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
A really big when I look back – this lot will keep you browsing for a while. The first article is a ripper and ought be read if you have a moment.
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Will the tech giants ever succeed at e-Health?
08/04/2018 by
Amazon, Apple, and Google are all having another go at e-Health. But we have been here before: remember Microsoft HealthVault? It’s still around, and still hasn’t taken off. Google Health went live in 2008, but was retired at end of 2011, due to ‘lack of adoption’.
Fast forward to 2018, and we see Apple, Amazon, Google and Uber making new e-Health plays. Initially each corporation will probably work from its strengths – retail delivery for Amazon, booking for Uber, data for Google, and devices for Apple. In the US at least, some of them will build their own healthcare providers for the workforce, and use the environment as a place to work on next-generation health IT solutions. Some challenges, particularly in the devices area, will undoubtedly see progress – there is no doubt that the tech giants do some things really well.
But I remain sceptical about overall success.
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Digital Health CRC launches, targets care system savings of $1.8 billion
Comes at crunch time for national health system
13 April, 2018 10:00
The government is backing a Digital Health Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) which will invest more than $200 million to develop and test digital health solutions.
The CRC, which launched today, brings together 40 commercial and government organisations operating across the health, aged care and disability sectors, 24 established and start-up technology, advisory and investment companies, and 16 Australian universities.
Together they will work on a number of research priorities including tackling adverse drug reactions, mining knowledge from health data, improving the value of care and empowering consumers.
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Canberra mother questions delays to prescription monitoring laws
By Daniel Burdon
12 April 2018 — 4:55pm
A Canberra mother who lost her son to mental health and prescription drugs has questioned delays to real-time prescription monitoring in the ACT, and called for it to be mandatory for all doctors.
Ann Finlay lost her son, Paul Fennessy, in January 2010 to a prescription drug overdose, leading to a seven-year battle for an coronial inquest into his death, which was completed in August last year.
In the three years before his death, Mr Fennessy accessed 150 prescriptions from 18 different Canberra doctors, a period chronicled in The Canberra Times' investigative podcast Losing Paul.
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Ministers agree to national real time monitoring solution
All state and territory Health Ministers have committed to achieving a national solution on real time prescription monitoring
Today’s communique from the COAG Health Council said: “The Ministers agreed to progress national real time prescription monitoring as a federated model with jurisdictions committed to progressing development and adaptation of systems to connect to and interface with Commonwealth systems to achieve a national solution.”
The move was welcomed by the Pharmacy Guild.
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8 things pharmacists must know about MyHealth Record
The PSA has issued new guidelines to help navigate the legal minefield
11th April 2018
The PSA has launched guidelines to help pharmacists navigate the MyHealth Record system as it changes from opt-in to opt-out for all Australians.
Here are eight key points from the guidelines:
Here are eight key points from the guidelines:
- Ideally, pharmacies should display a sign advising patients whether or not the pharmacy uses MyHealth Record (MHR).
- By signing up for a MHR, patients are giving consent for their clinical information to be uploaded to the record. But it’s a good idea to let patients know. For example, display a sign that states all prescriptions are uploaded to a patient’s MHR.
- It’s okay to access the MHR without a patient’s permission in an emergency situation, such as a patient falling unconscious or having a seizure in the pharmacy.
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Lifting the veil
New My Health Record guidelines have been launched to help pharmacists understand and navigate the digital system
The PSA has launched new guidelines to support pharmacists in using the My Health Record system.
My Health Record is currently at a crucial stage of rolling out across pharmacies, and will be providing all Australians with a record by the end of the year unless they opt out.
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Pharmaceutical Society of Australia launches new guidelines for My Health Record system
By: Nicky Lung
11 Apr 2018
The new guidelines will increase the number of pharmacists using My Health Record and improve the health of Australians through better pharmacist care.
The Pharmaceutical Society of Australia (PSA) has announced the launch of new guidelines for pharmacists to promote meaningful clinical use of the My Health Record system to enhance patient-centred care.
My Health Record is a digital system that enables healthcare providers to share secure health data and improve the safety and quality of patient care. The system enables important health information including allergies, medical conditions, treatments, medicines, and scan reports to be accessed through one system.
