Considering that Netflix doesn't operate in Australia, it's hardly surprising that LG has dumped the Netflix support from its local version of the BD300 Blu-ray player. Instead, they're offering a bonus BigPond DVD rentals promotion, which includes four months worth of DVD (or Blu-ray) rentals from BigPond's Netflix-like store (we're talking physical media here, in case anyone's confused).

The unit's priced at $499, which looks like it's going to be the sweet spot for Blu-ray players this Christmas. On top of being a BD Profile 2.0 machine, it also plays back DivX discs and JPEG, MP3 and WMA files from a USB stick, plus supports the latest HD audio codecs.

Of course, there's no word on whether or not it will ever support the BigPond Movies download service, but we've got our fingers crossed.

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"For heavy users, we've increased the 3GB plan to 5GB for the same price making it $89.95 per month on a 12 month plan. And, if customers hit 5GB, we've removed excess usage fees and instead will shape the service to 64kbps.

"We've also removed the excess usage charges for our 10GB plans so our high-usage customers have greater control over how much they spend each month and once they reach their usage allowance their plan is simply shaped to 64kbps."

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It's really surprising that this hasn't been done by an Australian company sooner, but Telstra has launched the country's first online 24/7 news channel, both on their BigPond portal online and on NextG mobile phones.

The channel streams live video of the latest news, finance, politics, sports and weather directly to your browser or mobile phone. It's powered by Sky News content, but BigPond has control over how it is delivered to the audience, so it can cut to breaking news or stick with the latest sports updates, depending on how they feel.

The online portal at BigPond is available to anyone, although unless you're a BigPond customer, you'll pay for the bandwidth (which is the same as watching any other video site). BigPond customers watching the channel have unmetered access. NextG customers can pay $4.95 a month or $1.95 for a day pass.

The only problem with the offering is that the online version uses Windows Media for streaming the video channel, meaning Mac users are left out in the cold.

Full release is below:

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What's wrong with this headline spotted on Ars Technica today?

"Australian ISPs offer US advice, smugness, on net neutrality"

Of course as always, headlines only tell half the story. Reading the Ars article, you quickly learn that it is in response to this article from ZDNet AU, where the heads of local ISPs BigPond, iiNet and Internode were interviewed on what Net neutrality means for Australians. The answer? Not too much, because our systems are very different, at least for the moment.

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Mobile data keeps getting cheaper. You can now get 1GB per month from pretty much any network for under $30, often including the price of the wireless modem.

The exception, of course, is Telstra, who are banking on the fact that their NextG network is superior to the other carrier's offerings that it keeps its prices at a premium to put it politely.

The good news is that even Telstra is starting to come to the mobile data pricing party, although they're still waiting in their car out the front, waiting for everyone to come to them rather than go inside and be social.

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The rumours we heard back in May were true - Sanity has now officially launched its music subscription service, LoadIt, the same service it promised back when Microsoft launched Vista in January 2007. But anybody looking for the future o music consumption should look away fast, otherwise you might sear your eyeballs with the incredible lack of value in Sanity's proposition.

For a start, it's so packed full of restrictions that it makes Cuba look like the centre of the free world. First off, there's the Windows Media association - we knew this was always going to happen, but it essentially means that Mac and Linux users are a no-go. And, of course, anyone who uses an iPod - each song is WMA with DRM, so only Plays For Sure MP3 players will work with this service.

Then there's the track limits. For $29 a month you get - wait for it - the ability to download 300 songs each month. Over time, that's probably not too bad a proposition - 3,600 songs each year isn't terrible value for money. But that first month, when you want to load up your non-iPod MP3 player... You can only grab 300 songs. Worse is that if you do download more than 300, there are excess charges, although what they are isn't spelled out on the LoadIt website. As a point of reference, Napster's subscription service in the US offers unlimited downloads for US$12.95 a month.

And finally, there's the subscription model itself. You pay $29 a month for your music. After a year you might have built up a decent collection. But if you stop paying your subscription fees, all that music will disappear like smoke in the wind, and you'll be left with nothing but a credit card debt and an empty MP3 player.

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This was unexpected. Today Telstra, through its BigPond Music service, announced that it will be selling DRM-free MP3 tracks from all four major labels, plus a heap of independents. Previously, they only sold WMA tracks that "Played 4 Sure" - or in other words, didn't play at all.

The move to DRM-free MP3 means that you can listen to these tracks on pretty much any device, including your iPod. To the best of my knowledge, it also makes BigPond the second service in the world (behind Amazon in the US) to sell DRM-free music from all four majors.

The tracks are encoded at either 256Kbps or 320Kbps, which is as good as it gets for MP3 files from an online store.

This is a fantastic move from Telstra - DRM is one of the biggest drawbacks of buying music online. Considering that MP3 tracks are still only $1.69 in the MP3 format, the question has to be asked - why would you use iTunes (unless buying iTunes Plus tracks) when you can get a DRM-free version for the same price from BigPond?

[BigPond Music]

As a general rule, television ads suck. They're badly written, boring and distract you from what you want to be enjoying. That's why so many people now download TV shows from the internet.

But every so often, you get an ad that's actually entertaining. Like the BigPond broadband ad about the Great Wall of China. I actually laughed out loud when I first saw it (although subsequent viewings have taken the edge off it).

However, as good as this ad is, I can't say I'm convinced by the prospect of Telstra developing a sitcom around it, which is exactly what could be happening according to the Australian.

The idea for a sitcom has been pitched at Telstra, along with interactive games and other engaging experiences to try and promote their broadband offering. Both ideas would revolve around the father and son featured in the original ad.

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There's a report in The Australian IT section today that has the managing director of BigPond saying that Telstra is the company best placed to implement the $4.7 billion FTTN network being financed by the federal govenment. Of course, he would say this, with BigPond being owned by Telstra and all.

"I can't see how anybody other than Telstra can build a big, scaled and reliable broadband service for Australia because it is such a hard thing to do. It's a huge project ... it relies on a whole bunch of existing infrastructure and clearly Telstra is the right firm to do that job," he told the Australian.

Actually, there's a certain logic to what he's saying -- Telstra is the certainly the company with most experience implementing a broadband network in Australia. What has struck me, however, is how strange it would be for Telstra to win the tender, given it's a large part of the problem the government is trying to fix.

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It's been one of those thoughts I've often had. "Surely fibre should be able to deliver better speeds than copper?" Of course it can, but until now it just hasn't. And now Bigpond has flicked the switch on 30Mbps downstream (1Mbps up) for Cable Extreme users to customers in "selected areas" of Sydney and Melbourne, which they put at over 1.8 million homes. Other Extreme users will still be getting 17Mbps / 256Kbps rates.

A few more provisos after the jump. But if you're in the right spot, dreamy download speeds await. I'll live with my 16Mbps line sync on ADSL for now, but I'll certainly envy those with fibre to their door.

[UPDATE: Modem upgrade prices (discussed below) confirmed from $119.]

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