Monday 30th June
1997
2 MILLION AUSTRALIAN HOMES NOW HAVE
PCs
The Australian Interactive Multimedia
Industry Association (AIMIA) estimates that 41% of Australian households
now possess PCs - but most of those households are affluent. According the
a recent study by the AIMIA, 43% of households with incomes above $44,000
have PCs and the highest penetration (62.8%) occurs in households which have
an income of $84,000 or higher. However, PC ownership is a slim 19% in households
which have incomes below the $44,000 threshold. The study also found that
modem penetration had risen from 17% in 1994 to 31% by November 1996, and
that CD-ROM drive penetration had risen from 13% in 1994 to more than 55%
by November last year in households with high computer usage patterns.
Friday 27th June
1997
NET BECOMES "ESSENTIAL" TO MOST
USERS
According to a survey of online usage
patterns by Australian research firm
WWW Consult, the Internet
rapidly assumes the status of an essential communications tool once it 's
installed in a home or office environment. According to WWW Consult's bi-annual
survey, approximately 11% of all households make use of the Net for more
than 20 hours per week and a further 16% use the Internet between 11 and
20 hours each week. A further 35% use the Net for between 5 and 10 hours
per week. Low-volume users (4 hours per week or less) account for the remainder.
At a marginal rate of $2 per hour, this means that the average Australian
Internet-connected household now spends between $10 and $40 every week on
its Internet connection services.
Thursday 26th June
1997
NET TELEPHONY WILL DOMINATE WITHIN 5
YEARS
The majority of long-distance phone
calls will be made over the Internet within the next 5 to 10 years, according
to AT&T Vice President Tom Evslin. Speaking at PC Expo
in New York, Evslin said that he expects that Internet telephones will become
a standard feature of multimedia PCs within the next 24 to 36 months and
that Internet telephony will dominate US business communications within as
little as 5 years. The reason for Evslin's optimism is "sheer economics"
- long-distance Internet telephone calls are significantly less expensive
than any savings plan offered by telephone companies and the impending
introduction of I-phones (which will allow a telephone to be connected to
the Net without needing to pass through a computer) will significantly broaden
the market. The move will spell an end to the enormous profits telephone
companies have traditionally enjoyed from long-distance calls. "Telephone
companies will have to understand that and adapt to it or die," Evslin
said.
Wednesday 25th June
1997
STATES PLAN ONLINE CASINO
REGULATION
Australian State gaming ministers are
considering a proposal which would see anyone wanting to operate an online
casino from an Australian site being compelled to undergo the same set of
stringent tests that are already applied to operators of physical casinos
- including mandatory fingerprinting, fiscal and criminal checks and extensive
background investigations. The draft regulatory model would impose penalties
of $100,000 on anyone who tried to flout the rules and would force online
gaming operators to pay State taxes on all turnover in the online casinos,
just as casino operators do in the real world. In addition, gambling on credit
in online casinos would be banned and players' privacy would need to be
protected. The proposal also suggests that minors need to be barred from
the online gaming sites.
Tuesday 24th June
1997
PEGASUS SOLD TO MICROPLEX
In a blow to Brisbane residents, national
ISP Microplex has purchased
Pegasus - one of Australia's
oldest and largest ISPs - and shed 33% of the company's Brisbane staff,
including technical and help desk personnel. The Microplex purchase signifies
the company's desire to expand its reach in northern Australia. However,
because Pegasus do not actually own the rights to their domain name (which
is registered with the Association of Progressive Communications, a US-based
non-profit organisation), the acquisition may force thousands of existing
customers to alter their email addresses unless Microplex continue to operate
Pegasus as a separate entity.
Monday 23rd June
1997
DESPERATE ISPS HIRE COMMISSION REPS
The Australian Competition and Consumer
Commission looks set to inquire into the newly-evolved practice of hiring
commission salespeople to sell Internet subscriptions to consumers. In a
sign of the increasingly desperate straits that many small Australian ISPs
have found themselves in as the overcrowded domestic market begins to
rationalise, several ISPs in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane have begun recruiting
commission-based sales forces to thrust overpriced Internet subscription
packages into the hands of consumers. The commission reps are being told
to sign consumers up to very high-usage accounts - and consumers buying the
packages have no guarantee that the ISP will be around to honour the package
within a few months time. The recent collapse of several high-profile ISPs
(who provided no refunds to consumers) has fuelled growing concern about
the practice.
Friday 20th June
1997
AUSTRALIANS CLAIM 56K MODEM
BREAKTHROUGH
The Australian offices of Hayes
Modems and Ascend Communications claim to have made a breakthrough
with the troubled K-56 Flex modem standard developed by Rockwell and Lucent
Technologies. According to both firms, they were able to achieve speeds of
up to 50kbps between Sydney and Melbourne in a number of recent trials, which
is better than the 42-44kbps generally achieved in the USA. They say that
this is partly due to the generally good condition of the Australian phone
system. However, Australian ISPs appear set to continue to ignore both K-56
Flex and the competing US Robotics x2 56kbps standard, electing to
offer either 28.8kbps or 33.6kbps dial-ups with ISDN or cable modems being
offered to subscribers who wish to achieve higher Internet connection
speeds.
