Australia Bans Chinese Company from Web Network

Australia has banned Chinese technology giant Huawei from bidding to help build a nationwide high-speed Internet network due to concern about cyber attacks traced to China.

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard said Monday the move was among "prudent decisions" to ensure the planned network functions properly.

The ban highlights concern about Beijing's cyber warfare efforts, a spate of hacking attempts aimed at Western companies and the role of Chinese equipment providers, which are expanding abroad.

Huawei Technologies Ltd. is one of the world's biggest producers of switching equipment that forms the heart of phone and data networks. The company rejected suggestions it might be a security risk and said it has won the trust of global telecoms carriers.

Beijing's relations with Western governments have been strained by complaints about hacking traced to China and aimed at oil, technology and other companies. A U.S. congressional panel has said it will investigate whether allowing Huawei and other Chinese makers of telecoms gear to expand in the United States might aid Chinese spying.

The Australian attorney general's office told Huawei late last year it would be barred from bidding for work on the 36 billion Australian dollar ($38 billion) network, according to The Australian Financial Review newspaper. It said that decision was prompted by Australian intelligence officials who cited hacking attacks traced to China.

A spokesman for the attorney general's office said it could not comment on individual companies but a Huawei official confirmed the newspaper's account. He spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to disclose conversations between Huawei and the government.
Huawei expressed disappointment about the decision. It has operated in Australia since 2004 and said it already works with the country's major telecoms carriers.

"Huawei will continue to be open and transparent and work to find ways of providing assurance around the security of our technology," said a company statement.

 China is Australia's biggest trading partner and Chinese demand for iron ore and other minerals has driven an Australian economic boom. But Canberra is uneasy about Beijing's rising military spending and growing assertiveness in Asia.

The United States and Australia announced plans in September to include cyber security in their 61-year-old defense alliance, the first time Washington has done that with a partner outside NATO.

President Barack Obama announced plans in November to send U.S. military aircraft and up to 2,500 Marines to Australia's north for a training hub to help allies and protect American interests across Asia.
Plans approved by Australian lawmakers in 2010 call for building a fiber-optic network to provide high-speed Internet access to 90 percent of the country's homes.

Huawei said it is building similar networks in Britain, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia and other countries.
"You don't get to that level of success unless you have customers that trust your company, your staff and your technology," the statement said.

Gillard, who was at a security conference in Seoul, said the planned Australian network is a crucial national project.

"You would expect, as a government, we would make all of the prudent decisions to make sure that that infrastructure project does what we want it to do, and we've taken one of those decisions," she said, when asked about Huawei.

Gillard gave no details of the reason for the decision.

Huawei was founded in 1987 by a former Chinese military engineer but says it has no connection to the military. The company says it is employee-owned but has released few details about who controls it, which has fueled questions abroad.

Huawei had been endorsed as a bidder on the Australian project by the technical department of the government-owned National Broadband Network Co., the Financial Review said. It said the attorney general blocked that after intelligence officials objected.

Huawei, based in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, near Hong Kong, reported revenues for the first half of last year of 98.3 billion yuan ($15.8 billion) and says its equipment is used in 140 countries.

In 2010, it was blocked from taking part in upgrading a U.S. phone carrier's network and last year was forced to unwind its acquisition of an American computer company after a security panel rejected the deal.
The U.S. House of Representatives intelligence committee said in November it would investigate whether allowing Chinese companies to expand in the United States might aid Chinese electronic spying.

It cited Huawei and rival ZTE Corp., another telecom equipment supplier, as being among the companies to be examined.

The panel said it will look into the role Chinese companies play in supplying components for U.S. telecoms systems and whether access to those systems might allow foreign governments to gather information.

NBN Rolls Out Labor's 'Map for Re-Election'

THE rollout of Labor's $36 billion National Broadband Network in Brisbane is largely focused on Labor-held seats, with Coalition electorates in the area all but ignored by the Gillard government's telecommunications flagship. 

Rollout maps published on the NBN Co's website covering the next three years show intense activity in Labor seats such as Lilley, Griffith and Rankin, with little building in Coalition electorates, sparking opposition claims the government is using the rollout to protect its own seats in next year's federal election.

The latest opinion polling and the landslide results of the Queensland state election suggest Labor would lose all but a handful of federal seats in the state if an election were held today. Even senior government members such as Wayne Swan and Trade Minister Craig Emerson, whose seats are in Brisbane, are not considered safe.

