Telstra recently announced that they had achieved 2.3Mbps at a range of 200kms from an HSDPA cellsite using an Ericsson supplied software update.

This is an amazing feat and a world first. The results were announced at the recent 3GSM conference. There is an article over at Physorg

Sol Trujillo was quoted as saying:

”The benefits of 3GSM technology and HSPA could not have been economically taken to extensively to regional and remote Australia without the use of 850 MHz spectrum and the Ericsson software enhancements to extend the range and capacity of the network,”

A good endorsement for the lower 850MHz frequency range.

This breaks the previous Telstra record set in 1999 with 120km achieved on the CDMA network using a 'boomer' cell site located at Mt Dowe NSW

It just goes to show the benefits of living in a flat country. It would be difficult to achieve a similar range in New Zealand because of geography but it will be interesting to see what Nokia can do when Vodafone starts to adopt the 900MHz spectrum for HSDPA services.

Telstra and Ericsson deserve some credit for actually rolling out a new network in about 10 months and for achieving such a high data rate at such a distance.

I believe the skeptics (including myself) have now been silenced.

There are reports that Apple TV is delayed until Mid March which is only two weeks off from the original launch date. The product has appeared on the Apple NZ webstore for NZ$498 inc GST which on the face of it is quite a reasonable price.

I was looking forward to this product but after seeing the specs I think I will give it a miss. Here is why:

- Only a 40GB hard drive
with the price of hard drives these days you would think that they could use a 200GB drive!
- No DVD drive
If I am going to integrate a new device into my home theater I want to get rid of something, preferably my DVD player. I already have a pile of CD/DVD's which I would love to store on a hard drive so my son stops breaking them!
- WiFi required
To get the content onto the Apple TV I have to run my PC at home and transfer over the WiFi. What a pain.
- Content from iTunes
I can see what Apple are doing here. Buy the box and get your content from iTunes. Bummer! I want to record TV and store/play my existing CD/DVD's (that I have purchased)

So, I thought this might be the product for me but no. A good idea but seriously half baked and again the sort of product that will crash and burn quickly. I can see people in a few years time talking about the great little product from Apple that could have been but never was.

Sure, I could customise an XBox, use a Tivo, run a Shuttle with media centre/MythTV or 'buy-to-rent' a Sky PVR but all these products have limitations. Some are too complicated and I don't want to have to use a keyboard/mouse, boot a PC or support the technophobes in my house.

This is why the promise of Apple TV was so appealing. It is a product that is simple (no keyboard, just a remote), it looks great (nice styling job Jobs), it is inexpensive and I bet it doesn't crash. Sorry Mr Jobs you are not going to be my content provider now or in the future.

Ummm, haven't we been here before? The council is proposing to spend between $15M to $45M rolling out 100km of fibre cable to give 'broadband' to all who live, work and play within the Wellington city boundary.

Well I am astounded. I hope that they are not spending my rates money. I would rather the council upgraded the gutters and drains on my street. I have asked them several times really nicely to do this. Laying fibre will obviously involve a certain amount of digging up the roads - yet again.

According to Mayor Prendergast the council is "having to step into the void because telecommunications companies had failed to roll out genuine high-speed broadband through the city."

Well Ms Prendergast when you talk about failure I assume you are also including yourself in this list. After all Wellington City Council were involved in CityLink which operates a fibre network around the Wellington and Auckland CBD. This is the same CityLink that was recently sold to TeamTalk.

Why are the council going here again? Why did they ditch CityLink? And why are they not simply extending the existing CityLink network? Rather than getting into the ultra competitive broadband market how about investing the money on decent trains and buses?

Here is another little nugget from Stuff

It seems that CityLink could do the job cheaper. The council did not bid for any money from the 'Government Broadband Challenge' coffers and local politicians seem to think that talking up broadband is an election winner.

[Edit] I forgot to add that from my house which is within the Wellington City Council boundary I have a choice of broadband. I can take my pick from:
Vodafone HSDPA
Telecom EVDO RevA/Rev0, DSL
NZ Wireless WiMAX
Woosh Wireless
Telstra Clear Cable
...And my neighbors hotspot!

I thought the farmers would be happy with any sort of broadband but as long as it is not Second Hand it seems. The agricultural sector produces over 50% of the New Zealand GDP but investment in all services - electricity, roading and communications is woeful. Seems us city folks are happy to 'live off the pigs back'

Lack of investment seems to be a New Zealand institutionalised way of thinking. This is probably as a result of our isolation which existed before Telstra Clear came along and now thanks to Telstra Clear the 'isolation age is over'. Thanks again Telstra Clear.

Seriously though lack of investment is endemic. Last year the Auckland power grid failed due to a $2 U-bolt and now in Wellington we are rolling out new (old) rolling stock. 50 year old trains are being brought back on board to address the growing use of the rail network.

I think the Honourable Sue Kedgley (MP) sums it up beautifully in her Budget Speech from last year:

We should be investing in public transport, which is collapsing. The public transport infrastructure is collapsing around us. We have clapped out 50-year-old train carriages. We have 23-year-old trolley buses. We have decades of deferred investment in our public transport infrastructure. Commuters are switching en masse to public transport because of the rising price of oil, but we cannot even get on the buses if it is raining. I cannot get on a bus in my area if is raining; the bus just whizzes straight past because it is full. In New Zealand, and in cities like Wellington in particular, we are completely out of step in our transport priorities. The rest of the world is looking at environmentally friendly public transport, but Wellington is looking at ditching our environmentally friendly trolley bus network. Land Transport New Zealand, which was set up to promote sustainable transport, is bickering about the subsidy it pays for trolley buses and is putting the entire network at risk. This Government may be putting the entire trolley bus network of Wellington at risk under its watch. It is a tragedy. That is where the $1 billion should have been spent, not on more roads.

