Kids Social Media Ban: eSafety Commissioner joins Trevor Long

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Oh, four, double seven, six, five, seven, six, five, seven.

Greg's on the line.

Good day, Greg.

How are you, Trevor?

Yeah, really good, mate.

We spoke before you went away.

I'm assuming if it was a trip, it must have been about travel and data and getting connected.

How'd you go?

Went excellent.

We, there was about five of us that joined up to the AeroLo app.

And we got basically just used for data, but had no issues at all other than

the code that you gave me and we marked up and didn't use that for the first time.

But anyway, got me head around that for the second time over there.

But yeah, we had no issues at all.

And it worked really great.

And five of you all used it on different phones or with an eSIM?

Yes, yes.

Were there options in Singapore?

Because it was Singapore and Hong Kong, wasn't it?

Some countries have options for calls and data.

Some are just data.

Was there options for you?

Or was it pretty much just pick this one and go?

Well, it was like pick this one because when we went to Singapore,

it actually allocated me a phone number.

So I could have made calls.

But when we got to Hong Kong, when I just did the same address,

it just allocated me the data.

Yeah, right.

Okay.

So then I looked at that and thought, oh, okay, was that me?

Or maybe that was what just the option was, you know?

But that was fine because we didn't really need to make phone calls.

So, yeah, basically just had the data for messages

and, you know, internet sort of thing.

And I was sending a lot of photos back home to mum.

And that was great.

Quite a marvelous.

Everybody...

It's easy to stay connected, mate.

It's easy to stay connected.

Where did you enjoy most, mate?

Look, Singapore is fantastic.

It's just bloody muggy, isn't it?

Just a beautiful city.

Oh, it is.

It is muggy.

Yeah, it was 28, you know, that 30 sort of mark.

The humidity.

But honestly, fantastic.

And I'll tell you what, their transport system is just out of the world.

The thing I remember about Singapore most is you're in the city

and you want to, you know, go to a shop or something.

It's not obvious the shops, because most of them are underground.

It's like these underground walkways between...

And the shopping centers are all underground and stuff

because it's air conditioned

and that's where people commute to

and walk through on the...

Because then you avoid the surface streets

where it's hot and humid.

But yeah, beautiful place.

Some stunning areas, wasn't there?

Yeah.

It's unbelievable.

Yeah, and their rail system's all underground too.

It's all air conditioned.

And basically you get off a train,

walk across to the next platform

and you wait about a minute and the next one turns up.

It leaves us for dead.

It is also a tiny, tiny place.

Imagine if we were all in one little place.

It'd probably be easier to make it all look like that, I guess.

I don't know, I'll still take Australia though.

I'll still take Australia.

Oh yeah, you can't be in Australia.

I'll definitely go back to Marina Bay Sands in Singapore.

We had not air which wasn't enough,

but it was just out of this world, that place.

Nice.

Well, mate, glad you had a good trip.

Glad you got the air away working.

And mate, enjoy and remember it for next time.

We've all got it saved on our phones

and definitely we'll use it next time.

Good on you, mate.

Yeah, no worries, guys.

Thanks very much for giving us all the information.

That's all we're here for.

Good on you, buddy.

Cheers.

Thank you very much.

Cheers, mate.

No worries at all.

There you go.

So Singapore.

If you haven't been to Singapore, it's a beautiful place,

but it's tiny, right?

So yeah, of course everything kind of works

because it's a tiny place.

It's easy to kind of navigate.

The phone systems are great

because there's not that many towels required.

It's pretty easy.

But my god, it's hot and stinking hot

and sticky and humid.

And I guess that's what you get up there near the equator.

That's the deal.

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I make nothing from it.

They're not an advertiser,

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In 22 days,

at the time of recording,

tens of thousands of kids across Australia,

age 15 or less,

we'll have their Instagram,

TikTok and YouTube,

accounts blocked as the world leading

social media minimum age legislation

comes into force here in Australia.

And while the government and parliament

in general are responsible

for passing that law

and making the change,

the actual detail of the change

falls to Australia's e-safety commissioner,

Julie Innan-Grant.

I'm pleased to say

she joins me on the line now.

