Here are a few I have come across the last week or so. Note: Each link is followed by a title and a few paragraphs. For the full article click on the link above title of the article. Note also that full access to some links may require site registration or subscription payment.
General Comment
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This is surely the most interesting day in quite a while in OZ Digital Health where we will see just what the Aust. National Audit Office thinks of the way the ADHA has done the myHR! Will be fascinating.
Quiet week last week with lots of the usual odd and ends!
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Lawyers called in over workplace problems at agency in charge of My Health Record
Sue Dunlevy, National Health Reporter, News Corp Australia Network
November 21, 2019 8:00pm
Exclusive: The government agency charged with looking after your most sensitive health data is embroiled in an explosive workplace dispute that has already cost taxpayers more than $80,000.
But the agency is refusing to disclose details of the scandal, formally refusing repeated FOI requests.
Nine in 10 Australians were given a My Health Record in February that contains highly personal information that could reveal if they had an abortion, sexually transmitted disease, impotence or mental illness.
Yet despite being able to access our highly personal details, the Australian Digital Health Agency blocked an FOI request on details surrounding the conflict everyday Australian are paying for.
Health Minister Greg Hunt has asked the public put faith in the agency and yet the same agency is obstructing transparency.
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18 November 2019
Can a smartwatch help detect AF?
An industry-funded study has shown that Apple Watches can catch undiagnosed atrial fibrillation (AF).
Around 400,000 Americans who owned iPhones and Apple watches were recruited into the study through an app. Once consent was given by the participants, Apple activated the irregular pulse notification algorithm on their Apple watches.
The pulse was monitored for around 100 days with a photoplethysmography sensor, which uses light to measure changes in blood flow.
Around 2,000 study participants (0.52%) received notifications of irregular pulse and were mailed an ECG patch to wear for seven days.
Of the 450 participants who returned the ECG patches, 153 (34%) were diagnosed with AF.
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Critical Roadmap to equip Australian health workers for global digital transformation
The Australian Digital Health Agency (the Agency), in collaboration with the Digital Health CRC, today hosted the National Digital Health Workforce and Education Summit.
This crucial Summit brought together leading academics, industry, policy makers, consumers and health and care workers nationally to discuss and collaborate on the draft National Digital Health Workforce and Education Roadmap (the Roadmap) to support the Australian health workforce in the global transformation to a digital health future.
The Roadmap builds upon Australia’s National Digital Health Strategy and the associated Framework for Action. The Roadmap describes the current state of the workforce in health, including volunteers and health consumers and their associated digital capability.
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This crucial Summit brought together leading academics, industry, policy makers, consumers and health and care workers nationally to discuss and collaborate on the draft National Digital Health Workforce and Education Roadmap (the Roadmap) to support the Australian health workforce in the global transformation to a digital health future.
The Roadmap builds upon Australia’s National Digital Health Strategy and the associated Framework for Action. The Roadmap describes the current state of the workforce in health, including volunteers and health consumers and their associated digital capability.
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Google reviews 'destroying' doctor reputations
The NSW AMA President Dr Kean-Seng Lim says doctors should be able to disable the search engine's review feature
22nd November 2019
By Lydia Hales
Doctors are powerless to act as their professional reputations are ruined on Google reviews that appear whenever someone searches their practice online, the NSW AMA says.
The branch says it is lobbying the tech giant to allow doctors to disable its review feature, arguing practices are being harmed by malicious comments.
Google allows anyone with an account to rate a business out of five and make comments on their experience, which appear online without any moderation.
In June, a plastic surgeon from Sydney, Dr Kourosh Tavakoli, was awarded $530,000 in damages in by the Supreme Court of NSW, after suing a patient for defamation for a Google review claiming he had acted improperly and incompetently.
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Drug rehab patients left exposed after fraudster hacks files
A major security breach at one of NSW’s largest drug rehabilitation services has left hundreds of past and current patients at risk, with many reporting their bank, tax and superannuation accounts, as well as highly confidential records, have been hacked.
