistler Canada have been told.
Australian appliance and consumer electronics buying group Narta is on a roll and growing at three times the industry average executives at their annual conference in whistler Canada have been told.
During the past 12 months Narta snared 26 per cent in side by side refrigeration 30.7 per cent share in plasma, 28.9 per cent in LCD, 26.2 per cent in imaging, 32.0 per cent in cooking and27.5 per cent in dishwashers.
The group that is responsible for the purchase of goods for the likes of JB Hi Fi, Clive Peeters, David Jones, Bing Lee, and organisations like Winnings believes that they can grow even further however it will be tough in the current economic climate Narta chairman John Wipfli told a packed audience of industry heavyweights.
In his opening address Wipfli said that the group achieved growth of 13 per cent in 2008 compared to the industry average of just 4.3 per cent.
“Our industry is not going to disappear, however growth may not be the same as it has been in the past. We should be optimistic, not pessimistic.”
SanDisk which makes memory cards for electronics, is considering an option to buy Lexar Media industry insiders are saying.
SanDisk has hired Morgan Stanley to explore the bid, and a deal may include selling some of the combined company’s assets to Toshiba to avoid antitrust problems, a Morgan Stanley source has said. Lexar said March 8 that it had agreed to be bought by Micron Technology Inc. for $667 million, and the deal has been opposed by some Lexar shareholders, including Carl Icahn,said.
Representatives of SanDisk, Lexar and Toshiba didn’t return phone calls or declined to comment on the move. Shares of Lexar have rose 40 cents, or 4.6 percent, to $9.19 and traded as high as $9.33.
Mobile phone Companies are active this week launching new products among the big movers and shakers are Microsoft, Nokia and HP.
First it was Apple’s iPod. Now Microsoft’s taste in fruit has run to BlackBerries. The software giant will today announce several devices that link to mobile-phone services for messages on the go. Microsoft will build on upgrades announced in June to access new e-mail messages. The trick is to imitate Research In Motion’s push e-mail system. Mobile phones running Microsoft’s software currently use a cumbersome and costly method to update e-mail inboxes. The first four devices with in-built push e-mail will come from phone and computer makers. The star is Hewlett-Packard’s new handheld iPaq hw6900. It’s been released as H-P moves to separate its handheld business from its notebook computers.
Other players include Vodafone and US carrier Cingular Wireless. Canada-based RIM has more than 4.3 million subscribers, the vast majority business users. There are probably about six to 10 million mobile e-mail users, a few hundred thousand using Microsoft software. But with more than a billion mobile users in the world, Microsoft is betting there’s a much bigger e-mail market to open up.
Nokia, which yesterday announced a new handset (See story on next page) has signalled its intentions by buying RIM rival Intellisync for $430 million.
Microsoft hopes to compete on price. For corporations that already have Microsoft’s Exchange Server 2003 software for managing e-mail accounts and its Windows Mobile 5.0 software for phones, the push e-mail upgrade is available at no additional cost. Other corporates need to pay several thousand dollars to purchase a mobile e-mail server and may have to pay an additional licence fee of up to $100.
Australia gets new BlackBerry
It might be in dire strife in the US. But in Australia, Research In Motion is now offering the BlackBerry 7130e for Telstra’s 1xEV-DO mobile broadband network.
The 7130e delivers e-mail and data using the well-known BlackBerry platform, but in a mobile phone design. It can also become a modem for notebook computers. The BlackBerry 7130e claims a bigger and high-resolution LCD screen, Bluetooth support for wireless headsets or hands-free car kits, 64MB of flash memory, dedicated “send” and “end” phone keys, an intuitive user interface and enhanced battery life. A Qwerty keyboard fits within a traditional wireless phone form.
Nokia who last week did not want to know technology writers were this week back sucking up to them to announce availability of the Nokia 9300 smartphone on Telstra’s mobile network using BlackBerry’s “push” e-mail technology. This connects to a corporate or private email service using the BlackBerry server, which is the same email platform deployed by a number of Australian companies.
