Telstra preemted the outcome of a court case it had today and said it was going to plea guilty when in fact it didn’t.
Bigpondnews.com reported this morning that Telstra, its sister company, would likely plead guilty to allegations by the ACCC that is was misleading and deceptive in telling wholesale customers that several telephone exchanges were full when they weren’t.
Wednesday, August 05, 2009 » 08:33am
Telstra is likely to admit to allegations brought by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) that could lead to a $300 million fine.
Telstra is accused of misleading and deceptive conduct by telling its wholesale customers that seven telephone exchanges were full when they were not.
Analysts say Telstra’s competitors are likely to use the admission to argue that it should be separated up to prevent such conduct.
The irony in all of this is that Bigpond has an interest in Telstra as it is apart of the one company.
A Telstra spokesperson indicated to Tech Wired that it had either accidentally syndicated the article or based it off of a report in the Australian Financial Review that Telstra would admit it was guilty of wrongdoing.
The article has since been removed.
myKP, the ISP (Internet Service Provider) that hardly anyone has heard of, has come out of the dark to let everyone know that they’ve settled with Telstra ADSL2+ as their preferred delivery platform for an unlimited broadband service.
myKP may not be best known for being a consumer ISP, as it first began setting up free Wi-Fi hotspots around Sydney’s CBD in August 2007.
The ISP then poked its head out in January of this year to let everyone know that it had found a way of providing an internet connection to Australians without a download cap.
The catch? Well there’s a couple – the most prominent being that of advertising. The service was to be funded partly from a subscription-based fee and the rest from advertisements that would be targeted at individual subscribers upon login to the service.
It was said to not include free telephone support, nor would it include an email or static IP address. A once off churn fee of $199 or install of $299 and a monthly fee of $79.95 was all that was asked of.
An internet service without a limit sounds ridiculous to most of those in-the-know about broadband in Australia, particularly after seeing Brisbane-based ISP Direct Data going into receivership soon after it started offering such a service.
myKP founder George Kaloudis initially kept users of Whirlpool informed about his company, though many questions remain unanswered such as why the company hasn’t obtained membership to the TIO (Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman), as pointed out by one Whirlpool user.
A startled George Kaloudis replied by asking:
“Are you sure its required by law ? Where does it say that ? point me to a URL …”
Tech Wired filed for an Australian Securities & Investments Commission (ASIC) report on the companies entity, finding that it had three companies under the myKP brand.
myKP Pty Ltd, myKP Mobile Pty Ltd and myKP Networks Pty Limited were the 3 brands myKP were (and still are) operating under.
myKP Pty Ltd looks to have 2 directors, 1 being Mr Kaloudis and the other a Mr Grahame Miles.
Among the shareholders are 2 other members from the Miles family. However, myKP Networks Pty Limited is operated by a completely different set of people, with Mr Kaloudis being the director alongside a Justin Cussel and John Huson.
The ISP initially started a trial of its service in January and found that some trial users were able to pull up to 10 Gigabytes of data per day, according to ITNews.
ASIC records indicate Mr Kaloudis was born in Greece and is 34 years old; Perhaps he didn’t know the potential of us Australian internet leechers?
Adding to all of this, the Terms of Service state:
2.2 The actual speed of the service can vary substantially due to factors such as but not limited to, Telstra phone line condition, distance from an exchange. MYKP makes no obligation on the actual speeds achievable.
5.9 We may modify your Broadband Service from time to time, as we consider necessary to improve and enhance it.
5.10 From time to time, you may find that the actual throughput speeds achieved with the Broadband Service vary.
7.1 The Customer aggress that MYKP does not offer free telephone technical support for any service or product.
15.1 MYKP Hero Broadband trial services provides dynamic IP addresses only.
And the AUP:
5. Excessive use
You must use your Internet Service in accordance with any download or capacity limits stated in the specific plan that you subscribe to for the use of that Service. We may limit, suspend or terminate your Internet Service if you unreasonably exceed such limits or excessively use the capacity or resources of our Network in a manner which may hinder or prevent us from providing services to other customers or which may pose a threat to the integrity of our Network or systems. If your upload data is two times that of your download we may limit, suspend or terminate your Internet Service.
Ever wondered where the Government came up with the figure of 4.7 billion dollars for a National Broadband Network?
Page 47 of Telstra’s Digital Compact & National Broadband Plan document, that’s where.
Over the years we’ve seen the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) instigate various legal action against Australia’s largest telecommunications provider, Telstra. This Wednesday saw the ACCC announce further legal action.
From what is known it seems that the ACCC are investigating Telstra for giving wholesalers information that they believe is untrue.
Initial investigations by the ACCC found that Telstra denied wholesalers access to several metropolitan telephone exchanges claiming that they were “capped”.
The ACCC specifically alleges that:
“…there was capacity available, or that could have been made available, on Telstra’s main distribution frames.”
Telstra said in a statement:
“The ACCC is suing us for something we proactively and voluntarily reviewed and fixed a year ago. This case relates to a small number of inadvertent process issues. There was an issue and we fixed it – without the involvement of the ACCC. Since we fixed the problem a year ago, the ACCC has not once suggested it had problems with our new processes.”
David Quilty, Telstra’s Group Managing Director of Public Policy and Communications said that the court action was a complete waste of court time and taxpayer money.
The ACCC announcement came to the table on the same day as rumours started to appear claiming the National Broadband Network (NBN) winner.
The rumour suggested that Acacia have won the NBN, and if so they’ll be hoping for legislative change to allow it access to Telstra’s network.
Once a Federal Court directions hearing is held on April 17th we’ll know more.
Australia’s largest Telecommunications provider, Telstra, will be charging customers in a new way starting next month.
The system is being implemented under a new billing scheme that will enable Telstra to make that little bit extra on short phone calls.
Flickr user edwin.11
Telstra have today announced that they they will be upgrading their existing hybrid fibre broadband network to 100Mbps, starting with Melbourne.
With the network capable of speeds of around 30Mbps already, this upgrade will see a speed increase that is almost 4 times faster. Read more
Attached is a video of myself showing off Telstra’s Easy Touch Discovery phone.
Click “Play now” to watch the video.
I discuss how big the buttons are and who the phone is aimed at.
I also demonstrate how easy it is to remove the SIM and battery.
It can even be used as a NextG modem!
You can watch the video on YouTube here: http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=arK0MmboCLE
TELSTRA has failed to pass the five mandatory standards for the national broadband network proposal process by ignoring small and medium businesses.
THE Australian Federal Police and Telstra today signed a Joint Cooperation Agreement for countering new technology-enabled crime.
Telstra have announced that under the agreement, the cooperation between them and the AFP will be focused on:
- Identity fraud and internet-enabled crime such as Phishing;
- Online paedophile activity;
- Child protection and education;
- Botnet networks and organised crime syndicates;
- Online terrorism activities;
- Targeted attacks on public, government and private sector computer networks.
In my honest opinion, this is what the Government should be doing to try and stop ‘illegal’ and ‘unwanted’ material from being distributed.
Read more
I attended The Melbourne Future of Journalism summit last week, and didn’t quite know what to expect. What I got was a bunch of laughs and some good insight into current monetisation models of media as well as seeing alot of confused journalists. Read more