Adele House runs in-house drug and alcohol rehabilitation programs in Werrington, in Sydney’s west, and Coffs Harbour, on the NSW mid-north coast, and is often a last resort for drug addicts who are referred to the centres through the state’s drug court system.
The Australian understands the security breach occurred in early August when a resident with a criminal record for fraud was given access to a work computer, despite a strict policy to bar all residents from access to computers or phones.
“Two or three staff members got sacked over it for allowing a resident to use their name and password,” one former resident told The Australian.
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Preparing overseas nurses for country Queensland
Preparing overseas nurses for country Queensland
Article published - 5 November 2019
A new digitally enhanced training and mentorship program is preparing nurses from overseas countries for work in regional and remote Queensland hospitals, with support from TIQ’s Study Queensland team.
The Leadership and Communication eMentor program provides internationally qualified nurses with skills in communication, leadership and critical thinking to prepare them to work in the Australian healthcare sector.
It also provides ongoing remote support and mentorship as the nurses practise in rural, regional and remote Queensland.
The program is a collaboration between Study Queensland’s Queensland International Education and Training Partnership Fund (IET Partnership Fund) Southern Cross University (SCU), Practera, Central Queensland University and India’s KLE Institute of Nursing Sciences.
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NSW Health bloods in Azure for real time pathology
Results sent straight to secure health cloud for analysis.
Let’s face it. Nobody really likes getting a needle stuck in their arm.
But for millions of public patients in the NSW health system, the waiting game of get pathology results back and analysed by clinicians is now a whole lot shorter thanks to a mash up of point-of-care devices, 4G, cloud and IoT.
It’s a small but logical step away from using humans as a pin cushion.
Patients don’t like it. Nurses like it less. And when doctors can canulate, they’re commonly referred to by nurses on the floor as “a keeper” because their work doesn’t have to be reset.
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Real-time suicide intervention via app
The early identification of those at risk of self-harm in schools, workplaces and known public suicide spots will form the next plank of the federal government’s push towards eradicating suicide.
Health Minister Greg Hunt will announce the second phase of the Black Dog Institute’s Centre of Research Excellence in Suicide Prevention on Wednesday, with technology to play a leading role in pinpointing those at risk.
The centre will implement a “co-ordinated, mutlifaceted intervention strategy” using smartphone apps to detect suicide risk in real time, with those identified directed towards intensive support.
The initiative follows the first phase of the research project, which found technology played an important role in suicide prevention.
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Model predicts chance of septic shock in children
Monday, 18 November, 2019
Researchers at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus have developed a novel method for predicting which children arriving in emergency departments (ED) are most likely to go into septic shock. Septic shock occurs when a severe infection causes blood pressure to plummet. Too often, clinicians fail to recognise early sepsis in time to prevent shock.
To develop the method, the researchers ran electronic medical records through a modern predictive algorithm to accurately project the likelihood of septic shock. The results are published in The Journal of Pediatrics.
“No models exist to predict the risk of septic shock upon arrival to the ED, a critical time point for intervention,” said study lead author Halden Scott, Associate Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and Children’s Hospital Colorado.
“We set out to develop a model of the risk based on patients whom doctors suspected had sepsis upon arrival.”
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Alcidion launches Australia’s first mobile EMR app
The app is the first locally developed solution of its type to offer full access to EMR data.
By Dean Koh
November 19, 2019 12:54 AM
Melbourne-based healthcare software solutions provider today launched Miya MEMRe, a mobile Electronic Medical Record (EMR), which provides clinicians’ access to caseloads, critical issues and comprehensive patient records on the go. The app is the first locally developed solution of its type to offer full access to EMR data, and the first mobile EMR solution in Australia using FHIR clinical events.
According to its official press release, Miya MEMRe is designed to exploit the vast amount of information available in an organization’s EMR and clinical systems, distilling that data and presenting it in an intuitive and focused user interface that aligns to clinical workflow.
The app is also currently being piloted in Australian health services, interacting with local clinical systems and providing clinicians in high-intensity areas such as Emergency Departments (EDs) with critical test results and risk indicators in real-time via mobile devices, to enhance decision-making.