Commissioner, welcome.

Thank you for having me.

In simple terms,

what do we hope to achieve

with this legislation?

What do we hope to change?

Well, I think it's really important to underscore

that this is not a comprehensive

or omnibus safety bill.

It has a very specific purpose.

And this is about placing an obligation

on age restricted social media services

to take reasonable steps

to prevent children under the age of 16

from having or holding the social media accounts.

But instead of referring to it as a ban,

because it is not an absolute prohibition,

there are exclusions for messaging services,

for online gaming platforms,

for education and health applications

and even business applications.

We're referring to this as a delay.

And really it's like the campaign

around 36 months,

giving kids back those precious years

where they're developing

not only their identities,

but their impulse control,

their clear-cutting skills

between the ages of 13 and 16,

and to keep them away

from those harmful and deceptive design features

that are built into social media sites,

to keep them entrenched and entranced.

Do we think that in five years from now

there will be a measurable change

in a metric that will prove the success

or otherwise of this

in terms of, I don't know,

mental health or well-being of Aussie kids?

Well, we as eSafety are working now

with 11, sorry, let me start again.

We as eSafety have just undertaken

an independent evaluation

or review of the implementation

of this legislation,

and we're doing it with six Australian academics

and then another five globally

that specialize in technology, psychology,

the mental health and well-being of young people.

And this will be a longitudinal study,

so we'll look at everything from,

we'll be using ABS data,

we'll be looking at telco data,

we'll be looking at NAPLAN scores,

so are kids sleeping more?

Are they interacting more?

Are they actually getting out on the footy field

and touching grass?

And then what are some of the unintended consequences?

So we want to capture it all,

and this will be a longitudinal study.

And I guess I've said to a number of people

that in the first day or week

I think everybody is expecting

their children's social media accounts

to magically disappear overnight.

I don't think we want to set that expectation.

I think some companies will probably do it

really well and very effectively,

but there will be variability

from platform to platform.

But I think it's the most significant

normative change,

and there'll be significant change

in the early stages

because parents will no longer have to say,

not are you never going to be on social media,

but not yet,

and the government is backing us on this,

and you're not going to be excluded

from engaging with your friends on social media,

because if they're under 16 too,

they won't be on it.

But it's that generation alpha,

the babies today up to 12 years old,

I think this is where it will really impact

their developmental growth in positive ways

because they won't grow up with that expectation

that they're going to be on social media.

And we know that 84% of 8 to 12 year olds today

have a social media account.

So that's where I think the real change

will happen over time.

So you're saying that kids like mine,

who are aged 14 and 15,

may not simply lose access on December 10

or December 11,

it may come over a shorter period of time

or a period of time.

What will they see though?

Will they just see nothing

or do you have an expectation

of how the platforms will handle those kids

that are on but need to be off?

Yes.

So I'm sure you spent hours pouring

over our regulatory guidance.

Actually, it's pretty short and sweet.

It's, I think, about 55 pages.

But one thing we...

Well, you know, the OFCOM in the UK,

their regulatory guidance for the Online Safety Act

is something like 1700 pages.

So it is small by comparison.

But basically what we say in terms of the reasonable steps

and the first thing that the companies need to focus on

is deactivating or removing the under-16 accounts.

And what we've asked them to do

is to use kind and compassionate

and caring language to identify

and communicate with the under-16s

that they think are going to, you know,

lose their account on December 10.

And ideally, we're asking them to give kids a choice.

So deactivation means that it kind of just lies dormant.

They won't have access to it.

But when they turn 16, their accounts will turn back on

and their memories and images will be there.

And then, of course, removal is total deprecation

or total removal altogether,

which I also think companies are reticent to do

because they do want to find ways to keep them...

Yeah, they want them back, absolutely.

Of course. Absolutely.

My best understanding and what I've tried to explain

to people in great detail about this is

it doesn't lead directly to an ID.

We'll get to that in a minute.

But there's several steps.

There's the age estimation, which is the platform going,

we think you're 16 or we know you're 16 or under.

Then there's age assurance

and then comes age verification.

Can we talk about age assurance for a minute?

