The T-Hub is a device that connects your Telstra home phone and your Telstra Broadband wirelessly, and features a 7-inch LCD touchscreen that allows you to jump on board a whole heap of Sensis based services.

From the Telstra staff Intranet description:

Customers will be able to make calls easily scrolling through their contact list and pressing “Call”. Or if a plumber is needed, click to search Yellow Pages online and select the number to call. Enjoy the added convenience of sending SMS to mobile numbers on the Telstra network and to most Australian fixed numbers, or checking the weather forecast, or scheduling family events and appointments on the electronic calendar.

The memo also describes the T-Hub as a potential photo frame or internet radio player.

The device is supposed to be available in the “coming months”. But from reading through that description, there doesn’t seem to be any killer feature that my mobile phone or laptop can’t do just as easily. Although maybe if Telstra do follow through on their promise to drop pricing, it might come part of a bundle option? Would that sway opinions?

The Telco has also promised to spend a little bit more time focusing on improving customer service.

There’s no word on how soon we can expect to see these price cuts, or whether they’ll track over to the wholesale internet side of things, but any price cut’s going to be welcome for Telstra customers…

[SMH]

Apparently the iPhone version will include enhanced video streaming to take advantage of the bigger screen. It’ll set you back $4 for a day pack or $18 for a monthly subscription — which is particularly expensive considering Foxtel’s new download service is free for subscribers. But at least it’s no longer a disadvantage to own an iPhone on NextG…

[Lifehacker – Thanks Jeb!]

Apparently the government and Telstra have been talking about this for awhile, so it shouldn’t have come as a big surprise to the company. Of course, that doesn’t mean they won’t fight it. Considering how much friction there has been between the company and the government over the past few years, you’d expect a confrontation.

Here are some of the restrictions Conroy announced this morning:

If Telstra don’t play along and do thins voluntarily, the Government will change the Telecommunications Act 1997 so that:

* Telstra conduct its network operations and wholesale functions at arm’s length from the rest of Telstra;
* Telstra provides equivalent price and non-price terms to its retail business and non-Telstra wholesale customers; and
* this equivalence of treatment is made transparent to the regulator and competitors via strong internal governance structures.

Furthermore, the Government will prohibit the company from gaining any additional spectrum for advanced wireless broadband while:

* remains vertically integrated; and
* owns a hybrid fibre coaxial cable network; and
* maintains its interest in Foxtel.

Discussions will need to be completed by December at the latest, with the Bill set to be voted on in October or November. Which gives us a couple of months of entertainment at least. Let’s just hope the consumer – who Conroy claims will benefit most from this – actually does see the benefit.

[DBCDE]

The app offers live score updates and live stats for the nine finals matches this season. There’s a Brownlow leaderboard, and come November there will be Draft Tracker. But what really makes the app stand out is the VOD. You can, from within the app, watch the best goals of the week, the best marks of the week, and highlights from both halves of all the finals matches.

Video seems to be the magic ingredient in sports apps on the iPhone, and from early ratings on the app store, this one’s a winner. Hopefully it will continue on to next season…

[iTunes Link]

Also worth noting is that any data is unmetered for BigPond users, although I can’t imagine that scrolling headlines would suck up too much bandwidth…

If any of you PC users out there are game to try it out, let us know what you think in comments.

[BigPond]

One thing worth noting though – if you’re a Mac user, you’ll need to wait until May for the software to make it work. While waiting sucks, at least they’re providing a solution for Apple users.

Pocket-rocket wireless broadband card arrives in store

Everything Australians love about the internet including updating their social network pages, streaming video clips and downloading music is set to get faster on the go with the introduction of the BigPond® 21 USB Mobile Card – available from T[life] stores and Telstra Shops from today.

Telstra Executive Director, Consumer, Ms Glenice Maclellan, said the arrival of the BigPond 21 USB Mobile Card on Australia’s largest and fastest wireless broadband network meant customers could power their laptops away from home or the office with a lighting-fast connection to the world.

“Using the BigPond 21 USB Mobile Card on Telstra’s Next G™ network, customers will experience typical download speeds between 550Kbps to 8Mbps1 in selected CBD, metro and regional areas. At these speeds customers can download BigPond music or surf the net at mobile broadband speeds up to two times faster than the next fastest 3G device,” Ms Maclellan said.

“People who don’t want to compromise speed for mobility and who need to access the internet on the go are going to love this device. You can stream internet TV with less buffering and download large files like photos faster, even video conference from your laptop.

“The BigPond 21 USB Mobile Card is further demonstration of Telstra’s transformation which is enabling the delivery of world-leading and world-class products and services to our customers,” she said.

Telstra Product Management Executive Director, Mr Ross Fielding, said that the BigPond 21 USB Mobile Card was Windows Vista and XP compatible and will be Apple Mac compatible in May.

