Here’s where we round up all the Aussie news around the ‘net about the ‘net, every week. Check in here for a quick primer on everything from piracy to privacy, data retention and what’s happening with the NBN.
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This week:
What Is ‘Category 9’ 4G?
As much as we might like to complain about our mobile internet coverage and the speed of our connections, Australia’s mobile data networks are actually world class. Along with Korea and Sweden, Australia leads the way in the adoption and take-up of new super-fast 4G LTE-Advanced standards — and the latest is Category 9, a fancy frequency-meshing network capable of 450Mbps downloads.
Dallas Buyers Club Has To Pay Up Before It Sends Letters To Pirates
The film company behind Dallas Buyers Club will have to lodge a bond of hundreds of thousands of dollars with the Federal Court before it is allowed to send letters of demand to alleged copyright infringers in Australia, in order to prevent any “speculative invoicing” and excessive requests for compensation. The letters themselves, too, are the subject of significant trouble for DBC.
Samsung Floats ‘Space Internet’ Plan To Save Mobile
A network of 4600 micro-satellites could be used as the backhaul for terrestrial mobile telephone and data networks, if Samsung is to be believed. The plan, in an academic paper from the company’s head of R&D in the US, would see the thousands of satellites distributed into low Earth orbit, around the entire planet, to provide data transfer speeds rivaling fibre optic networks.
Brandis Urged To Dump Telco Security Reforms
Australia’s telecommunications industry is strongly against proposals by the government’s Attorney-General to restrict what telecommunications hardware they can buy and how they can use it. Industry body, the Communications Alliance, as well as Telstra, iiNet, TPG, Optus and Macquarie Telecom have all lent their voices to a unanimously negative set of submissions against the proposal.
Telstra Hits 211,000 NBN Customers
Adding 126,000 customers in its last financial year, Telstra has ticked well over the 200,000 user mark on its little corner of the National Broadband Network, out of the 1.15 million total possible premises currently connected around Australia. Also — it’s crazy to think, but 41,000 Telstra customers connected to the NBN aren’t even hooked up to the ‘net — they only want voice services.
Telstra Confirms 5G Network On The Way
We may be getting ultra-fast Category 9 4G mobile networks and devices to use on them in the next couple of months, but that’s not the end game. Telstra has confirmed that it’s well underway on work on a 5G network, and it expects to unveil that product by the end of this decade. Expect lower energy usage than current devices, as well as data transmission a hundred times faster than 4G.