THE broadband consortium Terria has lodged its submission to the Senate committee looking into the National Broadband Network proposal, reaffirming its plan to partner with Telstra if wins the $4.7 billion project.

THE Gershon inquiry into how the Australian Government buys and manages its information technology would result in greater central control, Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner has told The Australian newspaper.

AN industry association of Telstra competitors has charged Telstra with “gaming’ the competition regulator in a “cynical exercise” aimed only at frustrating its competitors and creating regulatory delays.

GLOBAL roaming charges have been put under the spotlight with a new report to Communications Minister Stephen Conroy saying they are confusing and expensive.

OPTUS’ parent company Singapore Telecommunications is in ongoing talks to invest in China, and was also looking for potential opportunities to expand in the Middle East.

PLANNING for the Rudd Government’s National Broadband Network has passed a milestone, with the rules and final timetable in place for bidding for the $4.7 billion in allocated Federal funding.

ANY predictions that revenue growth in the Internet market was heading for a slowdown may be premature, with the Europe set to enjoy an increase in returns of more than 10 per cent in 2008, according to a leading market intelligence agency.

Troubled IT services and communications specialist Commander has appointed administrators after lenders declined to grant an extension for repaying debt.

CHINESE network equipment and software provider Huawei Technologies has reported a stellar 2007, with revenue climbing 48 per cent to US$12.56 billion (A$12.80 billion) – making Huawei both the fifth largest equipment supplier in the world, and the fastest growing of the majors.

IT’S not undue haste to pursue an incredibly ambitious timetable to get tenders for the $4.7 billion National Broadband Network let and to have work under way. The network will delivery enormour benefit across the whole economy – the sooner the better.

DOMINANT UK carrier BT has unveiled plans for a £1.5 billion (A$3.1 billion) plan to roll-out super-fast, fibre-based broadband services to as many as 10 million homes by 2012.

THE Australian consumer watchdog has issued an almost unprecedented statement saying it would take an even closer look at Telstra’s broadband competition practices, despite its already hawkish eye on the telco giant.

THE MicroHoo battle has begun to turn nasty after online pioneer Yahoo rejected outright a joint proposal from Microsoft and billionaire investor Carl Icahn that aimed to rekindle “peace in out time” in the long-running acquisition fight.

THE gloves have come off in the already bloody carrier war over broadband pricing, with Optus unveiling a report that says Telstra is the most expensive company in the world for internet services.

CHANGES to network architecture as well as consumer usage patterns will increase demands on bandwidth by many orders of magnitude. And event with the current plans for network investment, networks will become choked without a rethink of how services are delivered.

TELSTRA has unveiled iPhone pricing that underlines the depth of the company’s confidence that its service is better than its competitors: It remains orders of magnitude more expensive than rivals.

APPLE has unveiled an online store selling third-party mini applications for the iPhone to coincide with the worldwide launch of the 3G version its fabulously popular iPhone device.

THE launch of the Apple iPhone in Australia is a prototypical demonstration of the better, fast, cheaper principal in action.

TELSTRA has accused key companies making submissions to the National Broadband Network inquiry into telco regulation of trying to advance “a tired, anti-Telstra campaign” and claims Google “just wants free access to bandwidth.”

IN an official submission to the Federal Government, online giant Google has called for a separation of the retail and wholesale operation of the proposed National Broadband network.

The Google Australia submission to Communications Minister Stephen Conroy’s inquiry into telecommunications regulation said the Government’s $4.7 billion broadband investment plans would benefit from separate retail, wholesale and network operational arms.

TELSTRA has acquired a majority stake in two internet companies in China, building on the company’s 2006 investment in Chinese real estate firm SouFun in 2006.

NETWORKING specialist Netgear has launched an open source wireless router targeting consumer markets and giving users access to a wide variety of applications developed by the open source community.

MICROSOFT has taken another step deeper into the mobile communications market, revealing plans to acquire mobile technology pioneer MobiComp.

MOBILE phone carrier Vodafone Australia says it added 117,000 for its fiscal fourth quarter to the end of March, pushing the company’s total customer numbers beyond four million for the first time.

AUSTRALIAN communications Goliath Telstra is diving headfirst into the software as a service (SaaS) market, announcing plans to launch a suite of products under the T-Suite brand.