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Concerns raised over GP 'Amazon' service
A new smartphone app promises 'healthcare in the palm of your hand'
21st November 2019
A GP corporate-backed smartphone app that offers to give patients a video consult with a GP and then deliver medicine to their door is being labelled “Amazon for general practice”.
Medinet was launched for iPhone and Android in September, promising to give patients “healthcare in the palm of your hand”.
Part-owned by the founder of Australia’s third largest GP corporate, Myhealth Medical Group, and based in its former Sydney head office, the start-up claims to have already signed up 30,000 Australian patients and 600 doctors.
Its website promises those patients 24/7 access to a GP, who will make a remote assessment via video or text-based chat for a flat $20 fee.
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NSW Pathology’s point of care testing pilot enables faster diagnosis and care
The technology is being piloted at six NSW Health public hospitals in a range of clinical settings including hospital EDs, wards, clinics and pathology collection centres.
By Dean Koh
November 20, 2019 09:38 PM
NSW Health Pathology, eHealth NSW and Microsoft are partnering to trial a first-of-its-kind point of care testing, which allows patients to be tested, whether it is in the back of an ambulance, on a football field or while undergoing surgery, with their results available to clinicians in real time.
This is done using point of care devices, in which encrypted pathology test results and clinical observations are being uploaded to the internet reliably, securely and accurately through the 4G mobile network using services that are audited by the Australian Signals Directorate.
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NSW Health avoids budget disaster on new rostering system
But decade-long HealthRoster project still four years late.
NSW Health has managed to avoid a multi-million dollar blowout on its new state-wide rostering system HealthRoster, despite no obvious changes to its implementation approach.
An annual audit of the government’s health cluster released on Thursday reveals the system, which was finally completed in the first half of 2019, came in just over its original budget of $88.6 million.
This is despite previous estimates suggesting the system was on-track to eclipse it budget by more than 40 percent due to the “large scale and complexity of the full implementation”.
HealthRoster was first approved more than a decade ago to replace the assortment of legacy systems used by local health districts (LHDs) and central agencies, including an out-of-support Kronos system.
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Friday, 15 November 2019 11:19
Parliament hack: MPs proved to be weakest link, says Senate chief
Some members of Parliament proved to be the worst enemies of their own network when they opened the door to malware by visiting an external website that had been compromised, it has been revealed.
They appeared to have followed links in a phishing email that led them to the website in question.
This was what caused the breach of the Parliament network that was made public in January, according to the Senate President Scott Ryan who was replying to a question on notice in Senate Estimates.
In another indication that security measures at Parliament are not up to the mark, Ryan also disclosed that all MPs had been advised about the incident - but only after the entire network was shut down, meaning that the emails sent did not reach the intended recipients.
Ryan said the tech admins had monitored the hack for eight days after it was discovered on 31 January.
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Labor wants Parliament House works audited
· Australian Associated Press
An opposition senator has launched a blistering attack against the public servants responsible for a scandal-plagued security upgrade at Parliament House in Canberra.
Labor's Kimberley Kitching has asked the auditor-general to investigate the department responsible for overseeing the bungled $75 million security works.
Senator Kitching accused the Department of Parliament Services of lacking the skills and experience needed to handle the critical project.
"It is my strong view that the department is absent senior personnel who are qualified and possess adequate expertise to manage a capital works project of this size," she wrote to the auditor-general late last week.
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The week in security: Poor security hygiene just not good enough, APRA warns
APRA plans to crack down on the rather poor security hygiene practices still being commonly found across the financial-services industry, the regulator announced in the wake of statistics showing that the industry suffered 36 data breaches in just four months this year.
Better security isn’t just a matter of hygiene, however: as the creators of phishing kits Become ever more skilful at morphing their creations with regularity, high-profile targets in financial services and elsewhere need to be aware of the ever changing risks they face.
Indeed, new risks threaten any company that has been investing heavily in the cloud – and that, these days, means any company at all. The key is to not take security for granted, and to remember that cloud security is different because the cloud is different.