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Media release - New My Health Record guidelines launched for pharmacists
11 April, 2018
Pharmaceutical Society of Australia (PSA) launched new guidelines today for pharmacists to promote meaningful clinical use of the My Health Record system to enhance patient-centred care.
The new guidelines will help increase the number of pharmacists using My Health Record, a digital system that enables healthcare providers to share secure health data and improve the safety and quality of patient care.
My Health Record enables important health information including allergies, medical conditions, treatments, medicines, and scan reports to be accessed through one system. The benefits include reduced hospital admissions, reduced duplication of tests, better coordination of care for people with chronic and complex conditions, and better informed treatment decisions.
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MedAdvisor prescription app hits one million patient mark as it eyes up hospitalisation market
Lynne Minion | 10 Apr 2018
Australian digital health startup MedAdvisor has hit a milestone, announcing one million patients have connected with its prescription management app, doubling the number of those signed up in the last year.
The growth spurt by the ASX-listed company, which integrates tools including dose reminders, script renewals, a carer incarnation, refill ordering and medication training, has been fuelled by customer demand, according to MedAdvisor CEO Robert Read.
“Customers expect the same convenience they get in other environments. Patients are people and they have been frustrated by perceived inefficiencies in the healthcare system, so where new tools arrive that make it easier it is not surprising people love it,” Read told Healthcare IT News Australia.
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E-health and minimising script harms
A group of experts are calling for clear legal principles around how a duty of care looks in the age of electronic records
Dr Jennifer Stevens, Anaesthetist at St Vincent’s Hospital, and Matthew McCrone, Director of Real Time Prescription Monitoring Implementation at the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services, recently attended an event on reducing harms hosted by MinterEllison and ScriptWise.
The event aimed to examine effective ways that hospitals, health services and primary health care services can reduce growing harms from prescription medicines.
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Tenders for the review into SA Health’s EPAS system due soon
TENDERS for the review into SA Health’s troubled electronic records system EPAS go out soon after Health Minister Stephen Wade put the rollout on hold.
Brad Crouch
The Advertiser April 10, 201811:29pm
SA Health is finalising the final process for its review into the much-maligned electronic patient record system EPAS.
Health Minister Stephen Wade put the rollout on hold — including at the Royal Adelaide Hospital — amid grave concerns over the $421 million system’s performance.
EPAS was rushed into the RAH in time for the opening, but is only partly functional.
A government spokesman said sites using EPAS now will continue its operation during the review.
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Telemedicine in rural EDs: more questions than answers
Authored by Aniello Iannuzzi
IMAGINE this scenario: you are a young rural doctor working in a rural hospital’s emergency department (ED). Over each acute bed is a camera and microphone, and in a bigger centre 1000 km away is an emergency physician monitoring the patients’ vital signs and your actions.
A situation arises and you are required to take action. You’re in the middle of a procedure on another patient when the monitoring doctor, kilometres away, intervenes without your input.
Who is legally responsible for the patient now? Did the patient give permission to be so monitored? What does the rural doctor learn from being sidelined?
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Breach report confirms: People suck
Some muppet will probably click on that phishing email, report finds
Rohan Pearce (Computerworld)10 April, 2018 14:01
Even in the wake of high-profile malware campaigns such as the WannaCry and NotPetya ransomware, businesses are still failing to get the security basics right when it comes to employee awareness training and patching vulnerabilities.
“People’s security maturity hasn’t really moved on in the past couple of years,” said Chris Tappin, principal consultant at Verizon.
In some cases, organisations have been worn down by the “constant doom and gloom” around security, he said. On top of that businesses are often confronted by vendors that are “trying to sell you the latest security appliances saying ‘Post WannaCry, you’ve got to have this; after Stuxnet our software is now critical to your business.’”
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OAIC sees 63 data breach notifications in first six weeks
By Ry Crozier on Apr 11, 2018 9:18AM
Majority the result of "human error".
Australian organisations reported 63 data breaches in the first six weeks of mandatory notification rules coming into effect, with human error listed as the most common cause.
By contrast, when organisations only had to voluntarily reveal breaches, they only self-reported 114 instances for the entire 2016–17 financial year.