Thursday 19th June
1997
WE MOVE TO HTML 3.2
Australian Cybermalls will move to
HTML 3.2 as a standard throughout our site on July 1st. This means that visitors
will need to view us with either
Netscape Navigator 3.0+,
Microsoft Internet Explorer
3.0+ or any other browser which offers full HTML 3.2 compliance to
see us at our best. Australian Cybermalls has always had a policy of remaining
one step behind current browser releases to ensure the widest possible access
for the greatest numbers of people, but given the impending introduction
of new browsers from both Netscape and Microsoft and the widespread use of
betas of the forthcoming releases, we've elected to make the move slightly
ahead of both companies. We hope that making the change at this time will
inconvenience as few people as possible.
Wednesday 18th June
1997
NO MONEY IN ONLINE PUBLISHING -
STUDY
In what may be bad news for traditional
newspaper and magazine publishers, a recent study of more than 1700 media
sites by Associate Professor Peter White of
LaTrobe University
has concluded that there is still very little money to be made by attempting
to bring print publications online. According to White, only a handful of
media sites are making any money at the present time and attempts at generating
revenue through online subscriptions, advertising or pay-per-view business
models have so far proven to be spectacularly unsuccessful. White's study
also found that less than 1 in 4 publishers even have online revenue strategies
- a factor that may account for the large number of low-quality media sites
currently found on the Net. The complete study retails for $A225.
Tuesday 17th June
1997
MAIL SERVER FAILURE LOSES 100,000+
EMAILS
Telstra's
On Australia admitted yesterday
that its mail server went into complete meltdown earlier this month and that
hundreds of thousands of email messages sent to subscribers between Friday,
June 6th and Sunday June 8th have been irretrievably lost. On Australia,
which has more than 90,000 subscribers, is Australia's second-largest ISP.
The mail server failure follows more than 6 weeks of intermittent faults
which led outraged subscribers to deluge On Australia's support groups with
complaints. Telstra initially blamed database software for the errors, but
say that last weekend's catastrophic failure occurred because of a massive
hardware failure on two dedicated mail servers. Telstra claim that the systems
were replaced in a round the clock operation on Monday and Tuesday last
week.
Monday 16th June
1997
HACKER HOLDS NETSCAPE TO RANSOM
A Danish hacker is demanding a large
reward from Netscape for
discovering a security flaw in the current release of the company's Navigator
browser which allows hackers to read files on a user's hard disk if they
visit the Navigator site (one of the most heavily visited sites on the Net).
According to a report published in today's
Australian Financial Review,
the hacker had discovered a rare but dangerous flaw which allowed him to
break through Netscape's firewall. However, Netscape engineers - who worked
on the problem round the clock over the weekend - claim to sourced the defect
and fixed it.
Friday 13th June
1997
TAX OFFICE ONLINE SOON
The Australian Taxation Office
has announced plans to open an online presence after gaining Defence Signals
Directorate approval for their proposed firewall software. The ATO -
which has been a long-time foe of the Internet, launching several inquiries
into the potential it holds for tax avoidance - has finally bowed to the
inevitable and become the latest in a long string of Federal Government agencies
to launch an online presence. The new ATO site is expected to offer taxation
schedules and advice in the initial stages, and to accept online tax return
lodgements by 1999.
Thursday 12th June
1997
ASX TO USE NET FOR SMALL BUSINESS
The
Australian Stock Exchange has
announced plans to use the Internet to set up a new online capital-raising
market to assist small and medium businesses. The ASX will spend $2 million
on the new facility, which is expected to be in operation by early 1998.
According to the ASX, there is a "demonstrated need" for the service. At
present most small and medium businesses are locked out of the ASX by their
size and have enormous difficulties raising capital for growth. This (coupled
with the lack of venture capital) has led to thousands of worthwhile Australian
inventions being sold overseas.
Wednesday 11th June
1997
APN TO PUBLISH PC WEEK
Australian PC Week, which folded
in mid-May, will reappear on newsstands later this month after rights to
the title were purchased by the APN
Group from Ziff-Davis yesterday. The move, following hard on the
heels of APN's acquisition of the rights to publish PC Magazine
Australia (which also recently folded) consolidates all of Ziff-Davis'
Australian publishing with APN and leaves Kerry Packer's Australian Consolidated
Press - the former licensee - as a significantly smaller player in the computing
market. APN currently publish the highly successful Computer Week
and the new look Australian PC Week will merge both titles together when
it reappears on June 27th. APN already publish Ziff-Davis' Windows
Sources Australia, FamilyPC Australia and ZDNet Australia Internet Magazine
as well as running local online versions of the internationally-famous
ZDNet and
GameSpot sites.
Tuesday 10th
1997
TRACKER SOLD TO MAXIMIZER
The multi award-winning Australian
contact management package Tracker has been sold to Canadian-based
Maximizer Technologies, makers of the rival Maximizer contact management
software, for $1.3 million - a price that values each one of the company's
existing 200,000 Australian, European and US clients at slightly less than
$7 each. Tracker Software had been in financial difficulties for some months
and an administrator was appointed to take charge of the company recently
to arrange debt refinancing. The administrator, in turn, sold the company
off to Maximizer when the Canadian company made a firm offer. Under the terms
of the deal, no money will change hands but Tracker shareholders will receive
8% of the shares in the combined new entity.