The NBN Co maps reveal that by the time the next election is due late next year, the rollout would have started across most of the Treasurer's electorate of Lilley. The rollout is expected to start across most of Dr Emerson's electorate within three years, with the seats of Kevin Rudd (Griffith) and Bernie Ripoll (Oxley) also lined up for early stages of the NBN while neighbouring Coalition seats will see almost no activity for at least three years.

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy yesterday denied political pork-barrelling, saying the focus on Labor seats in Brisbane was caused by the fact that the rollout had to begin at main exchanges - or points of interconnect (POIs) - and that in Brisbane most of these were in Labor seats.
He said that outside of Brisbane POIs were located in Coalition-held seats also featuring heavy NBN rollout work.

However, Liberal MP Andrew Laming, whose seat of Bowman will see little NBN activity, said Labor was servicing its own seats, particularly those of ministers, while ignoring neighbouring Coalition electorates.

"The cold, hard reality in Brisbane is that households in Labor seats are eight times more likely to get the NBN than those in Coalition seats," Dr Laming said. "Worse, the odds are around 50 per cent better if your Labor MP is a minister. "This is a save-the-political-furniture strategy. They are not targeting marginal seats here. They are just trying to survive."

Senator Conroy said the pattern of the rollout was designed to begin at POIs and then fan out so the network could be progressively switched on as work was completed. "The rollout of the NBN is determined by the NBN Co and is based on a range of engineering and geographical criteria," he said. "The POI sites in Brisbane mirror the pattern shown on the NBN Co maps."

The Brisbane POIs were located in Ipswich, Woolloongabba, Goodna, Aspley, Bundamba, Camp Hill, Petrie, Slacks Creek, Salisbury, Eight Mile Plains and Chermside.

"It's simply laughable for the opposition to be complaining about the NBN rollout schedule given their plans to demolish it if they are elected," Senator Conroy said. "The message cannot be more clear: under Labor, Australians will have access to world-class technology under the NBN; under the Coalition the NBN will be demolished and Australians will be stuck with their current inferior broadband that will hold this nation back."

Brisbane businessman Trent Bruce, who runs Brisbane North Raine & Horne Commercial real estate agency, said he was concerned about the rollout. The NBN map shows homes and businesses at the northern end of Webster Road in Mr Swan's electorate of Lilley should be able to connect within three years, while those at the southern end in the Liberal-held seat of Brisbane, including Mr Bruce, will probably miss out on connection within three years.

"I think every single business would want it," Mr Trent told The Australian. "We want to be at the top of our game across the board. It is the way of the future and if we're not at the top we'll lose people."

But Mr Bruce said he would not comment on any political link for the NBN rollout. "I don't want to get political," he said.

Just 6km north of Raine & Horne in Aspley, Peter Thompson's business, Queensland Computer Station, can expect the NBN within one to three years.

"We've just started getting into application development for Apple products, so it'll definitely be an advantage to download information from Apple faster," Mr Thompson said.

Opposition communications spokesman Malcolm Turnbull said the Queensland rollout was fast becoming "the largest pork barrel" in Australian political history. "Maps released last month reveal an eerie concordance with federal electoral boundaries in the Brisbane metropolitan area," Mr Turnbull said.

When The Australian asked the NBN Co for comment, a spokeswoman pointed to remarks by chief executive Mike Quigley last month in which he named eight factors affecting planning, including: the government's demand for equity between regional and metropolitan areas; availability of infrastructure from Telstra; priority to growth corridors likely to contain high numbers of greenfields sites; efficient sequencing; construction effects on communities; and serving of universities.

Telstra split clears way for the NBN

FULL-SCALE rollout of the national broadband network will start within months, as telcos are already advertising prices from $30 a month for basic services and up to $165 for super-fast connections.

The final piece of the NBN's regulatory puzzle fell into place yesterday, after the government secured a decision from the competition regulator designed to curb Telstra's dominance of fixed telecommunications. It is also the final hurdle to Telstra signing a deal with NBN Co.

By approving Telstra's plan to split its fixed wholesale and retail arms, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has cleared the way for NBN Co and Telstra to finalise an infrastructure-sharing agreement within weeks.

Under the deal, Telstra will gradually shut down its copper wire network as it transfers customers to the NBN. It stands to receive about $11 billion, at today's values, from NBN Co over 30 years.

Any move by the Coalition to shut down or substantially alter the NBN would now involve negotiating a new deal with Telstra and unwinding the complex regulatory process that finished yesterday.