Because I did spend a lot of time

looking at the government's age assurance trials

and the results of that,

which appear to me to show that it's amazing.

And age assurance is, you know,

whether it's a biometric scan of your face

or something like that,

it's amazing for people over 21.

It's amazing for people under 10,

but it's pretty rubbish at working out

how old someone is when they're 13, 14, 15, 16, and 17.

So how's that going to work when a lot of kids,

a lot of kids are going to turn 16 and want it back?

And they're not going to look 16.

Julie, I've been to my kid's sport

and I think that kid looks 12,

but he's in under 16 and that kid looks 18

and he's in under 14.

How is that going to work?

Well, again, you would know this better than most people,

but the social media sites already know a lot about us

and concluding our age.

And so we talk about taking a layered safety approach

or a waterfall approach so that dependence upon ID

or even dependence on facial age estimation

or age verification won't be the only two factors.

In fact, most of the companies that are captured

by the age restricted social media definition

have been using age inference technologies for years.

So for instance, they'll use natural language processing.

They can look at grammar and acronyms and emojis

and they can tell the relative age of someone today

when they set up their account,

when they log in and when they log out

if it's before and after school, that tells them something.

13-year-olds tend to talk to other 13-year-olds.

There are a whole range of behavioral signals

that they have already picked up and are using.

So this is why we expect most of these platforms

will use a combination of measures,

the proprietary tools they've already been using for years

and then they may supplement that with say

a facial age estimation technology like YOT,

which has been used for years.

And every year, the accuracy of these technologies

is improving.

And so even between the 13 and 15-year-olds, and you're right,

there's going to be a lot of variability

in terms of adolescent development during those times.

They're going to keep getting better

and that's why one of the things we ask the platforms also to do

is to continue training their classifiers

in improving the technologies,

whether the third party or first party technologies.

But you've had a lot of support in the general press about this.

Do you worry that in the later part of December,

it's going to be a lot of negativity

because I can foreshadow the stories.

There's going to be 16- and two-month-year-olds

that can't verify their age without putting up an ID

and they don't have an ID.

There's going to be 15-year-olds who got on

and they shouldn't be on.

How do you manage that negativity that will come,

I think almost assuredly,

at the launch of this legislation's implementation?

Trevor, the negativity has already come.

There's already kind of the tearing down of the agency

and myself and the scheme and even the assessments.

As you pointed out at the beginning,

we can only use the tools that are given to us

by the government and the tools

that were voted on by the parliament.

So one of the challenges is that

we don't have specific declaratory powers.

But it wasn't clear in the definition

and the definition for determining

whether an age-restricted social media service is included

is based on their sole or significant purpose

and whether or not.

It's a seven-point checklist,

which I've been through a couple of times.

I find it fascinating that, essentially,

they get to say,

oh no, our sole purpose is not this.

That could also mean we end up with some court cases

that say, listen, we're a messaging platform.

They could argue the case, though it does feel like

they've conceded they're just going to push on

and implement age restriction.

In fact, some platforms commissioner,

it feels like they're thinking about implementing it

even though they're not included in it.

So maybe that's a second level of success.

Yeah.

I think all of that is true.

There has been a lot of really interesting

shape-shifting going on

and putting themselves in categories

that don't exist in the legislation.

So, for instance, at one point,

and this is what's interesting,

for the purposes of developing our industry codes,

companies like Snap and YouTube

identified themselves as social media sites

when this came along,

Snap was all of a sudden a camera app

and then a messaging app

and then YouTube was a messaging sharing platform.

But why it's taken a long time to do this analysis

for that very reason for court challenges and the like

and for clarity and to show that we're applying

all of this fairly inconsistently.

We're looking at, again,

deceptive and harmful design features

and the totality of features included

that stimulate online social interaction.

And we're also thinking about things like,

you know, people were concerned that Roblox is in there,

but I had to look at significant or sole purpose.

And I've got 13-year-old twins

who've been playing Roblox for years.

Of course, we have the chat functionality shut down.

But is the main or significant purpose,

is online gaming?

Would they use the chat and messaging functionality

if they didn't have the games there?