“The BigPond 21 USB Mobile Card easily slips in a pocket and includes an external antenna, a microSD slot and a 1GB microSD memory card – letting users take their photos and documents everywhere they take their internet connection,” Mr Fielding said.

The BigPond 21 USB Mobile Card has a recommended retail price of $399 and is available on all current in-market BigPond wireless broadband plans. Eligible Telstra customers can take advantage of the BigPond Wireless Broadband Offer which includes half the monthly access fees for the first 12 months when signing up to a 36 month plan, and a device rebate*.

The BigPond 21 USB Mobile Card is available through Telstra Shops and dealers, by calling 13POND and online at www.bigpond.com.

[BigPond]

There’s no word on whether there will be a premium price for cable customers once the upgrade is complete, although considering it is Telstra we’re talking about, so it’s fair to assume that there will be. Still, I’d pay a premium for 100Mbps – wouldn’t you?

Telstra unveils super-fast cable broadband – Melbourne first to be upgraded

Telstra today announced that its hybrid fibre coaxial cable broadband network in Melbourne will be upgraded to 100Mbps – more than triple the current peak speed – by Christmas.

Using new technology already successfully deployed in several cable networks overseas, Telstra will immediately begin work to turbo-charge its five-city cable network.

Melbourne is stage one of Telstra’s deployment of next generation super-fast broadband technologies into its cable network, which already passes 2.5 million homes in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth.

Cable, along with Telstra’s other fixed-line infrastructure, will be a key driver of next generation broadband in Australia, as it is around the world. This cable upgrade will position Telstra to deliver on its vision of a world-class fixed-line infrastructure that complements our world-leading Next G™ mobile broadband network in delivering services that meet our customers’ needs.

Work will start immediately with the installation of DOCSIS 3.0 software and related infrastructure in the Melbourne cable network. Telstra will invest about $300 million in the cable upgrade this calendar year.

This upgrade will increase the peak download speeds in Melbourne homes to 100Mbps, with further upgrades potentially to speeds of up to 200Mbps.

It will build on the recent BigPond Cable Extreme upgrade, which already provides download speeds on the cable network of up to 30Mbps to 1.8 million homes, with another 700,000 homes having speeds up to 17Mbps.

Telstra estimates that nearly one million Melbourne homes stand to benefit from the experience of super-fast broadband once the upgrade to provide speeds of up to 100Mbps is completed.

Telstra CEO Sol Trujillo said the cable upgrade continues Telstra’s strategy of bringing high-speed broadband to Australians, as the company has done with the Next G™ network. Next G™ covers 99 per cent of the population and is engineered to peak network download speeds of 21Mbps.

“BigPond Cable Extreme transformed the cable network into a high-speed broadband network,” Mr Trujillo said. “Now we are going to the next level: super-fast broadband with download speeds among the highest in the world.

“Late last year, Telstra foreshadowed that we would continue our investment in our cable network and, with the DOCSIS 3.0 software now well-established internationally, we have the ability to dramatically increase speeds into Australian homes.

“Melbourne will be the first city to benefit from the cable network’s super-fast broadband speeds. This broadband upgrade will bring the next generation of the internet to Melburnians, enabling new work-from-home, learning, security, entertainment, health care and energy-saving choices at home. It will help spawn an innovative, video-based, applications and content services sector in Australia.

“It will enable households to do the things that they want to do, but can’t do at today’s broadband speeds.

“Families will be able to choose a high-definition movie from an online catalogue and download it in a little over a minute to watch on the family’s big-screen TV. At the same time, they could watch their favourite sport on FOXTEL in high-definition, with instant match statistics at their fingertips and, in the near future, control of camera angles. Simultaneously, they could share a video file in a high-resolution video conference with friends and family, as well as review test results with their doctor, without leaving home.”

Mr Trujillo continued: “As well as super-fast broadband, it is important that this upgrade will turn the cable network into a two-way, fully interactive platform paving the way to an array of existing and next generation services for customers.

“As Telstra has done with Next G™ and Next IP™ in wireless and business broadband, we intend to leverage our cable network to lead the market in providing world leading services to meet our customers’ individual needs.”

[APC mag]

Naturally, the downloads are DRM’d to the hilt, and will only work on Windows Media Player 11 (the same as all video downloads from BigPond). You’ll need to sign up to BigPond Movies to access the films, and the offer ends on May 11. But there will be new movies and TV episodes every week, so it’s not all bad.

And if you’re not a BigPond broadband customer, remember that the download will count towards your data usage (it’s unmetered for BigPond). At about 1.1GB per film, it can quickly add up, so best to keep an eye on your monthly usage if you take this offer up.

[BigPond movies]