all,

Ben Perkuhn wrote in a message to Meng-Shi Lim:

 -=> Quoting Meng-Shi Lim to Russell Brooks <=-

 -=> Quoting Russell Brooks to Dave Hatch <=-

 DH> If this gets past parliment, I'd reckon we've had it.  Local calls 
 DH> bye-bye,

 ML> There is one available solution.

 ML> Everyone change to Optus cable! If every modemer does this then there
 ML> will be little interconnect problem/extra charges.

 BP> Hate to rain on you parade mate but what about us guy's in the
 BP> country that don't have optus cable.

just a little more cloud ..

in sydney thier are about 5 million residential telephone services, off
those about 250,000 (two hundred and fifty thousand) will be able to get
optus telephone .. it will take a long time for the telephone service to be
rolled out. i've been quoted as short as 18 months and as long as two and
one half years, for sydney metro .. who is kidding who ? 

at the moment (i'm not sure if i can believe the australians computers
section) optus is being investigated by austel for "fraudulent or
missleading advertising as regards thier "local call"
advertising. this is why at the botton of the optus add thier is in small
print a blurb that says local call facility WHERE AVILABLE .. the emphasis
is mine.

while i have ethical and other more esoteric reasons for not beconinga an
optus customer, i will as soon as they put the required cables in my streel
and hook up the telephony and PROVE to my satisfation that thier idea of a
v.34 data connection is what my idea of a v.34 data connection is like.
this lis likely to happen in about twelve months if i'm lucky that is .. by
the way i live in sydneys eastern suburbs, part of the most densly and
oldest settled part of sydney. 

i would suggest that optus is not going to be the godsend we all are saying
that it is going to be .. it would be very wise to THOUROUGHLY check
everyting that they say and to get a good idea off what your current
telephoney is like, chances are that optus will be no better than what you
already have got .. and one hell of a lot more expensive, especially if you
don't want/use cable tv.

just for example, my voice line bill had 500 meter registrations at 25
cents plus the equipment fee, ($32, for the quarter). optus would charge me
20 cents for the same meter registrations and the equipment fee would be,
lets be generous and use the low number $25 per month, what if it was $40
per month .. even at $25 per month its an expensive way to get the savings
that are generated by the 20 cent local call .. something to think about.

as i said earlier, one will need to be very carefull when using the optus
telephony network for data .. it will be optimised for voice transmitions
and as we are starting to see with telstras voice network optimisations it
is going to make a fairly hostile data/modem environment.


 .. postscript

ian and arthur (moderator and telephone knowlegable side kick .. grin)

sorry for bringing up the optus vs telstra thing but i feel that some of
the issues as regards quality, reliability and network optimisation within
both networks need to be discussed as well as how the poor quality of the
australian manufactured modems is going to effect our bills .. not to
mention the american designed and built in china "top shelf"
product that are currently enjoying a good reputation here in australia.

if i've stray too far .. sorry, but stil, i think that these issues are
important and need to be discussed by knowledegable people and not
neccesarily by the likes of me. 

regards ... jonathan

EMail: jlm{at}caamora.com.au

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