Well Communications Minister Helen Coonan asked for it and Telstra obliged in a most unconvincing and, for shareholders, painful manner.

The news that Telstra is going to be fully privatised and tightly regulated to protect the industry from anti-competitive behaviour may not be welcome news for the carrier’s shareholders. However, for users of telecom services it is sweet music.

We have recently been criticised for not recognising the trends indicated by job ad surveys. Well, we have taken heed and can state unequivocally that the latest such survey indicates that demand for high-end IT jobs in Australia has plunged into the toilet bowl.

The dream of diskless computers with limited onboard intelligence being served with applications over high bandwidth networks is nothing new. In fact, the thin client vision is very retro given that dumb terminals and centralised processing was where IT was at 25 years ago.

The good news is that 2556 new IT jobs are predicted to be created in Australia during the third quarter, according to HR firm Drake International's Quarterly Forecast. The bad news is that it's a pathetically small share of the 101,413 new jobs across all sectors that the report predicts will be created for the quarter.

The news that Broadband over Powerline (BPL) technology has taken a step closer to commercial reality with successful Australian trials of VoIP phone calls must be causing more than a little concern within the hallowed halls of Telstra.

I know why Apple has made the move to Intel. I know that the company had little choice, given that only Intel makes the range of processors it needs to move forward. Apple was really between a rock and a hard place. However, I wonder how Apple is going to pull this move off without further decimating its already minuscule share of the personal computing market.

It is with great sadness and trepidation but, unfortunately, not surprise that we greet the news of a massive ICT trade deficit blowout in 2004 to $19 billion. The greatest tragedy, however, is the deafening silence with which our policy makers have responded.

Like many incumbent telecommunications carriers around the world, Telstra has been hearing a growing chorus of voices lately. And the voices have been anything but friendly.

Appearing on national TV, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) chairman Graeme Samuel has again shown that the regulator and its paymaster the Federal Government are not serious about evening up the playing field of the Australian telecommunications industry.

This morning, the Australian Computer Society is due to release its policy on the impact of skilled migration on the local ICT labour market. The content of the policy document will provide a good indication of whether the ACS really serves the interests of Australian ICT professionals or is beholden to other vested interests.

The past week has seen a couple of extraordinary events take place in the world of news media publishing. The two events, which concerned the irreversible decline in print news, took place on opposite sides of the world but both involved an Australian connection.

If there is one name that is synonymous with the internet then Vint Cerf, who co-developed the TCP/IP protocol, is certainly that name. Dr Cerf, chairman of ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) and senior vice president for technology strategy at Global MCI, believes that the future of print news media is precarious, although he tries to be diplomatic about it.

A recent study by technology analyst group Frost & Sullivan found that small and medium businesses (SMBs) in Asia Pacific are moving away from multi vendor networking solutions to primary vendor suites. This would be interesting news, except the study was bought and paid for by none other than the big daddy of primary networking vendors Cisco Systems.

Just how much optical fibre does Australia have and where is it - know one seems to know.

Multinational IT services juggernaut EDS has lately been blowing its trumpet and making a big song and dance about its so-called EDS Agility Alliance. What it has really done, however, is align itself against the forces of Linux.

Every now and then journalists are invited to attend roundtable discussions. Sometimes they're too early in the morning for most decent folk. Other times we just know they are going to be a boring snoozefest. In either case we end up giving them a big fat miss.

The news that Telstra has begun upgrading its ADSL equipment to deliver internet services at speeds up to 16 times faster than are currently available is welcome relief to Australia's millions of internet users. The question remains, however, is what in heavens name is going on in this wonderful first world country that our Government and our largest carrier have allowed our communications services to slip to third world standards.

While some of its competitors are crying foul over the seemingly light sentence meted out to Telstra by the ACCC for its $29.95 broadband hanky panky, the outcome was probably a fair and reasonable one for most parties.

Users have found a way to skirt copy protection on Napster's portable music subscription service just days after its high-profile launch, potentially letting them make CDs with hundreds of thousands of songs for free.