The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) today released the first quarterly report since the mandatory data breach notification scheme came into effect on February 22. [pdf]
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Health sector dominates in first report on data breach notification scheme
63 data breaches reported in first six weeks of scheme’s operation
Rohan Pearce (Computerworld)11 April, 2018 10:04
Health service providers accounted for almost a quarter of the breaches reported in the first six weeks of operation of the government’s Notifiable Data Breach (NDB) scheme.
The scheme came into force on 22 February.
The rules require organisations to report data breaches to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) and notify affected individuals when there is a risk of “serious harm”.
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Greens call for GDPR to serve as model for privacy protection
- 13 April 2018
- Written by Sam Varghese
The Australian Greens have called on the Coalition Government to update privacy protections to stay in line with the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation that is scheduled to take effect on 25 May.
In a statement, the part's digital rights spokesperson Senator Jordon Steele-John said the government should look to the GDPR as a model for privacy protection, especially in the wake of the ongoing revelations regarding Facebook's data collection.
Senator Steele-John has in the recent past spoken out condemning Cambridge Analytica, which has been at the centre of the Facebook scandal, and seeking the removal of absolute exemptions in the privacy act for politicians and political parties. The privacy exemptions are backed by both the government and the opposition.
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NSW govt opposes mandatory data breach reporting
By Justin Hendry on Apr 13, 2018 11:08AM
But will review voluntary scheme.
The NSW government will oppose a bill that would force state government agencies to report data breaches, arguing more consideration is needed before such a scheme is introduced.
The Privacy and Personal Information Protection Amendment (Notification of Serious Violations of Privacy by Public Sector Agencies) Bill was introduced by NSW Labor last November to bring about model similar to the federal mandatory data breach notification scheme.
The bill would require state agencies to notify affected individuals and the NSW Privacy Commissioner.
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Facebook hearings: Don’t count on regulation to protect data privacy
Investors may be betting that the worst of “Facegate” could be over, but it is too soon to count on it.
- The Australian / Economist
- 12:00AM April 14, 2018
“They ‘trust me’ ... dumb f--ks,” Mark Zuckerberg, the boss of Facebook, wrote in an instant message to a friend in 2004, after boasting that he had personal data, including photos, emails and addresses, of some 4000 of his social network’s users.
He offered to share whatever information his friend wanted to see.
Zuckerberg may use less profane language today, but many feel he has not yet outgrown his wilful disregard for users’ privacy.
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11 April 2018
Why are we so slow in adopting telehealth?
Digital health leaders are arguing for financial incentives and other support to speed doctors’ uptake of digital health technology.
Australian Digital Health Agency CEO Tim Kelsey said his agency was looking for solutions to the country’s slow progress on telehealth and bringing specialists into the computer age.
“Telehealth is a crucial tool. I’ve been surprised by the low uptake of services in Australia; where I’ve seen them in action they worked well,” he said.
“This is really nothing to do with technologies. It’s to do with culture, financial incentives and broader policies,” Mr Kelsey told the Australian Telehealth Conference in Sydney on Wednesday.
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When it comes to measuring clinical performance, doctors must be central
12 April 2018
GUEST EDITORIAL
When it comes to measuring performance in clinical settings, doctors need to be involved, writes Professor Stephen Leeder.
At secondary school, I was only moderately accomplished at mathematics despite my dad being a maths teacher. When, a few years later, I became interested in epidemiology, I had to contend with statistics.
There is, of course, a whole lot more to epi than stats, but it is central. My mathematical mediocrity conferred one advantage: each basic stats course was a new experience.
I forgot, from one course to the next, how to calculate p-values. Fortunately, when I began using statistical skills, it stuck — more or less.
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Electronic Patient Report Form system live across New Zealand ambulance services
12 April, 2018
eHealthNews editor Rebecca McBeth
With ambulance staff nationwide now using the same ePRF, paramedics can access patient information from previous call-outs, no matter where in the country they occurred.
All New Zealand ambulance staff are using a single electronic patient report form to record patient information after Wellington Free Ambulance went live with ePRF last month.
The ePRF allows frontline staff to enter patient details into a structured electronic form using a tablet device, rather than having to handwrite notes.