Also high on hackers’ list are healthcare targets, but the technical minds behind My Health Record (MyHR) seem to be doing something right for now: the first report on the e-Health initiative since its shift to opt-out architecture showed that the system had not suffered any malicious cyber attacks, with 38 recorded data breaches resulting in accidental, not malicious, compromises. Monash IVF, however, was not so lucky.
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Sensation of touch created by fake skin
· The Times
A child calls her grandfather on Skype. She touches the screen, and the action is translated into a stroke on his arm. An amputee picks up an object with his prosthesis. He “feels” its shape as a sensation on his upper arm.
Both these scenarios may soon be possible thanks to a wireless “skin” that can be linked up to computers to transmit sensation. The device, described in the journal Nature, is the most advanced and compact system of its type, requiring no wires or external power.
The scientists behind it said they hoped it could be used to augment virtual reality systems, allowing people to feel as well as see and hear.
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UNSW trials app-based dementia test
Automating early detection.
Engineers at the University of New South Wales are developing a machine learning app that could one day make dementia testing among the elderly as simple as speaking into a phone.
The app uses speech-analysis algorithms to combine memory recall tests with an examination of paralinguistic features of speech like rhythm, pitch, volume and intonation.
Dr Beena Ahmed, the lead engineering researcher from UNSW’s School of Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications working on the new algorithms, said an objective analytical tool could be immensely valuable.
“The tool will essentially replace current subjective, time-consuming procedures that have limited diagnostic accuracy,” she said.
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RMIT, ECHAlliance partner on 'digital healthcare ecosystem'
Nathan Eddy | 22 Nov 2019
RMIT University has announced a partnership with the European Connection Health Alliance to launch a digital health ecosystem in Australia.
The partnership and Melbourne Ecosystem, billed as Australia's first digital health ecosystem, is designed to strengthen the connections between patients, clinicians, researchers, policy makers, technology providers and the community, and follows the launch of groups in Sri Lanka, Canada and Malta.
RMIT is a facilitator of the Melbourne Ecosystem, which will continue to connect partners and collaborators through the ecosystem, encouraging membership and expansion to support significant topics to Australia.
While RMIT hosted the launch, the university noted this is a community-driven ecosystem with working group members representing industry, community, government, clinical and patient representatives, startups and researchers.
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Best Practice Software debuts new mobile app
Nathan Eddy | 20 Nov 2019
Medical software developer Best Practice Software announced the launch of the Best Health App, which lets patients view upcoming appointments and book online appointments if the practice uses an online appointment vendor.
The app also lets them receive and respond to appointment reminders, check-in for their appointments, and receive clinical reminders and other messages from their practice or GP.
In addition, the app provides a secure communication channel directly between patients and their practice that provides greater flexibility with the types of material that can be sent to the patient, offering a potentially significant time and cost savings to practices.
Company CEO Dr. Frank Pyefinch told HealthcareITNews the time saving benefits alone mean that valuable staff resources can be directed to other tasks, and the cost savings are significant with greatly reduced message costs and a reduction in printing and postage costs.
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National board to guide investments in digital health
Wednesday, 20 November 2019
eHealthNews.nz editor Rebecca McBeth
The Ministry of Health has established an interim Digital Investment Board to guide investments in digital health.
Health Minister David Clark gave a keynote presentation at the HiNZ Conference 2019 during Digital Health Week NZ in Hamilton, where he told attendees that he “strongly believes that digital health plays an increasingly important role in helping us to achieve our priorities in the wider health and disability system”.
He also spoke about the interim board, which he described as having a diverse membership to advise on important initiatives such as the national Health Information Platform.
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New code for internet-connected devices to stop hackers
By Anthony Galloway
November 19, 2019 — 12.00am
Web-connected devices including smart TVs, watches and home speakers will be subject to a new industry code to protect families, businesses and Australia's national security from cyber hackers.
Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton will on Tuesday raise the alarm on poor cyber security features in many devices, calling on companies to do more to stamp out cyber crime.
