On March 19, the world's last male Northern White Rhinoceros, Sudan, died in captivity. After being poached to oblivion in the last century, only two Northern White Rhinoceroses remain - and they're both female. What does that mean for the survival of the species?
Data allowances on mobile phone plans and mobile are much more generous than they used to be, but the volume on offer doesn't tell the whole story. Depending on exactly how your mobile provider counts data can make a huge difference to how quickly you burn through it. Planhacker rounds up the current policies for every mobile provider in Australia.
With Dodo joining the ranks of ISPs offering pay-TV service Fetch TV, it's worth considering your Fetch TV options. Here are the current deals from each ISP that offers it.
Internet service providers iiNet and Dodo have both come under fire from the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) for consumer protection law breaches relating to direct debits. The companies were warned for not complying with customers' authorisation for direct debit payments and failing to cancel a direct debit authorisation within three working days upon request. Read on for the full list of charges.
So here's a concrete example of how data charges are still a problem: the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has issued a formal warning to frequently-troubled provider Dodo for failing to send data usage alerts to its customers.
Brief news items of note for Lifehacker readers including: Telstra shifts blame for Kogan Mobile's imminent closure, Get a 1GB Dodo SIM card for $2, stretching exercises to relieve a sore neck instantly.
Telco provider M2 Telecommunications has confirmed it will purchase Dodo in a deal worth $203.9 million. Where does this leave Dodo's 400,000 odd customers?
Dodo is offering an Xbox 360 plus three games and 25 months of Xbox LIVE Gold membership to customers who sign up for its unlimited broadband plan. Is the value in that deal enough to overcome Dodo's often shaky reputation?
A prepaid mobile broadband service is ideal if you want occasional internet access while travelling, or just need a backup service when your home or office broadband goes down. Who has the best deals? Planhacker rounds up all the current offers in Australia so you can compare and choose.
If you're a heavy internet user, getting shaped at the end of the month can be a major nuisance, and no-one wants to pay a fortune for excess data. The solution is an unlimited broadband plan, but what choices do you have? Planhacker rounds up all the unlimited ADSL2+ deals.
One of the key requirements under the new Telecommunications Consumer Protection Code is for mobile phone providers to specify how many 2-minute calls you could make on each plan they offer. That won't be a requirement until March 1 next year, but we can easily perform that calculation ourselves right now.
Prepaid works for casual mobile phone users, but many Australians choose to sign up for a contract plan, either to get better data rates or because they want the cost of their handset subsidised. But which one should you choose? This up-to-date Planhacker listing covers every contract mobile plan (and their month-by-month competitors) available in Australia.
Oft-lambasted telecommunications company Dodo has launched a new "unlimited" prepaid mobile SIM offering. How does it rank against its competition?
Dodo is one of the handful of companies which offers an unlimited ADSL2+ broadband service, but one of its main issues is that you could only get it bundled with a Dodo home phone service, for which the rates were (and are) fairly uncompetitive. Dodo is now offering the unlimited broadband package on its own with no bundling requirement in selected locations. That makes a cheaper deal, but it's still not necessarily a good choice.
Broadband providers, beware the word "unlimited". Having already won a battle with Optus and launched a case against TPG, the ACCC has now enforced $26,400 in infringement notices against Dodo over advertising for its "Unlimited ADS2+" broadband plan.
The latest issue of the TIO's statistics on who gets complained about the most show that we're more than willing to fight the good fight if we don't get the telecommunications service we want. They also demonstrate that Dodo doesn't seem to be getting any better.