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NZHIT: Thoughts on clinical leadership
12 April, 2018
Guest column for NZHIT: Dr Will Reedy muses on the crucial role of clinical leadership in the digital age.
The role of the CCIO
The role of the chief clinical information officer has evolved over the past 20 years. It was initially established to support CIOs with clinical engagement for electronic medical record and electronic health record programmes.
Traditionally the CCIO has been a doctor, but increasingly nurses and allied health professionals are being appointed to CCIO roles.
In recognition of the potential impact of digital health technologies on healthcare teams and emerging models of care, larger healthcare organisations are appointing chief nursing information officers and chief allied health information officers in addition to the CCIO.
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Why don't the various pieces of GP software talk to one another?
9 April 2018
IMPROVING PRACTICE SOFTWARE
GPs need seamless integration for all the software they use, writes Dr Oliver Frank.
THE ISSUE
There are some features and functions that GPs need in their clinical and administrative software packages that are not being provided well enough, if at all.
Clinical and administrative software packages marketed for use in general practice in Australia are large and complex because they are trying to satisfy the needs of all their users.
Furthermore, the lack of standards for much clinical and administrative software has resulted in an inability of most packages to interact with each other.
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4 April 2018
GPs and healthcare’s distribution Game of Thrones
GPs are at the epicentre of our evolving digital health landscape. But will they be gatekeepers or pawns in an evolving Game of Thrones around control of information and data distribution in the sector?
In April 1995 in Darlinghurst in Sydney, a presentation was taking place in the boardroom of one of the most successful medical healthcare ad agencies of the day, CWFS.
It was a plan to build an information network in the Australian healthcare system that would serve all points of the system. Present was one of the two largest global business publishing houses at that time. Both the publisher and CWFS had in mind a series of acquisitions that would put together pieces of a distribution puzzle that would build this network.
Magazine Australian Doctor, the number one medical newspaper, was one of those acquisitions. Another, was an emerging consumer information company, doing things not dissimilar to what Tonic Health Media and Healthshare do today, which is supply key pieces of health information for GPs to pass on to their patients.
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Research finds consumers trust AI in healthcare more than banking or retail
- 10 April 2018
- Written by David M Williams
An online survey of 500 consumers across the US, representing an age range of 18-70+, indicates 47% of people are comfortable with artificial intelligence in the operating room, while consumers were least comfortable with the idea of AI in retail.
The research was conducted by global analytics software company SAS and announced today at the SAS Global Forum 2018 in Denver, Colorado.
AI is becoming a major topic for software companies around the world. The survey posed a variety of real-world AI scenarios, and requested respondents advise their degree of comfort.
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April 9 2018 - 4:49PM
My Health Record enables healthcare providers to support people
· Daily Liberal
Older Australians are being urged to consider the benefits of having a My Health Record during NSW Seniors Festival.
My Health Record is an individual’s safe and secure digital health information, easily accessible by healthcare providers involved in their care including GPs, pharmacists and hospitals. All Australians will have a My Health Record by the end of 2018 unless they choose not to.
Australian Digital Health Agency chief executive Tim Kelsey said on Monday the expansion of My Health Record nationally will deliver a system that provides universal functionality, clear and concise content and, critically, a safe and secure clinical health service for all Australians.
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Hawking's legacy? Better access to assisted voice tech
10 April 2018
OPINION
It’s time everyone who needs augmentative and alternative communication technology — like Hawking’s — has access to it.
Stephen Hawking was one of the most prominent people in history to use a high-tech communication aid known as augmentative and alternative communication (AAC).
His death comes in the year of the 70th Anniversary of the Declaration of Human Rights.
Over the course of his adult life, Hawking came to represent the epitome of what effective communication with AAC systems really means: gaining access to the human right of communication enshrined in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
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Teleconsults for abortion as successful as face-to-face, review claims
Australian provider releases review of its first 18 months
9th April 2018
Medical abortions arranged over the phone are just as successful as those involving a face-to-face consult, an Australian provider is claiming after evaluating its first 18 months of operation.
The Tabbot Foundation, which posts mifepristone and misoprostol to women screened on the phone, says that of 754 women with documented outcomes, only 26 (3%) required surgical uterine evacuation and one remained pregnant.
