Vodafone begins its NBN trial, public schools remain unconnected and iiNet buys Internode for NBN competitiveness. All this and more in this week’s NBN roundup.
• The Daily Telegraph – not exactly the epitome of researched and balanced journalism – has been criticised for its NBN coverage by the Australian Press Council. Of course, that does nothing to change the blatant lies it told in its campaign against the NBN, but I guess it’s something… [The Register]
• Vodafone has begun its NBN trials in Armidale, making it the company’s first play in the fixed line space in Australia. It’s planning on offering mobile and NBN plans, which will also include FetchTV. The telco is hoping to use the trial to create a business model to launch officially, although no timeframe on that has been given. [The Australian]
• Poor Minnamurra public school. Even though the NBN is running right past its door, it can’t get connected because of a five year contract the NSW state government signed with Telstra back in 2009. Bugger. [Illawarra Mercury]
• Be scared. Be very scared. Experts are warning that cyber criminals will use the NBN to be even better cyber criminals. Maybe we should just give the whole thing up and go back to living in caves? [ITWire]
• Why did Internode decide to sell out to iiNet? The NBN. As Internode top dog Simon Hackett explained: “We are heading into the NBN era and it’s all about scale. We would have had the money in the bank but we wouldn’t have had scale. The size of Internode on its own is right at the bottom edge of what we’ve considered to be viable for an NBN retail provider. It would be a dangerous thing for us to go into that era only just being big enough.” [Lifehacker]