Carlos Computers - Cairns Computer Repairs, Sales and Service

Telstra has officially announced its new line up of Bigpond internet plans by slashing prices and introducing new bundling options. The plans are fairly competitive but still have a long way to go before they catch up with pricing structures of Internode, iiNet, TPG and so on.

The biggest change is that there are now two succinct speed choices. The slowest plans you can now choose from are their "Turbo" plans which are a minimum speed of 1500/256. The other category is the "Elite" plans which are either up to 8000/364 (ADSL1+) or up to 20,000/1000 (ADSL2+) where available.

Telstra has also introduced new bundling options, where the more Telstra services you have, the greater the discount on your Internet. For example, bundling a Telstra HomeLine, Mobile and Foxtel can "save" you $20 on your Bigpond service.

Other changes include the removal of the pathetic 200MB and 400MB plans, the minimum plan now has 2GB of data included, Turbo for $39.95 per month unbundled or Elite $49.95 per month unbundled, but still charges at the exorbitant rate of $150/GB for excess usage. All the other plans are now part of Telstra's "Liberty" family which shape users to dial up speeds once your quota is used.

New plans inserted into the mix also include a 100GB and 200GB quota plan, very generous quota offerings from a company that in the past didn't offer very large usage caps. 

The Turbo plans are still overpriced when compared to competitors in the market. Bigpond's Turbo Liberty 50GB is $99.95 where Internode charges only $49.95 for the same amount of data on the same speed.

The Elite plans however are very competitive when compared to the competitor Telstra Wholesale ADSL2+ offerings. This has caused many to speculate that Wholesale prices will need to be lowered in the near future with Telstra now having an unfair advantage in the market.

The Whirlpool forums were a buzz after the release this morning, many praising Telstra for finally lowering their prices but most, myself included, still commenting that they remain far too high compared to the rest of the world. It's a step forward but still more needs to be done in order to get Australia decent and fair pricing in line with the rest of the OECD top rated countries.

Look out for the ACCC enquiry which is sure to be launched in the coming weeks as the competitors do some number crunching and whether Telstra will indeed reduce wholesale pricing all by itself or is inevitably forced to by the regulator.

Read the media release here: Telstra Media Centre

Cairns business and residents were left in communications darkness yesterday after a core router failure in a Townsville exchange knocked services off the air from Townsville to the Torres Strait.

The outage that started at around 12 noon effected all Telstra internet and Telstra Wholesale customers on multiple exchanges across the Far North and also effected Telstra's NextG network. Systems were fully restored by 3.30pm.

Wally Donaldson, manager for Telstra Country Wide in Cairns said "Obviously, it’s a priority to get this restored for us and it’s certainly been treated as a major incident, priority one."

An unprecedented incident like this was very serious and showed just how vulnerable we are here in Cairns to communications failure. What the outage highlighted is that there is no redundancy from Townsville to Cairns. So if the core routers fail in Townsville it essentially cuts communications to the rest of Far North Queensland.

The question should be asked, why is there not a redundant link from Townsville? Obviously Telstra doesn't see Cairns as a big enough market to warrant that investment, but if the 3 hours of downtime yesterday is anything to go by, with businesses unable to perform transactions, then surely that is a big enough reason to get a second link to Cairns.

The Government has announced plans to start a nation wide e-waste recycling program to be underway by 2011. The program aims to keep the ever mounting pile of old computers, TV's and other electronic items out of landfill sites.

Federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett said householders will be able to drop off outdated equipment for recycling free of charge, with the new scheme expected to put 80 per cent of all old TVs and computers into recycling facilities by 2021.

In 2007-08, nearly 17 million old TVs, computers and related products reached the end of their useful lives, but the overwhelming majority - 84 per cent - were sent to the local dump. Only 10 per cent of this equipment was recycled, and the mountain of e-waste continues to grow.

Under the new national waste policy, manufacturers will have the option to join accredited, voluntary, industry-run schemes, although the government will ensure non-participants must comply with the same standards through mandatory or co-regulatory arrangements.

Certainly good news for the environment.

(Source: The Australian.)

Microsoft is offering all Australian TAFE and University students the opportunity to pick up a discounted copy of Windows 7 Home Premium for only $49.95. The offer is valid until March 2010 so if you're starting TAFE or Uni next year be sure to bookmark the websites listed below.

Microsoft is also still running their widely popular "It's Not Cheating" offer on Office 2007 Ultimate. You can grab a copy of Office 2007 Ultimate for only $75.00. This is a 90% discount on the recommended retail price.

LINKS:

Windows 7 Student Discount

Office 2007 - It's Not Cheating