With a growing reliance on devices such as mobile phones, Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton says they need to have better inbuilt security features to prevent cyber attacks and data breaches.
The voluntary code would require companies to develop a "vulnerability disclosure policy", make their systems resilient to outages and ensure their software updates are secure.
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Govt proposes national cyber regime for IoT
Voluntary code to apply to smart devices such speakers, TVs.
Everyday Internet of Things devices such as AI-enabled smart speakers and smart TVs will be subject to a new Australian code of practice to better protect against malicious cyber threats.
With concerns over the always-on devices and privacy reaching fever-pitch, the federal government has moved to introduce voluntary national standards for IoT security.
The code, developed by the Department of Home Affairs and Australian Cyber Security Centre, will offer best practice guidance to device manufacturers, IoT service providers and app developers.
Minister for Home Affairs Peter Dutton said that ensuring the security of everyday smart devices, which Gartner estimates will reach more than 64 billion globally by 2025, was “paramount”.
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Parliament House hack report reveals poor password practices
It took eight days to flush February's cyber attackers from Australia's parliamentary network. A procedure to authenticate staff asking to reset their boss' passwords only came another week later.
Interesting facts are starting to emerge concerning the hack of the Australian Parliament network and political party networks revealed in February 2019. Amusing facts, even.
It took eight days to remove the bad guys from the parliamentary network, according to evidence given to the Senate Finance and Public Administration last Thursday.
The Department of Parliamentary Services (DPS) became aware of the breach on January 31, and called in the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) for help. The attackers were removed on February 8.
What happened in the intervening eight days?
"At this point I have to say that, given this forum, I am unable to go into any further detail," said the President of the Senate, Senator Scott Ryan.
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Government backflip as robo-debt income automation paused
Minister for Government Services Stuart Robert said his department wants to ensure fairness and consistency for 'income compliance'.
The federal government will be pausing the most controversial part of its welfare debt collection program that has become colloquially known as robo-debt, with Minister for Government Services Stuart Robert saying the move is about ensuring fairness and consistency for income compliance.
As reported first by the ABC, an email circulating within the Department of Human Services (DHS) asked compliance staff to not base debt calculations on data solely from the Australian Taxation Office (ATO).
In 2016, DHS kicked off the data-matching program of work that saw the automatic issuing of debt notices to those in receipt of welfare payments through the Centrelink scheme.
The OCI program automatically compared the income declared to the ATO against income declared to Centrelink, resulting in debt notices -- along with a 10% recovery fee -- being issued whenever a disparity in government data was detected.
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NBN Co rolls out ‘Network on Wheels’ to mitigate bushfire damage
NBN Co works to keep Diamond Beach region online
NBN Co says it has deployed on of its ‘Network on Wheels’ trailers in an effort to keep online more than 3000 broadband services in the Mid North Coast.
The company said it was working to mitigate the impact of damage to a telecommunications exchange serving the Diamond Beach region, which houses NBN infrastructure.
NBN Co said that as of 18 November, all of the NSW services affected by the bushfires had been restored.
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‘Absolute BS’: Malcolm Turnbull defends the National Broadband Network from criticism that it’s too slow
One of the chief architects of the NBN has bluntly rejected one of the most persistent criticisms of the network, labelling it “absolute BS”.
Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull has launched an impassioned defence of the National Broadband Network, labelling a core criticism of it “absolute BS”.
Mr Turnbull was the keynote speaker at the StartCon conference at Royal Randwick Racecourse in Sydney this morning. The event has brought together global experts to discuss what it takes to start and grow technology driven businesses.
After a speech spruiking the benefits of innovation in business and government, Mr Turnbull sat down for a chat on stage with Matt Barrie, the CEO of freelancer.com.
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NBN Co helps staff solve awkward questions at social events
Find answers, lodge support tickets on the spot.
NBN Co built a self-service app that its staff can use when hit up at social functions by family, friends and randoms for technical and troubleshooting assistance.
Anyone that’s worked in any IT domain will be familiar with the problem: once someone at a BBQ or social gathering finds out you work in tech, your transformation to instant home helpdesk resource is complete.