The separation means Telstra will no longer own the infrastructure that it also uses to compete against other telcos at a retail level.

Broadband Minister Stephen Conroy said splitting Telstra was the ''holy grail'' of telecommunications reforms. Structural separation, as the reform is known, would finally ensure a ''level playing field'' and address a long-standing policy failure. ''This is a mistake that was made 20 years ago,'' he said, referring to the Howard government's initial decision not to split Telstra when privatising it.

He said scrapping the NBN - as promised by the opposition - would hold back competition because Telstra would no longer have to structurally separate.

Opposition communications spokesman Malcolm Turnbull said the Coalition supported Telstra's structural separation and upgrading broadband across Australia. But the Coalition would not release policy details until closer to the election.

Separation will not be complete until NBN Co finishes building its fibre-optic cable to replace Telstra's copper, which will be decommissioned except in rural and remote areas. Construction is expected to take 10 years and cost $36 billion plus the payments to Telstra.

ACCC chairman Rod Sims said the separation was a ''significant milestone in the structural reform'' of the telco industry. ''More effective competition in telecommunications markets will result in improved service offerings to consumers.''

The go-ahead from the regulator came a day after Telstra unveiled prices it plans to charge people for access to the new network.

Its initial offerings appear significantly more expensive than those of rivals. For example, Telstra's cheapest monthly phone and internet plan will be $80, compared with Optus' entry level $65 and Exetel's $35.
Telstra is also relatively expensive at the premium end, charging $150 for 500Gb of data delivered at the high speed of 100Mbps. iiNet, by contrast, will charge $110 for twice as much data delivered at the same speed. iiNet's price, however, does not include a modem, for which it will charge an extra $10 monthly.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/political-news/telstra-split-clears-way-for-the-nbn-20120228-1u0y5.html#ixzz1nqIhDFFd

Telstra Releases NBN Pricing Plans

The move comes after the nation's largest telco signed a wholesale service agreement with NBN Co, the government-funded company charged with building and running the national broadband network, at the weekend.

The plans, announced on Monday, have the same pricing and download allowance for specific download speeds as Telstra's ADSL or cable internet plans.

Telstra executive director of customer service Peter Jamieson said the decision to offer a uniform suite of broadband products was designed to make things simpler for customers.

"Whilst having options is good, too many options becomes confusing," Mr Jamieson said.

Entry level NBN plans starts at $49.95 a month for 50 gigabytes (GB) of data delivered with a download speed of 25 megabits per second (Mbps), rising to $89.95 for 500 GB.

For those who wish to have a download speed of 100Mbps, plans start from $59.95 a month for 50 GB of data, to $99.95 for 500 GB.

The release of Telstra's NBN plans also coincided with an update of the telco's broadband retail offering more generally, with new bundled plans featuring more generous download allowances and inclusions.

Telstra chief customer officer Gordon Ballantyne said a dedicated call centre had been set up to manage customer inquiries, while 5,000 technicians were on standby to help customers connect to the new service.

The NBN plans will be available to those living in the five Australian mainland first release NBN sites - Armidale and Kiama Downs (NSW), Townsville (Queensland), Brunswick (Victoria) and Willunga (South Australia).

Other internet service providers currently offering NBN retail internet plans included Optus and iinet.

While it was possible to deliver voice services over parts of the NBN, Mr Jamieson said customers would continue to receive their home phone service over Telstra's copper network.

"As the technology changes occur over the next 12 to 18 months, we will make that transition to a fibre service for their voice," Mr Jamieson said.

NBN Co planned to roll out fibre-optic cable to deliver high-speed broadband services to 93 per cent of Australia's 13 million homes, schools and businesses by 2021.

Telstra closed down three cents at $3.23.

Telstra Internet Outage Affects Millions

Millions of Telstra customers across Australia were left without internet access for 40 minutes this afternoon due to an internet outage.

A spokesman for the telco told ninemsn the outage, which began at 1:50pm (AEST) and ended at 2:30pm (AEST), had affected Telstra customers nationally for mobile and fixed broadband.

"We do not know the cause, we are investigating that now," the spokesman Craig Middleton said.

Hundreds of customers turned to Twitter to vent their frustration over the outage.

"Nice work blowing the internet there Telstra," one user, switch_mullet, wrote.

"Hey #Telstra, have you tried turning it off and back on again?" another angry customer tweeted.

Telstra has three million Big Pond customers nationally.

