Jodie Milne, a Quest franchisee who runs the Palmerston Serviced Apartments, has won the Hudson Private and Corporate Sector Award at the 2011 Telstra Northern Territory Business Women’s Awards.

“Our business is about people and it’s the guests who choose to stay with us who make our business what it is – without them we wouldn’t be here,” she said.

“I’d like to all our guests and clients for their loyalty to our business and we look forward to working with them, now and in the future”.

To continue reading the full story click here

Read more on Leading Edge Telecoms latest deals on Business Phone Systems

Leading Edge Telecoms has beaten industry rivals hands down to become Telstra’s Business Partner of the Year at the Telstra Dealer Conference in 2011.

The event held in Port Douglas was put together by Telstra to recognise the achievements of its most valued Business Partners across Australia. The event was attended by over 600 Telstra partners at the Sheraton Mirage in Port Douglas.

The Telstra Partner of the Year awards saw Telstra’s major Partners judged at each tier on levels of performance and service for the period between 1 July 2010 and 31 March 2011.

The award was presented by Charles Agee Executive Director Telstra Small Business and newly appointed Gordon Ballantyne Telstra Chief Customer Officer

That was not the only award Leading Edge Telecoms won on the night with Leading Edge Telecoms being announced TBS Partner of the Year 2011 as well indicating that Leading Edge Telecoms is the best place to go for all of your business telecommunications solutions.

Click here to read the full story or read more on the current Business Phone Systems offered by Leading Edge Telecoms.

He has already sold one (pic is attached below so you can see what you are getting).

Get back to me as quick as you can if you want one.

And Yes! It got me as well.  I received it through email today and couldn’t believe my luck!

But Coalition communications spokesman Malcolm Turnbull says it can be done more cheaply.

Mr Turnbull is critical of part of the deal which means Telstra and Optus will both agree never to use their pay TV cables to supply broadband services.

He says the NBN should use some of Telstra’s copper phone lines to deliver the broadband more cheaply – however the deal makes no provision for that.

“What it is doing is wiping out any potential competition with the NBN,” he said.

“Now these HFC cables, pay TV cables, pass more than 30 percent of Australian households and they’d be able to provide real competition with the NBN network and of course keep prices low.”

Mr Turnbull says it is risky for taxpayers, who ultimately own the NBN.

“If it were decided, as it should be, to use a mix of technologies to provide fast broadband to any or all Australians and to use a portion of the copper network, the Government will have to go and pay Telstra even more billions. Pay twice for the same copper network,” he said.

Mr Turnbull says it will be too expensive for most of those who currently do not have internet access.

“It is poverty that is denying people access to the digital economy, not technology,” he said.

“So you have got to have as a key priority making your access to broadband more affordable. The NBN, because they’re wasting so many billions of dollars unnecessarily, will make it less affordable.”

The cabinet meeting occurs exactly one year after Telstra, the federal government and NBN Co announced that they had agreed to a non-binding deal that might see the telco giant handsomely rewarded to decommission its copper network and allow NBN Co to lease the telco’s infrastructure to roll out its fibre-optic cable around the nation.

That announcement was hailed by Labor as a major victory in its quest to roll out the fibre-to-the-home NBN and last year briefly buoyed Telstra’s stock value. However the sheer complexity of the agreement, debates on the regulatory framework from the NBN and political uncertainty have plagued the deal’s progress.

Yet despite missing three self-imposed deadlines to finalise the deal, hopes are again running high that the definitive deal is merely days away.

Federal cabinet is anticipated today to discuss and approve the definitive deal.

Barring any unexpected last-minute changes, the agreement could be before the Telstra board for approval before the end of this week.

Telstra investors who expect the signing of the agreement being a positive catalyst for the stock hope the telco’s languishing shares will relish a healthy spike when the deal clears the last few hurdles.
The opportunity of a Telstra share surge is sweet if history is an example.

One day following the deal was initially announced this past year, Telstra shares surged 6 %, or 22c, to $3.44, their highest point in the last 12 months.

But in the past year, as deadlines for the deal were missed and its finalisation dragged on, investors lost faith within the stock, forcing it to a record low of $2.61 a share in November.

It again recovered a few months ago and it has since hovered around $3.

Should Telstra, the NBN Co and also the government announce the ultimate terms of the deal for the market in the future, there still remains a wait of at least three to four months whilst the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission looks at the agreement.

However, without worrying about watchdog’s approval, the deal will have to be restructured and Telstra insiders suggest it is unlikely that the company would seek the approval of shareholders without ACCC support.

Should the deal pass the ACCC’s necessary regulatory checks, a shareholder vote is expected to coincide with Telstra’s annual shareholder meeting, scheduled for October 18 in Sydney.

With his characteristic charisma and bombast, Phil Burgess launched a full-on attack on the Federal Government along with the competition regulator for “renationalising the telecommunications network” and stymieing Telstra’s own intentions to build an NBN.

Mr Burgess, who was speaking at a business lunch in Adelaide yesterday, was one of former Telstra chief executive Sol Trujillo’s so-called “three Amigos” who he brought in to help run the corporation in 2002.

Mr Burgess, a guest of Carnegie Mellon University, yesterday railed against the idea of a government-owned monopoly building and owning the NBN.

A key criticism was the fact that providers like Telstra and Optus were not permitted to contend with the NBN in locations over their already-established cable networks.

“They are protecting (the NBN) by providing them a monopoly,” he explained.

“In this country today, both Optus and Telstra have built … cable television networks in all the major cities.

“They are able to carry now 30 megabits of broadband.”

Under the rules governing the NBN they were not allowed to compete however, Mr Burgess said.