NBN Co’s solution to this is an app called nbn GO, which runs atop Salesforce’s Community Cloud.
It enables staff to access NBN Co’s knowledge base when they are out and about.
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Friday, 22 November 2019 10:48
S&P does not expect 5G threat to NBN in the short to medium term
Credit ratings agency S&P Global Ratings has said it does not expect 5G fixed wireless broadband networks to replace the NBN in the near-to-medium term, due to heavy capital spending and the fact that some players were stretched financially.
In its global outlook for telecommunications in the coming year, S&P said at the moment, telcos needed to pay high fixed-line-network access charges to the NBN Co, the company building the national broadband network.
This was causing earnings to dip, the ratings firm said.
It said Australian telcos were keen to grow their 5G-based fixed wireless broadband business, so that they could bypass the non-profitable NBN.
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Telstra's free NBN speed boost backfires
As FTTN/B curse resurfaces.
A goodwill gesture by Telstra that upgraded 770,000 NBN customers to higher speed plans for free partially backfired when some customers’ lines couldn’t support the newfound gains.
The result is an unfortunate recurrence of an issue that Telstra was first pinged for in late 2017 - and means an extra 180,000 services that likely need to be downgraded again to a lower NBN speed tier (or offered some other form of remediation).
Over the past two years, Telstra and basically every other major retail service provider were progressively pinged by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) for signing FTTN/B customers up to plans that their connections could not physically support.
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Thursday, 21 November 2019 12:28
Telstra, contacting customers with slow NBN speeds
Customers of Telstra and its subsidiary broadband provider, Belong, that upgraded to higher-speed NBN plans will be proactively contacted if they are not getting the maximum speed available under the plan.
Under a November 2017 court-enforceable undertaking, Telstra was required to check customers’ broadband speeds if they were connected to the NBN via FTTN or FTTB technology.
If a customer’s connection wasn’t able to get the maximum speeds promised under their plan, Telstra was required to inform the customer of the maximum speeds attainable, and offer a remedy if the customer wanted to change or exit their contract.
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https://www.itnews.com.au/news/nbn-co-looks-to-retain-customers-and-grow-their-lifetime-value-534299
NBN Co looks to retain customers and grow their "lifetime value"
Establishes a presence across seven Salesforce clouds.
NBN Co has reinforced its Salesforce stack to span seven “clouds” as it prepares to shift from a phase of customer acquisition to retention and growth of the “lifetime value” of customers to the company.
The network operator first revealed its use of Salesforce’s service and sales clouds back in 2016, and flagged an expansion into more parts of the vendor’s stack at the time.
Three years on, NBN Co has stood up an “omni-enabled ecosystem [in Salesforce] to better engage with and manage our customer experience and our core audiences,” general manager of digital and CRM Jo Beat told Salesforce’s Dreamforce 19 conference.
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NBN Co removes barriers to lodging a support ticket
New service health card to help RSPs diagnose and escalate faults.
NBN Co is trialling a beta diagnostic tool with retail service providers that it says will help uncover faults faster and remove roadblocks to lodging a support ticket.
The existence of the new tool - called the ‘Customer Service Health Card’ - and trial was first revealed via technical documentation earlier this month, however there was little detail on the tool itself and its intended purpose.
An NBN Co spokesperson told iTnews that “the service tool will allow RSPs to understand if a service is performing to expectations, and help diagnose any underlying problems with NBN connections.”
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Tuesday, 19 November 2019 09:46
NBN Co says no need for any ACCC intervention in service standards
The NBN Co, the company rolling out Australia's broadband network, has questioned the need for any regulatory intervention into its wholesale service standards at this time as, in its view, the ACCC's draft decision on these aspects had not provided any evidence of market failure.
In a submission to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, following the release of the draft decision on 1 October, the NBN Co said in addition, the ACCC had not made any analysis of the outcomes that would follow an intervention, compared to either non-intervention or a less intrusive form of intervention.
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NBN Co claims internet providers will milk it for rebates
While arguing it could also be persuaded to game the system for revenue.
