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Australia's parliament has agreed on legislation that sets out the regulatory framework for the National Broadband Network, Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy Stephen Conroy said.
The legislation passed the House of Representatives on March 28, and included some amendments accepted by the Senate on March 25. "The bills set out a clear regulatory framework to provide that NBN Co. will operate on a wholesale-only, open and equivalent-access basis, delivering long-term benefits for competition and consumers," said Minister Conroy. Passage of the bills further underpins the government's policy to deliver structural reform of the telecommunications industry to promote sustainable retail-level competition, and fair pricing of wholesale services for all Australians, he said.
Australia's Broadband Law Passes Parliament
The Labor Government in Australia has given a written commitment to regional Independent MPs Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor to keep uniform wholesale prices for high-speed services across fiber , wireless and satellite on the National Broadband Network as soon as future upgrades increase speeds on the latter two technologies. Government amendments to NBN legislation circulated last week specified that while the basic 12Mbps package on the NBN would be the same $24 wholesale price on fibre, satellite and wireless, the prices for higher speeds would not be the same between the technologies.
Australian government guarantees pricing on NBN upgrades
State-owned broadcasting signal distributor Sentech on March 25 provided the first insights into its plans to have another go at building a national broadband network.
Sentech outlined its plans to parliament’s portfolio committee on communications as part of its strategic plan for 2011 to 2014. CEO Setumo Mohapi says the new plan is not meant to compete with private-sector players but rather to provide coverage to areas the private sector has missed. Sentech wants to provide Internet access to schools, clinics and underserviced rural and municipal areas, and Mohapi has set a deadline of five years to get the network built. “It is certainly doable in three years,” he says. The company is hoping the department of communications and national treasury will come to the party with additional funding for the plan, with Mohapi saying it needs more money to finance the project.
Sentech outlines new broadband plan
Chinese online-search provider Baidu said it plans to start using new copyright-recognition technology on its online document-sharing platform in May to prevent sharing of pirated content. The move addresses concerns about Baidu's approach to copyright issues. The company has been at odds with the music industry for years over an MP3 search service that includes links to unlicensed copies of songs available for free download.
Baidu Plans Anti-Piracy Steps for Online Library
For years the United States and Europe, with around 700 million Internet users between them, have diverged in their approach to policing the Web. But the two sides are converging in their Web privacy positions, partly through intensive meetings in recent months between regulators from Washington and Brussels. There are still many specifics to be worked out -- final legislative proposals are not expected from the European Union until later this year and the United States in June or July -- but officials are confident about steadily narrowing the gap.
Europe and US converging on Internet privacy
Online auction site eBay announced it has agreed to buy the ecommerce and interactive marketing firm GSI Commerce in a $2.4 billion deal. The acquisition was financed with cash, and debt and is expected to close in the third quarter of 2011. As part of the deal, eBay will divest GSI’s sports merchandise business and 70 percent of ShopRunner and Rue La La. Those assets will be sold to a new holding company, led by GSI founder and chief executive Michael Rubin.
GSI, like Amazon, has the infrastructure in place to help merchants of all sizes conduct e-commerce. GSI, which is based in the Philadelphia suburb of King of Prussia, Pa., assists more than 180 top brands and retailers with their websites, including Aéropostale, Timberland, Mattel, Zales and Major League Baseball. With the deal, EBay gets an order-management, fulfillment and shipping business that competes directly with Amazon's own fulfillment offering for merchants. Fulfillment centers pack up orders for shipment.
eBay acquires GSI Commerce for $2.4 billion EBay Pushes Into Amazon Turf (WSJ)
President Barack Obama emphasized the importance of technology in classrooms but said it wasn't a panacea during a town hall on education in the Hispanic community.
According to pool reports President Obama told students at Bell Multicultural High School in the Columbia Heights neighborhood of Washington that technology in schools is important but "not a magic bullet." In response to an audience question he president said he has an iPad and a BlackBerry, but he took off the latter before the start of the program "I didn't want it going off during the show."
President Obama: Tech in schools 'not a magic bullet'
The Senate Commerce Committee has postponed a cybersecurity hearing scheduled for this week while chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) attends the funeral of a close friend. The hearing was scheduled to feature witnesses representing Verizon, IBM and the FBI along with Thomas Kellerman, a vice president with the security firm Core Security Technologies. It will be re-scheduled and is likely to take place in May.
Senate Commerce postpones cybersecurity hearing
Daily's Hierarchy of Broadband Needs will provide a framework within which to focus broadband policies and initiatives. There are four levels to Daily's Hierarchy of Broadband Needs:
- Availability is the most basic level of a user's broadband needs. Broadband needs to first be available for anyone to use it. Without availability established then none of the other levels matter.
- Adoption is about getting people to use broadband and covers areas like affordability, value, and starts getting us into issues of education and usability.
- Utilization relies largely on explaining to people why they should use broadband and how they can do so.
- Innovation is what holds the key to broadband's limitless potential to encourage community and economic development -- once broadband is available, adopted, and being utilized, we start finding new ways to use broadband to grow opportunity and drive efficiency.
Daily's Hierarchy Of Broadband Needs