No, they would probably use WhatsApp

or they would use Snap.

The same thing with Snap.

Would they be using Snap's messaging functionality

if there wasn't the ephemerality

or the Snap streaks,

which is a game-of-fine way of keeping kids?

Yep.

They've got Snap maps.

They've got stories.

They've got Snap stars.

They've got all this content

that, say, platforms, messaging platforms,

like WhatsApp or Messenger,

doesn't have to keep you using that platform.

So we have to look at that online social interaction

in its totality.

To play Dev's advocate,

and I have done that a lot for my audience,

because, look, to be very clear,

I don't believe we need this legislation.

I believe we need better parenting

and better tools for parents.

And that's a very difficult thing

to approach from a national level.

But why do we need to put in place

this blanket ban slash delay

when parental controls exist on major platforms

and have done for some time

shouldn't we as parents be allowed to say,

no, I'm okay with my kids being on these platforms

because, and only because,

I'm managing their accounts

and I can see their activity.

I can manage their time.

I can manage so much about it.

And perhaps those parents

not willing to be that engaged,

their kids are the ones

that can't be on the platform until they engage.

Is that not a better way of approaching it

from a parental responsibility point of view?

Well, all of that has been done

by E-Safety for the past 10 years.

And that's why I describe this

as a very specific piece of legislation.

You know, we do have codes and standards

to deal with things and we're taking action

against chat roulette sites

and new defying sites and new defying apps.

And you'll see more from us targeting

AI chat bots and companions.

Those will be coming into force

in March of next year.

But it takes, we operate under

what we call the three piece model.

So prevention through education,

resources, research,

working from an evidence base,

protection through the systemic powers

and that includes transparency

around the platforms of what they are

and are not doing to make their platforms

safer by design.

But we also have complaint schemes

and some of the only ones

of their nature in this world.

So if a child has been sexting

and the intimate images are shared

without consent, this goes for adults as well.

And if it's deep, fake material,

they can report to us

and we have a 98% success rate

of taking this down.

Similarly with youth based cyber bullying

and adult cyber abuse.

But the area that is kind of missing

is that kind of proactive

and systemic change,

which is what we've been doing

with our safety by design initiative

and which the government will be taking forward

with the safety of care,

which is putting the onus again

back on the platforms

to build,

to assess the risks and the harms

and build those safety protections

in at the front end

rather than waiting for things to go wrong.

A lot of platforms will say,

well we build the parental controls

and parents don't use them

and to a certain degree that's true

because they're pretty complex.

So parenting

but in my experience

we've seen

there are various styles of parenting.

There's helicopter parents

and there are free range parents

and the ones we reach

are the ones that are already engaged

in their kids online lives.

So our challenge has been how do we reach those parents

that aren't engaged

or don't feel they understand text,

they just let their kids

do what they want online

and really don't know

how perilous it can be.

I did a TikTok on this a couple of weeks ago

maybe a month ago now

and I've got to be honest blown away by the response to it

and its reach in just Australia

when you look at the data, it was 95% Australian viewers

and a million people

looking at this video and most of them just have

questions and don't have answers.

Are we doing enough to educate

the public on what's about to happen?

I know you're running some TV ads and things

but I think we need to be on social media

talking about this, don't we?

We are on social media talking about this.

I guess this would be a great

service for your listeners.

We've got a social

media age restrictions hub

and we've got a vast

range of resources including

videos, some are voiced over by

young people.

We've got preparation

guides, scripts,

a whole range of tools

and I guess what I would say to parents right now

is now is the time to sit down

with your

kids, talk to them

about the apps they're on, particularly

if they're between the ages of

13 and 15

and prepare them

and get them to start tapering off their usage.

You can

also on our website

we show you basically how to

download archives

and images, they can

bookmark influencers they like

on their websites.

They can set up

WhatsApp group chats with their friends

when they're breaking for school, they're still in contact

and then we've done a lot of work

with Reach Out, Beyond Blue

Kids Helpline and Headspace to make sure

that they know

of a range of other help seeking

tools

that are out there for them because

this is going to be a really hard transition

for some kids, a really hard

transition.