“This is a wasteful and reckless destruction of broadband capacity in the name of creating broadband capacity within this country.”

Click here to read the full story

Advances in aviation technology should suggest that the irritation of having to switch off your phone throughout a flight should turn into a thing of the past, based on Telstra’s spectrum policy group manager Brian Miller.

“The current restraints on the use of phones on aircraft do appear to be overly conservative, and i also know Telstra isn’t aware of any evidence pointing to interference between mobile phones and aircraft electronic systems,” Miller told the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA)’s RadComms conference in Sydney this afternoon.

“The avionic systems of today are created to be very robust and withstand very high electromagnetic field and densities, including those generated by static build-up and direct lightning strikes, which are … in orders of magnitude, greater than those generated by mobile phones,” he said.
“There’s a large travelling business population … that could be much more productive if this was possible,” he added.”

In July a year ago, the ACMA chose to implement licensing arrangements that would allow airlines to deploy technology on the aircraft such as picocells that would allow passengers to attach making telephone calls using their own mobiles.

It is understood, however, that no Australian airline has yet made the service accessible to the general public.
ACMA’s gm of communications infrastructure, Maureen Cahill, had earlier told the conference how the current regulatory regime for spectrum was very inflexible, and for that reason it was not an easy task to bend the laws allowing mobile phone usage on aircraft.

Click Here to read the full story

The new 2.1GHz licenses will be used to provide additional capacity at both existing and future Telstra Next G™ network sites throughout regional and rural Australia.

“Data carried on the Next G™ network is doubling every 12 months. Over half of the data traffic on the Next G™ network is driven by regional and remote users,” said Telstra Chief Operations Officer, Mr Michael Rocca.

“These new licences are fundamental to our ability to continue to meet our customers’ demand for ultra-fast, reliable wireless broadband. At Telstra we are continuing to upgrade the speeds we are offering customers on the Next G™ network, including our recent announcement that over 100 regional centres are covered by our dual channel technology, meaning that they can access typical download speeds of between 1.1Mbps – 20Mbps.

“However, as the data traffic increases across the Next G™ network, at ever increasing speeds, we need to build capacity in the network to carry this traffic – and this additional spectrum will enable this to occur economically. Telstra forecasts that the wireless data traffic we are carrying today is a small proportion of the volumes we will be carrying in 2013,” said Mr Rocca.

The Telstra Next G™ network has more than 7000 base stations, offering coverage to 99% of the Australian population over an expansive 2.1 million square kilometres of the Australian landmass plus over 1 million square kilometres out to sea. Since launch of the Next G™ mobile network in 2006, Telstra has completed nine world firsts on this network, including being the first mobile operator in the world to offer HSPA+ dual channel technology to provide a peak network downlink speed of 42Mbps (actual customer speeds will be less). The speeds offered by Telstra are enhanced by its on-going investment in Ethernet backhaul technology which currently services base stations covering over 90 per cent of the population.

The release of these 2.1GHz licenses for public mobile telecommunications is most welcomed, and Telstra is pleased to invest in this spectrum to secure the network capacity which usage on the Next G™ network is demanding. Areas that will benefit from the additional spectrum licences include Hervey Bay, Queensland, Shepparton, Victoria, Forbes, NSW and Mount Gambier, South Australia.

Telstra thanks the Australian Communications and Media Authority for undertaking the extensive work needed to release this spectrum for the benefit of regional and rural Australians.

The latest tablet technology is now accessible to everyday Australians, with Telstra launching the most affordable wireless tablet from an Australian telco.

The Telstra T-Touch Tab™, priced at $299, is a light-weight tablet that combines mobile internet, online content, entertainment and phone-calling as well as access to over 80,000 apps from the Android Market™.

Telstra Executive Director Consumer, Ms Rebekah O’Flaherty, said the T-Touch Tab™ featured a 18-centimetre (7”) touch screen which delivered great online entertainment, while being more compact than a laptop.

“T-Touch Tab™ will suit Australians’ appetite for quick and affordable access to information, useful apps and digital media wherever they may be,” Ms O’Flaherty said.

“Created with Australian families in mind, the T-Touch Tab™ can be enjoyed individually or shared together, providing entertainment to all ages. From games that keep the kids amused, reading e-books, checking your email or catching the weather on the move, the possibilities are virtually endless” she said.

Ideal for use at home or out-and-about, the Telstra T-Touch Tab is:

• Powered by Android™ 2.1 – which means you can browse, buy and download more than 80,000 apps, games and more direct from Android MarketTM.
• Bright and light – with a touch screen that’s around three times larger than a standard smartphone screen, the T-Touch Tab™ is a great way to take e-books with you or to catch-up with friends via Facebook®, Flickr, Twitter or Tribe®.
• Well connected –email, mobile internet, video, voice calls and SMS – the T-Touch Tab™ lets you connect with the world via the Telstra Next G™ network, Australia’s largest and fastest national mobile broadband network.
• Multimedia hub – T-Touch Tab™ allows anyone in the family to watch video clips, Mobile FOXTEL from Telstra or movies when they’re out and about.

“Whether you’re a green-thumb, aspiring MasterChef or perhaps an avid blogger, we believe the T-Touch Tab™ will be popular with busy people embracing technology to keep connected with their interests,” Ms O’Flaherty said

“Telstra research suggests three quarters of Australia’s hobbyists are keen to use technology – such as tablets – to help further their passion.

“Our research also has found that while many hobbyists pursue an interest for the mental stimulation, 75% wish they could better share their particular passion with family and friends.

“We think affordable mobile tablets like Telstra T-Touch Tab™ will be great news for the majority of hobbyists who admit they want to devote more time to their passion, but can’t due to lack of time and associated costs.”