Go Sue! But you should have also included communications and electricity! It is easy to blame big business for the woeful state of amenities but seriously (maybe) we need to have a good hard look at ourselves and what our priorities really are. The government keeps racking in record surpluses but where oh where does the money go? All I see around Wellington is plush and palatial refurbishments of down town offices for the bloated and forever bloating public service.

I say - cut the fat and give something back.

An interesting use for a Reliant Robin. Great attempt and a spectacular ending. I can picture a Virgin Galaxy logo on the side on the main booster. I am just not sure if I want to be the first (and last) paying customer!

Finally the New Zealand government has made a decision to enforce up to .53% of fuel sales to come from bio-fuel. Great news but it is quite disturbing that initially it will be derived from Tallow which is rendered from suet which comes from Beef.

Making bio-fuel from methane belching cows does seem to defeat the purpose of reducing geen-house gas emissions.

Vegetarian/Vegan, tree hugging greenies are certainly going to face a moral dilemma. Drive the car and you could be killing a cow.

Of course being 'green' always has a cost with fuel companies threatening that fuel prices could rise by up to 5cents p/litre with the addition bio-fuel.

I would have thought TradeMe was smarter but this appears to be a gaping hole in the way they charge and collect fees.

I listed a product last week that had a buy now of $400.00. With only $3.00 in my account the upfront listing charges pretty much cleared that out. The buy now was accepted quickly which threw my account into $18.00 in the red.

'My TradeMe' now has a little box reminder which (not very politely) warns me '! Your TradeMe Account is in debt. Please credit your account.'

Now this only appears to be a problem if I want to sell something else. It has no impact on my ability to purchase items. Therefore unless I want to sell something there is no incentive for me to actually pay them the money.

Which leads me to what a funny way to do business.
- When I listed the item to sell TradeMe knew that my reserve was $250 and my buy now was $400. They could have easily told me upfront that if I wanted to continue with the listing I would need to credit my account.
- When the product was sold they could have held up the transaction until I credited my account. Now that is an incentive
- They could stop me from buying any further product until I get it sorted

If I was a dishonest type I could get away with never paying the money by:
- Opening a new account
- Using my wifes account
- Never selling another item

Sure TradeMe is a profitable business but you have to wonder how much the debtors ledger is growing.

This was captured a couple of weeks ago outside SkyCity Auckland. RSSI was around -55dBm and I was uploading a 50Meg file to an FTP

 

Notice the 1.2Mbps peak and nice consistant 1Mbps average.

I really do not trust the accuracy of the speedtest.net latency test which always seems to report latency on the higher side. 

The first result is RevA which was done yesterday afternoon in front of a number of journalists the second result is Rev0 taken just now in Wellington. Both tests conducted using trusty old DOS ping. This is a 32Byte round trip to Geekzone.

By way of explanation the ping tests are from an active session (non-dormant). Waking out of dormancy takes approx 300-500ms for Rev0 and RevA.

RevA:

Ping statistics for 210.48.73.74:
    Packets: Sent = 172, Received = 172, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 48ms, Maximum = 243ms, Average = 64ms

Rev0:

Ping statistics for 210.48.73.74:
    Packets: Sent = 279, Received = 279, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 92ms, Maximum = 403ms, Average = 116ms

Last Friday I flew to Auckland for a specific job that ended up only taking 2 hours. Because I wanted to be prepared I booked my return flight for later in the afternoon in case the job didn't go smoothly. As it was I was left with 4 hours up my sleeve, stuck out in Manukau on a rainy day.

My return flight cost nearly $500 which is a 'FlexiSaver'. I am not really sure what they mean by 'Flexi':
- Changes permitted until day before departure with payment of $50 change fee per adult fare
- Service fee applies unless changed online
- Fare upgrade may also apply

What it does not say in the online conditions is specifically that if you want to change your flight on the day, which for me was flying home earlier, you need to purchase a new ticket! Come on AirNZ I know you have capacity. I would have paid a $50 service fee but a new ticket now that is ridiculous. I am sure there would have been plenty of spare seats on the earlier flights.

There are '3 classes' of AirNZ fares:
- Smart Saver (approx $115 one way)
- Flexi Saver (approx $208 one way)
- Flexi (approx $282 one way)

The only difference in the T&C's of 'SmartSaver' and 'FlexiSaver' is that 'FlexiSaver' accrues Airpoint Dollars. That is a difference of nearly $100 with no additional benefit except Airpoint dollars. Flexi is fully refundable, accrues Airpoint Dollars and changes are permitted at any time however a 'service applies if not changed online'.

So, there is nothing flexi at all about a 'Flexi Saver'. If you don't want the Airpoints Dollars always choose Smart Saver.

I used to enjoy flying AirNZ domestic. These days no meal, no free booze, no magazines, instant coffee, crap service and budget flights at a not so budget price. Having flown Easy Jet for 13 quid from UK to Europe I do know that budget does not have to equal crap service, dirty planes and grumpy crew.

I wonder where we are in the OECD for quality and value of domestic airline services? Probably number 30 and going ever backwards.