Comments on: Time for tough decisions

By: Steve

Steve — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 22:21:21 +0000

It is absolutely possible now if you can find a Telstra employee that can actually transfer the broadband service into your name!!!

By: Nick

Nick — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 23:14:17 +0000

Many of us are working from home, but I am not so sure if it is a good thing. There are benefits, but the line between work and family blurs. Being stuck at home for 20 hours of the day (assuming you get out and do exercise or something for a few hours) almost drove me crazy.

By: david

david — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 01:12:11 +0000

re: reduction of floorspace requirements for part time telecommuting
Personally I think this thinking is not treating employees as people, but as carbon units. This implies that the person doesn’t have a real place at work, that they only have a hot desk. Modern open plan is bad enough in the lack of personal space, and making work a miserable place.

By: Rob Maietta

Rob Maietta — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 21:20:14 +0000

For me, the biggest hurdle is regulatory. What happens if there is an accident? Who get the “blame?” The vehicle owner, manufacturer, insurer, the person sitting behind the autopilot button, one of the passengers, or the insurance company?

And what insurance company will insure these new vehicles, without understanding the liability landscape? Will we even be able to buy CTP, given the original number of CTP insurers has dropped, and this is for a form of vehicle that has been around for over 100 years?

I believe the technology is here today. The people behind the Google project are the same people behind DARPA’s Urban Challenge. It is proven technology now.

We need all the elements BEHIND this to get into line, and provide the political leadership necessary.

On another note, telecommuting is great. As a company, we at Telstra could make it a policy for experienced staff to spend X number of days a week at home, and reduce our floorspace requirements. New staff will still need to be in the office, to learn systems, meet other staff, and generally get up to speed.

Another thing that would help, is doing something around the school run. Ever notice how traffic drops dramatically when the kids are not in school? Maybe give parents some incentive to NOT drive the kids to school.

On a final note, my wife is vision impaired, and I would dearly love for her to be able to access this technology. I know she is dependant upon me for many trips, and if there was a way for her to access an enhanced independance, then its got to be good for this sector of the community as well. We cant get these systems in fast enough.

Come on government!

By: John

John — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 04:49:04 +0000

Interesting article. I certainly see more and more people working from home in the future. The take up rate is quite low in Australia compared to alot of European countries.
Some large companies in the UK actually pay staff an extra yearly bonus for working from home as it saves them having to provide the real estate for a desk etc. When the NBN is up and running, I would imaging that you will be able to get a decent video link from anywhere, to anywhere.
I don’t however see any appetite for automated one person vehicles that just drive on the roads. If you really want to uncongest the roads, you need to invest heavily in public transport and run a true Metro service at least 18 hours a day and look at ways of moving freight more efficiently, not on large trucks during standard hours.
Society is not currently constrained by technology, but the willingness of people to buy and use the technology.

By: TL

TL — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 03:11:06 +0000

I am quite fascinated with the man-less vehicles thanks to a show I’ve watched during my holiday to Hong Kong in -air flight. It was Discovery’s \Mega Engineering – Personal Pods\.

It outlines the advantages of having an automated system and shows the current technology that can lead to such a system. There is a one-of-a-kind automated rapid system in Morgantown which was used to link up 3 Morgantown campuses of West Virginia University and the downtown area. Here’s a wikipedia link to it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgantown_Personal_Rapid_Transit but you truly need to see it to believe it.

For now though, I’d rather someone intervenes with whoever deals with our public transport and do a total overhaul on it. Fast, efficient and reliable is something our public transport system lacks.

By: Nick

Nick — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 02:19:58 +0000

Heh “intrusion” to some of us digital immigrants maybe, but perhaps not for those 500 million Facebook users, 50% of which are willingly logging in every single day. I can’t admit to being one of them, but were we to stay with the geological analogy, perhaps subduction would be a better metaphor

By: NB

NB — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 12:38:07 +0000

Imagine if there was company that could provide the technology to allow us to work from home and not even get on the road ….

By: carolyn.clarke

carolyn.clarke — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 12:37:36 +0000

hi having had the t hub in the house some how
im notsure how
but there are 2 seprate phone lines here and my router stats have jumped
im on a mimimum cap plan for mobile and home phone and internet
so some one tell me
if i get a 400 dollar bill how the hec does this pensioner pay it when she doesnt use the net

By: david

david — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 09:02:38 +0000

On telecommuting, I worked in Brisbane for customer based in Sydney with a national network. With a home ADSL2 network and the Sydney network configured properly, but nothing special, I had as good a connectivity to systems as those in Sydney and in many cases better. I was able to work from earlier in the morning to later in the evening (and do out of hours work) because I didn’t have the hour commute at each end of the day. i.e. I was more effective than non-telecommuters. i.e. good for the company, good for the managers, good for me.

Now the present job doesn’t trust employees to ‘work at home’. The networking capabilities get me to my desktop, and I can be doing the same work as if at my desk for most things. I have heard middle managers in Qld government say they wouldn’t trust staff to do any work if they were allowed to telecommute.

The problem is not technical, we’ve covered that for years. It is small minded control freak managers who don’t respect the ethics of staff.