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.melbourne, .sydney and .victoria are go, .nsw a maybe

The NSW and Victorian governments have selected ARI Registry Services to prepare their application for new top-level domains (TLDs): .melbourne, .sydney and .victoria.

The two state governments released a joint tender in October, seeking a registry operator to manage the application to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which governs the granting of new TLDs.

The NSW government is still determining whether it will apply for a .nsw domain, which has raised as a possibility in the original tender. ARI Registry Services CEO, Adrian Kinderis, said that ICANN's rules governing the new generic TLDs (gTLDs) mean that the state government may not be guaranteed to be granted .nsw.

"We're working through some of those issues so it's certainly not ruled out," Kinderis said. "We'd love to have it in the mix obviously from a registry perspective, but that is yet to be ratified. So we're working through that issue at the moment to make sure the money is spent wisely if indeed they do go for the application and that they're giving themselves a good chance of securing it."

Kinderis said he was disappointed that other Australian cities and governments had not taken advantage of ICANN's opening up of new gTLDs. "I don't believe anyone else is coming forward. it's really disappointing because this is an amazing opportunity and for places the Gold Coast and Brisbane which really work hard on promoting themselves internationally as destinations, we would have thought this would have been a no-brainer."

Kinderis said that it's not too late for other governments to apply for gTLDs despite the 12 April deadline for filing applications with ICANN. "I don't think it's too late [but] the message needs to be 'mobilise now'."

ICANN is committed to opening up a second round of gTLD registrations, but Kinderis said he didn't anticipate this would be for another three years at least.

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NBN Broadband Satellites Please Farmers

The federal government's plan to buy two satellites to provide high-speed broadband services to the nation's most remote areas has pleased farmers, but the opposition says it's too costly.

Labor on Wednesday announced a $620 million deal between NBN Co, the government-owned enterprise rolling out the national broadband network (NBN), and US firm Loral Space and Communications to make the Ka-band satellites.

When they are launched in 2015, around 200,000 homes and businesses in the remotest regions will have access to internet download speeds similar to those currently available in urban centres.

"We won't be leaving those Australians who live in the remotest parts of the nation behind," Prime Minister Julia Gillard told reporters in Canberra.

Under the $35.9 billion NBN project, fibre-optic cable delivering high-speed broadband services will be rolled out to 93 per cent of Australia's 13 million homes, schools and businesses by 2021.

Fixed wireless technology will provide high-speed internet to four per cent of premises, and the remaining three per cent will be supplied by the two satellites to remote areas.

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said the satellites would give users affordable world-class broadband connections to be paid for by cross-subsidies built into the NBN plan.

"It ensures remote families and business pay the same entry-level wholesale price for services in the city," the senator said.

"Using these satellites, rural businesses can make it easier to expand in national and international markets."

The new satellites would be launched separately, the first one by March 2015 and the second one six months later.

The National Farmers' Federation said the plan was a "very positive" development for rural communications.

"We're looking forward to the day when all Australians have equal access to telecommunications - and we will work with government to ensure that the commitment made today is upheld and delivered," NFF president Jock Laurie said in a statement.

But opposition communications spokesman Malcolm Turnbull described the plan as expensive, comparing it to buying a top-of-the-line luxury car when it wasn't needed.

"Don't buy yourself a Camry, a Falcon - buy yourself a Rolls-Royce, a Bentley," he told reporters.

"Nothing but the best will do, nothing but the most expensive will do."

Mr Turnbull said the telecommunications industry had told him there was enough capacity on existing and scheduled-to-be-launched satellites to provide broadband services to rural and remote Australia.

He also queried why the existing interim satellite service could not be upgraded to a permanent one.

Senator Conroy dismissed reports an Australian company had missed out on the contract, saying no local company had the capacity to build the satellites, which will be made in the US.

The hardware will deliver initial peak speeds of 12 megabytes per second downloading and one megabyte a second uploading.

"It will be possible for retail service providers to offer services to homes and businesses in the satellite footprint that are as good or better than the services many city people currently experience," NBN Co chief Mike Quigley said.

The satellite contract is part of a total investment of about $2 billion over 15 years required to deliver the NBN long-term satellite service.

The opposition is opposed to the existing NBN plan and prefers a mix of technologies to achieve its own version.

But Mr Turnbull acknowledged contracts such as the satellite deal could be hard to cancel if the coalition wins the next election in 2013.

"They are putting contracts in place and we may have to live with it," Mr Turnbull said.

The NBN is due to be completed by 2021.