Dr Paul Hyland, the foundation’s medical director, says the complication rate was consistent with those from medical abortions involving in-person consults.
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How much IT contractors are costing the Commonwealth
By Justin Hendry on Apr 9, 2018 6:45AM
Agencies reveal spending.
A handful of the federal government’s largest agencies have shed light on their appetite for IT contractors, giving new clarity to the state of IT outsourcing in the Australian public sector.
Spending on IT contractors and labour hire by agencies – both procured directly and those engaged through third parties – has been disclosed in submissions to an ongoing parliamentary probe into contract reporting.
The data is not however uniform - a number of agencies have detailed their IT contractor costs where they fall into the top three categories of spending, while others have provided a limited breakdown or none at all.
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Giant federal data integration project accepts 14 ways to improve privacy and security
The federal government’s Multi-Agency Data Integration Project has gone through an independent privacy impact assessment, and the six big agencies involved have agreed to 14 recommendations for improvement.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics has been combining data from the Tax Office, Human Services, Social Services, Education and Health for several years already, as consulting firm Galexia notes in the new PIA, under the banner of testing the system:
“Since 2015 MADIP has been operating as an evaluation – testing the technical capability of the Partner Agencies to share data in a way that delivers useful outputs, whilst preserving privacy. The evaluation phase is expected to draw to a close in 2018.”
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Jordan Nguyen’s Psykinetic offers amazing technology for disability sufferers
- The Australian
- 12:00AM April 12, 2018
Chris Griffith
It’s heartening to see sophisticated technology that helps paralysed and immobile people communicate with the world.
Previously we reported Control Bionics’ technology which lets totally paralysed people suffering motor neurons disease and congenital illnesses communicate by rapidly moving a single muscle they still can control. Stephen Hawking was an early user.
One high profile sufferer, Michael Phillips of Tampa, Florida, cannot move. Yet he tweets, emails and writes movie and book reviews. Without technology, he would be locked out of all communication in life.
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How ‘healthy’ is our digital healthcare system?
Protecting patient privacy, data and health information to meet industry requirements
By Sara Jost, Global Healthcare Industry Lead, BlackBerry
The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) has just reported that the healthcare sector suffered the most data breaches in its first Quarterly Statistics Report since the Australian Mandatory Breach Notifications scheme came into effect (February 22, 2018). With digitisation already transforming the entire healthcare sector at an accelerating pace, untreated cybersecurity vulnerabilities pose an acute threat to patient outcomes.
Paramount to the success of the digital healthcare age – and to building a sustainable healthcare system in a more mobile world – is opening the doors to increased information sharing among healthcare professionals and organisations. However, as workforces mobilise and new technologies are adopted, how secure are those digital healthcare systems that are sharing and holding valuable personal data and intellectual property?
Last year, the Australian government released the National Digital Health Strategy, which is an important step towards delivering better care for citizens. Initiatives such as My Health Record and the pharmacy profession’s intention to improve data sharing schemes are also positive steps towards deriving meaningful health benefits and operational efficiency from the massive amount of health data generated every day.
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Healthcare startup Tyde raises $3 million in preparation for 20 million potential customers later this year
Dominic Powell / Thursday, April 12, 2018
Digital healthcare startup Tyde has secured $3 million in Series A funding from an array of high net-worth and institutional investors to prepare the company’s app for an influx of Australians using it to monitor their health records, after the government launches its opt-out version of the My Health Record system later this year.
Founded in 2016 by Romain Bonjean, Shamus Cooper, and Sudeep Gohil, Tyde offers the 5 million Australians currently signed up to the government’s My Health Record program a way to connect with and access all their medical records via an app. They can then share the records with relevant medical professionals.
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G Medical Launches Mobile Health Monitoring
Small Caps | 1:09 PM
G Medical Innovations is a small medical device company with two key products it intends to distribute globally. TMT Analytics initiates coverage.