Monday 9th June
1997
IRIDIUM PROMISES BETTER OUTBACK
ACCESS
The Iridium satellite project promises
to bring significantly better access to voice, fax and Internet services
to Australians living in rural and outback locations, according to Communications
Minister Richard Alston. Alston, speaking at a ceremony on Friday
when the Government agreed to grant a license to Iridium Australia
Telecommunications (IAT) for a comparatively modest $37,000, said he
was "excited" by the project. IAT is a subsidiary of the Motorola-led Iridium
consortium which is currently belting the Earth with a chain of 66 low-level
communications satellites. The new system - which is expected to be fully
operational by September next year - will allow full telecoms access anywhere
in Australia. However, it's widely expected to be very expensive in the initial
stages with average calls costing $3 to $4.
Friday 6th June
1997
END OF UNLIMITED ACCOUNTS?
Australian consumers may soon have
little choice but to pay for the Internet connections on an hourly basis
after the recent collapse of ISPs Cynergy and Bluesky. Both
ISPs were offering packages which allowed unlimited Internet access for a
flat monthly fee. Several other ISPs who have been offering similar deals
are also rumoured to be close to closing their doors. According to the ISP
industry, the "flat-fee" pricing model is uneconomic in Australia and affords
insufficient margins to any ISP who attempts to offer it. Consumers who are
offered unlimited access generally take advantage of it and the ISPs are
soon compelled to either dedicate a modem to each individual subscriber or
put up with high customer dissatisfaction and turnover rates as latecomers
find themselves unable to connect because all the ISPs lines are full.
Thursday 5th June
1997
OVERSEAS CALL MARKUP IS 500%
According to a research study by
Australia's Productivity Commission, both Telstra and
Optus are charging consumers five times the actual cost of placing
an overseas phone or fax call. The Productivity Commission found that the
carriers were charging most Australians an average of $1.11 per minute in
1995-96 for international call services, yet their real cost to do so was
an average of 22c per minute. The Productivity Commission estimates that
the gross overpricing indulged in by both carriers cost the country more
than $375 million a year in lost productivity. The Commission predicts that
overseas call prices will tumble to as low as 47c per minute when true
competition is introduced into the marketplace following deregulation on
July 1st this year.
Wednesday 4th June
1997
SET 1.0 STANDARD LAUNCHED
After more than six months of delays,
the SET 1.0 standard for secure electronic commerce across the Internet
was jointly launched by Visa and
Mastercard today. The new
standard, which was delayed by US concerns that the level of encryption SET
1.0 offers is significantly above the "military-grade" encryption levels
currently prohibited for export beyond American borders, will permit merchants
and customer to trade freely in a safe environment where transactions are
verified at each end before being allowed to proceed. The new standard will
require merchants to sign up with either or both of the credit card providers
and will prevent consumers making purchases with insufficient funds or with
stolen cards. SET 1.0 servers are expected to be available in Australia within
the next two months.
Tuesday 3rd June
1997
ACCESS ONE LOSES $5.4 MILLION
In a sign of growing cut-throat competition
in the increasingly crowded Australian ISP market, national internet service
provider Access One has announced
that it lost $5.4 million in the last six months on sales of more
than $9 million. Access One is currently owned by accounting software firm
Solution 6 but the ISP is now up for sale following the shock result.
Telecom NZ - which is almost 50% owned by Bell Atlantic and Ameritech
- is tipped as a likely buyer. The company is known to be keen to purchase
equity in a national ISP so that it can establish a foothold in the Australian
market.
Monday 2nd June
1997
AUSTRALIAN SITE GROWTH FLATTENS IN
MAY
The on-again, off-again growth of the
Australian Internet went through another flat patch in May and the number
of sites actually fell slightly as "dead" sites were pruned from servers
according to our monthly Australian Internet Growth Index, which has
been measuring the number of Australian Internet sites for the last 16 months.
The flat patch follows a major surge the previous month. The June 1st figures
(with May 1st figures in brackets) are:
Australian
Internet Growth Index May 1997
(Figures Show Estimated Sites) |
-
Brisbane - 3,179 (3,237)
-
Sydney - 9,390 (9,601)
-
Melbourne - 7,350 (7,486)
-
Adelaide - 2,918 (2,946)
|
-
Perth - 2,911 (2,917)
-
Hobart - 1,202 (1,206)
-
Canberra - 2,600 (2,616)
-
Darwin - 2,307 (2,314)
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During May 1997 Australian Cybermalls
displayed 48,631 storefronts, also registering a slight fall of 9%
over April 1997 when we displayed 52,858 storefronts. Our May figures equate
to an average of 1,569 visitors per day. At least part of the fall in our
site's traffic was attributable to minor outages which occurred on several
days as we upgraded our site from a T1 to a T3 line - a process that took
the better part of three weeks to complete. For comparison, 12 months ago
(in May 1996) we displayed 5,022 storefronts.
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