NBN Co has preemptively accused internet providers of harbouring a desire to milk higher rebates on faulty or slow services for “windfall gains”, even if it prolongs problems for their own customers.
The argument is laid out for the first time publicly in a rebuttal of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s (ACCC’s) proposal to impose higher service standards on NBN Co, and to fine it for not living up to expectations.
To date, the accusations have only been made in private, possibly due to the damage they could inflict on the already fractious relationship between NBN Co and its major retail service provider (RSP) partners.
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NBN Co to run CX transformation
Builds new CoE, plans to deploy new software.
NBN Co is embarking on a formal customer experience (CX) transformation project, creating a new centre of excellence aimed at driving up “satisfaction, use and network preference”.
The network builder revealed the plans last week, saying it would build a new customer experience transformation (CXT) team to undertake the work.
Though the CXT team will officially sit in the company’s residential sales and marketing (RSM) business unit, it will “serve as a center of excellence for the entire company and support cross-BU [business unit] initiatives,” the company said.
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NBN Co is skipping "thousands" of premises a month
Unable to order a service for over two years.
NBN Co is leaving progressively more premises unable to connect to its network for two or more years, new statistics from Telstra show.
Telstra, which is managing masses of disconnections from its copper network in line with its NBN agreement obligations, revealed a growing number of premises that can’t order an active NBN service.
Disconnections from legacy copper to NBN occur in “waves” - essentially months.
There is an 18-month window in which ADSL users must move to FTTN/B/C before their legacy services must be switched off, and this can be extended for a further six months, Telstra said.
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Monday, 18 November 2019 10:23
Govt plays down alleged 5G health effects in submission to inquiry
The Federal Government has moved to quell the fears expressed by Australians over the alleged health effects of 5G, with a submission from the Department of Communications and the Arts to a House of Representatives standing committee pointing out the safeguards taken to limit the amount of radio frequency that electromagnetic energy telecommunications facilities can emit.
Submissions to the inquiry in question, being conducted by the Standing Committee on Communications and the Arts, closed on 1 November. Out of a total of 354 which have been put online, hardly a handful go beyond listing what are claimed to be the harmful health effects of 5G.
The DCoA submission said there were a number of agencies involved in the regulation of EME emissions from telco equipment: "the Australian Radiation and Nuclear Protection Agency (ARPANSA) and the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) in the Health portfolio. Within the Communications portfolio, the Department sets the policy and legislative framework for deployment of telecommunications equipment, and ACMA regulates industry’s compliance with legislative requirements".
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Friday, 15 November 2019 13:29
Competition in NBN wholesale market growing, says ACCC
Competition by wholesale access seekers to connect to the National Broadband Network is heating up, with at least nine wholesalers now connecting directly to the NBN and with over 6.1 million residential broadband services being delivered by the NBN across Australia.
The latest quarterly Wholesale Market Indicators Report from the competition regulator, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), reveals that more than half a million new services were added in the three months between July and September this year - and more wholesale access seekers are directly connecting with the NBN at more NBN points of interconnect (POIs).
The report reveals that there were at least nine different wholesale access seeker groups directly connected to the NBN at all of the 121 POIs in the September quarter, while at least ten access seekers were connected at 119 of the POIs.
Telstra remains the dominant acquirer of wholesale NBN services, with 48.1 percent of all connections.
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NBN Co threatens to halt future FTTN upgrades
If it is forced to pay up for faults and slow services.
NBN Co claims future - presumably discretionary - upgrades of its fibre-to-the-node (FTTN) services and to “rehabilitation of the copper network” are under threat because of a punitive rebate scheme proposed by regulators.
The threat is contained in an extensive rebuttal to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s (ACCC’s) plan to impose much higher service standards on NBN Co, and to financially penalise the company more when the standards aren’t met.
- $13.50 per business day - capped at $270 - for late or delayed connections to its network
- $30 a day - capped at $1150 - for slow fault fixes
- $75 when its technicians miss appointments, up from $25
To date, most of NBN Co’s arguments against the plan have not been made public.
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Enjoy!
David.
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