-Products to become available commercially in approved markets late in the June quarter
-Obtaining approval for Chinese manufacturing facilities crucial to tap into global market
-Should be able to generate strong gross margins over the medium term
By Eva Brocklehurst
-Obtaining approval for Chinese manufacturing facilities crucial to tap into global market
-Should be able to generate strong gross margins over the medium term
By Eva Brocklehurst
G Medical Innovations ((GMV)) is commercialising a range of mobile monitoring systems for vital signs that should provide major cost savings for the health system. These monitoring systems allow patients to remain mobile in hospitals and at home.
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Smart pill bottle a boost for Blackmores
- The Australian
- 12:00AM April 11, 2018
Supratim Adhikari
Natural health company Blackmores is working on a ‘smart’ pill bottle that the company says will help it get better insight on how consumers relate to its products.
The solution being tested applies NFC tags to Blackmores products. The data from these tags can be read using hand held devices or smartphone apps and can be made available to Blackmores, the retailers or the customers via dashboards. Meanwhile, Blackmores can also use the data collected to get a clearer picture of sales and the supply chain.
Blackmores is working with Microsoft on its smart bottle pilot and the company’s chief information officer, Brett Winn, said that forging a closer relationship with customers was a big reason for it to pursue the project.
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NBN shifts another 440,000 premises to fibre to the curb
By Adam Turner
10 April 2018 — 9:30am
Almost half a million Australian premises are getting faster broadband as NBN Co dramatically extends its fibre to the curb (FttC) network and prepares to resume the troubled HFC cable rollout.
An additional 440,000 homes and businesses around the country will now benefit from fibre running to the end of their driveway, only relying on copper phone lines to cover the last few metres into the building. This offers a significant speed boost compared to fibre to the node (FttN) which can rely on copper for the last few hundred metres.
Most of these premises had been destined to connect to NBN Co's HFC cable network acquired from Telstra. The rest were previously relegated to FttN connections over long copper lines which would have made it impossible for them to access the NBN's high speed tiers.
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Comms minister still confident about HFC role in NBN
“Foot will be back on the accelerator” when HFC sales pause ends, Fifield says
Rohan Pearce (Computerworld)09 April, 2018 15:50
Communications minister Senator Mitch Fifield has indicated he still supports the use of hybrid fibre-coaxial (HFC) in the rollout of the National Broadband Network.
NBN in November halted HFC sales while it worked to address performance problems.
“In order to meet a higher level of service quality, NBN Co will be performing advanced network testing and remediation where needed, wholesale connector replacements, signal amplification calibration, and lead-in work as required,” NBN said in its announcement.
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Government predicts 5G-driven economic productivity boost
Releases new research on impact of emerging wireless standard
Rohan Pearce (Computerworld)09 April, 2018 14:48
Government-backed research predicts that the rollout of 5G mobile technology will deliver a boost to multifactor productivity (MFP) across Australia’s economy.
A new working paper (PDF) produced by the Department of Communications and the Arts’ Bureau of Communications Research forecasts that 5G could “add an additional $1,300 to $2,000 in gross domestic product per person” after the first decade of the rollout of the new wireless standard.
Telstra and Optus are expected to launch their first 5G-based services in 2019.
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NBN launches fibre to the curb in two suburbs
Limited launch while company fine-tunes technology
Rohan Pearce (Computerworld)08 April, 2018 16:49
N has announced the commercial availability of fibre to the curb (FTTC). More than 1000 homes and businesses in the Melbourne suburb of Coburg and the southern Sydney suburb of Miranda can now order FTTC services, NBN said.
“Today’s announcement demonstrates that NBN Co is an adopter of new and innovative technologies to provide Australians with access to fast broadband,” NBN’s chief customer officer — residential, Brad Whitcomb, said in a statement.
“Over the past few months, we have been working closely with service providers to test our systems and processes, the performance of the NBN FTTC access technology, as well as the new self-installation experience.”
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Split up NBN Co before rollout ends: ACCC
- 09 April 2018
- Written by Sam Varghese
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has recommended that the NBN Co, the company rolling out Australia's national broadband network, be split into two entities before it is privatised after the rollout ends.
The suggestion was one of eight recommendations made by the competition watchdog in its final report on the communication sector which was released on Thursday.
It said that while the government should begin to plan for future NBN Co privatisation, it should ensure that measures were in place to enable a split that would facilitate greater competition based on infrastructure.
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Enjoy!
David.
