Industry News
Two-thirds of regional Australians can access nbn
The nbn's fixed wireless rollout is continuing at a fast pace, with an extra 45 towers due to have been deployed across June and July, while retail nbn satellite providers have agreed to raise allocations at little extra cost. [ + ]
Dutton to lead Home Affairs super portfolio
The federal government has announced plans to establish a new Home Affairs super portfolio modelled after the UK's Home Office, as well as a new Office of National Intelligence. [ + ]
WaterGroup to use Sigfox for IoT smart meters
Smart water meter company WaterGroup has announced a partnership to connect its IoT smart meters to the fast-growing Australian Sigfox LPWA network under deployment by Thinxtra. [ + ]
Australian IT spending to grow 3.7% this year
Gartner expects IT spending in Australia to reach $83.1bn this year, driven by strong growth in enterprise software spending. [ + ]
Data61 opens functional programming lab in Qld
CSIRO's Data61 has teamed up with the Queensland government to establish Australia's first functional programming open lab in Brisbane. [ + ]
Equinix to spend $54m to expand SY4 data centre
Data centre operator Equinix will spend $54.3m to double the rack capacity of the SY4, the company's fourth and newest facility in Sydney. [ + ]
Donald Trump threatens net neutrality, says academic
Internet neutrality and freedom of speech are under threat by Donald Trump's administration, according to a QUT academic. [ + ]
NordVPN to fight China on VPN ban
NordVPN says it will do all it can to continue providing access to VPNs for China's users, following reports that a ban will take effect next February. [ + ]
Telecommunications satisfaction slipping
Overall satisfaction has decreased among telecommunications customers, according to a national survey by the Communications Alliance. [ + ]
Morrow accused of telling fibs about satellite plans
Former nbn co CTO Gary McLaren has accused the company's current CEO, Bill Morrow, of falsely claiming that it has only recently decided to use its second satellite as anything other than a backup for the first. [ + ]
Australian CEOs fall behind on mobile tech
According to new SOTI research, around 40% of Australian businesses are not investing in mobile technology. [ + ]
Vic traffic cameras weren't compromised by WannaCry
Victoria's Road Safety Camera Commissioner found that the WannaCry infection of the state's traffic cameras failed to encrypt data on the compromised systems and did not affect the integrity of recorded infringements. [ + ]
PC market to return to growth in 2018: Gartner
The global PC market is on track to continue its decline in 2017 in terms of unit shipments, but will return to growth from 2018. [ + ]
High FTTP costs inevitable in Australia: nbn co
Australia will always be one of the most expensive countries in which to connect with FTTP due to its low population density, according to nbn co's network engineering chief, Peter Ryan. [ + ]
ATO hit with fresh online services outage
The ATO has stressed that yesterday's brief disruption to its online services was not connected with the HPE SAN system failure that triggered the high-profile outages in December and February. [ + ]