Views from the Solar System (117)

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Great Sandy Desert, Australia
NASA – In northwest Australia, the Great Sandy Desert holds great geological interest as a zone of active sand dune movement. While a variety of dune forms appear across the region, this astronaut photograph features numerous linear dunes (about 25 meters high) separated in a roughly regular fashion (0.5 to 1.5 kilometers apart). The dunes are aligned to the prevailing winds that generated them, which typically blow from east to west. Where linear dunes converge, dune confluences point downwind. When you fly over such dune fields—either in an airplane or the International Space Station—the fire scars stand out. Where thin vegetation has been burned, the dunes appear red from the underlying sand; dunes appear darker where the vegetation remains.

Astronaut photograph ISS035-E-9454 was acquired on March 25, 2013, with a Nikon D3S digital camera using a 400 millimeter lens, and is provided by the ISS Crew Earth Observations experiment and Image Science & Analysis Laboratory, Johnson Space Center. The image was taken by the Expedition 35 crew. It has been cropped and enhanced to improve contrast, and lens artifacts have been removed.

NBN Co prepares first copper disconnects

By James Hutchinson – [Australia] The network operator plans to begin a public information campaign in the selected areas — some of the first to get NBN fiber connections as part of the roll out — as it counts down 18 months until most copper services in fiber-connected areas are switched off.

A total of 25,000 premises are expected to be affected by the move, which was a part of the $9 billion agreement between Telstra and NBN Co.

The 18-month timeframe also includes exceptions for business-grade copper services like ISDN and frame-relay, which will be disconnected after three years instead, according to NBN Co’s head of product management and industry relations, Jim Hassell. more> http://tinyurl.com/8v2lpdh

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Australians suddenly richer as statistician “finds” $338 billion

Reuters – The Australian Bureau of Statistics on Thursday (Sep 27) released its latest report on household assets which included massive upward revisions to estimates for equity holdings. Total financial assets were now put at A$3.1 trillion at the end of March, compared to the originally reported A$2.77 trillion.

The revision is worth roughly A$14,380 for every one of the country’s 22.6 million people. more> http://tinyurl.com/97zt7o7

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Fixed telco line crisis looming: Turnbull

English: First and second release sites of the NBN rollout. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

AAP/Australian – [Australia] Mr Turnbull said NBN Co rolled out broadband services to less than 1000 premises in greenfields housing estates from January 2011 to June this year.

He said the NBN builder had received applications from developers for 130,000 lots in that time and there were about 74,000 homes across Australia without any fixed line connections at all.

“This is a real looming crisis for thousands of Australians,” Mr Turnbull told reporters in Canberra on Thursday (Sep 13).

“It is simply not a matter of them not having access to optical fiber, they have no fixed line whatsoever.” more> http://tinyurl.com/9xb4sjz

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Malcolm Turnbull responds to Alan Kohler’s NBN “fantasy”

Photograph of Malcolm Turnbull, New South Wales Liberal politician. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

By Malcolm Turnbull – [Australia] The issue for customers is not the particular medium of communication connecting their device to the internet but rather the quality of the experience. If bandwidth is sufficient for their needs, then whether it is on HFC or VDSL or GPON or wireless or a combination of some or all of them is not particularly relevant if it is relevant at all.

It has to be remembered that the speed of connection is determined by the slowest segment of the network between the customer’s device and the server with which they are connecting which in many cases may not even be in Australia.

The NBN Co has no budget. It has a project the scope of which was given them by the government and they regularly provide estimates of what it will cost. There is no budget in the sense of a cap or ceiling on what they can spend. more> http://tinyurl.com/d3wsksd

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