Month: March 2015

Netflix launches in Australia with 1k titles!

Kenneth Tsang 1 Comment

Netflix has finally launched its Australian and New Zealand offerings. Needless to say, one of the first questions was “what movies/TV shows are being offered”?

Based on my initial number crunching, it looks like a total of 1,326 titles are being offered by Netflix in Australia. I’ve compiled a spreadsheet that lists all titles I was able to get from the Netflix site. There is also a US vs CA vs AU comparison on the second sheet of that spreadsheet.

Here’s a quick comparison grid for Netflix in Australia, the US and Canada.

Common titles in AU v US v CA
AU US CA
AU 676* ~145 ~138
US ~145 ~5,649* ~2,291
CA ~138 ~2,291 ~1,567*
AU+US+CA ~367 (common in all 3)
Totals in each countries
Total 1,326 ~8,500^ ~4,000^

* These are unique titles — titles are are only available on that country, and not the other two in this comparison
^US and CA titles are obtained from Netflix Canada vs USA list

Updated at 10:27AM with revised estimates: AU list is now broken down into seasons — this should fix things up a bit. Note, figures are not hugely different. Old figures are at the bottom of the post for comparison.

Please still take these figures with a grain of salt, and take note of the disclaimer below.

Update at 9:00AM: It has come to my attention that the comparison between AU and US/CA isn’t as easy as matching the title IDs as I have done… because of the way the data was extracted. The AU list was obtained by getting a list of titles (for TV shows, it’s the series name) – where as the US/CA list is broken down into each season of the TV show.

An updated spreadsheet is coming soon. Apologies for the inconvenience!

As usual, it looks like Australians are still getting less titles available. One can only hope the list of titles offered by Netflix in Australia will increase as time goes on.

Disclaimer: the numbers are estimates and for reference only. There is no guarantee of their absolute accuracy and may only be good for “order of magnitude” approximations.

 

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NBN Premises Switch options

NBN Co releases new Technology Choice Policy

Kenneth Tsang Leave a comment

NBN Co is set to give consumers more choice over the technology being rolled out. They have released their new Technology Choice Policy which will allow individuals or whole areas to switch from NBN Co’s designated technology under the Multi-Technology Mix model to an alternative technology type at a cost to the consumer.

This is a much anticipated component of the revised rollout policy after NBN Co’s switch to the Multi-Technology Mix — allowing consumers to purchase a “fibre-on-demand” product. However, there are no details or estimates on the expected cost of upgrade build.

As part of the application and network design process, NBN Co will charge individuals $600 (ex GST), and at least $1,000 (ex GST) for a quote to network switch over a large area. According to the NBN Co website, the final costs for each the different technology upgrade “can range from a few thousand dollars to tens of thousands of dollars” for an individual premises switch and “can range from tens of thousands of dollars to several millions of dollars” for a switch of an entire service area.

While absent from the actual policy document, NBN Co’s Chief Customer Officer John Simon indicated to ZDNet’s Josh Taylor that the fee for the application will be refunded if the extension goes ahead.

NBN Premises Switch options
Pricing details show the application and design costs for the Technology Choice Policy

At launch, NBN Co will allow applications to switch an entire area from FTTB, FTTN, Fixed Wireless or Satellite to a full fibre network (FTTP). Starting April, individuals be able to make an application to switch from FTTB to FTTP; and following from that, the switch from FTTN to FTTP will be available in July 2015.

However, the possibility of a HFC to FTTP upgrade is still being considered and developed by NBN Co.

 

The new policy, released this week on Friday*, replaces the existing Network Extension Program which enabled individuals or communities who were slated for Fixed Wireless or Satellite to upgrade to Fibre to the Premises or Fixed Wireless (respectively).

Clarification: Policy was intended to be released on Friday by NBN Co, but was made available on its website on Thursday night. Because NBN Co did intend to release it on Friday, the date when this policy was “released” will still say “Friday” in this post

 

Rewind/Fast Forward 2015

Kenneth Tsang Leave a comment

I will be speaking at Rewind/Fast Forward on Wednesday 25 March at Doltone House on Hyde Park, Sydney in celebration of 20 years of the commercial internet in Australia.

I’ll be speaking alongside some of the brightest minds in the industry, including:

  • Simon Hackett – Founder of Internode
  • Pippa Leary, CEO, APEX
  • Mark Scott – Managing Director, ABC
  • David Skellern – Founder of Radiata
  • David Spence – Chairman, PayPal Australia
  • Michael Malone – Founder of iiNet
  • Mike Cannon- Brookes – Founder and CEO of Atlassian

We will be sharing our knowledge on developments over the last 20 years, and the major challenges to come by exploring topics like ‘creative destruction’, ‘connected living’, and ‘intelligence revolution’.

You can register to attend the event by using my speaker promo code and receive a discount: RFF2015-SPKRM

www.rewindfastforward.com.au