We want to make sure that they're going

to the right place. The last thing I

noticed that we're giving free

webinars to parents and educators.

We've had about 2,000

people attend each one

that actually walks through how it works

and what you can do.

Mindful of your time but I can't let you

be here without addressing the

conspiracy in the room which I keep getting as well

but at the end of December we're all going to

upload ID to use Google.

This is a very different

thing but it is similarly protecting

kids online. I believe it's the internet

search engine services online

safety code but can we just

clarify here to use Google

to search the internet. You're not

required on December 27

to upload an ID are you?

Ding ding ding, you are right.

So

and these of course

are industry codes that were developed

by Google and Bing and

the search engines themselves and

really just kind of codifies

some of their safe search practices

already. So

if you are not

logged into an account and are

just opening a browser or a search engine

and searching

the internet what will happen

for everybody is if

the search engine comes across explicit

violence say like the Charlie

Kirk

assassination video

something that's deemed

very, very violent in something

you can't unsee or pornography

it will be blurred

and that is to

prevent people from seeing

things inadvertently

that they don't want to see and can't unsee.

If you are logged into a Google account

they know how old I am

is it the same age estimation

they're just going listen we know who you are

you've been on here for a while we're never going to ask you for ID

but if they don't know how old you are based

on any activity you've done

they may go through age assurance

all questions. Yes.

So if you're logged in to an account

to search and on many

home computers that are shared by multiple

users families will do that

so that they can set the age

appropriate settings at the right setting

and it hasn't been age verified

they will ask you to go through an age

verification process.

I also think the other positive

thing I want to point out about

the codes that are coming in at the end

of December is if somebody

is in the grips of crisis

and is seeking out

specific explicit instructions

of how to take their own lives

this will redirect them

to mental health services rather than

taking them directly to that information

and so I think

that's a really important

thing that we do as a society

so that we can help

people again in the grips of

extreme crisis get the help that they need.

Your role has been around for a long time

but it's never been more public

as the spotlight started to take its toll

I heard you on the ABC talking about

not thinking about renewing when you contract

ends there's been articles attacking you

you mentioned you've been doxxed and things like this

is this spotlight something you never

foreshadowed coming

to you because you didn't think the role was going to be

like it is and the government's created this

whole new world for the e-safety commissioner

it's a difficult role

and probably a very difficult one to fill if you

choose not to continue.

Yeah I mean

I'm one of a handful of people in this world

that have been working

on online safety

for more than 30 years both

inside technology

industry and as a regulator

it's really a relatively new field

but yes I've experienced

for a fairly extended time

what we call the 3Ds

of online abuse

death threats

doxxing including doxxing of my children

and deep fakes

made of me so

it does

take its toll and I also

worry about the toll it takes on

a number of my staff

it's the type

of job that is an

absolute privilege to do

and it's an honor and if

I can make some changes

in people's lives for the better

and in their online lives

you know that is

a success to me but it's also the kind of job

where you're either doing too much or not enough

and you're never going to make

everyone happy and we've got a very

vocal minority of people I mean

if you look at the YouGov polls the vast majority

particularly of

parents but of adults

want to see this monumental

change around the social media delay

they want their platforms

to be safer

online and unfortunately

we're in a situation now

where companies are actually

severely cutting their trust

and safety personnel and rolling back

their content moderation policies

so it's getting worse and the job

is getting harder for online safety regulators

I wouldn't want your job let me

put it to you that way

and I also think with the greatest

respect I think too much of the focus

has been on you and the decisions

you make and frankly it should be politicians

making perhaps some of those decisions but I guess

they put their faith and trust in the

office of the eSafety Commissioner and they're

entitled to do that but it's the

people who have the world that worries me

and the digital ID haters

and all this kind of stuff that goes around that muddies

the waters of the general discussion that we

should be continuing to have

about just keeping our kids safe

keeping them happy and

I'm more excited about

the December 27 safe search

kind of regulations than I am about

the social media ban because I don't want my kids

to be exposed to pornography early

you know it wasn't easy for me as a kid

it shouldn't be easy for the kids today and I think

that's a more important code

than anything else at this point in time

but that's just you know a personal opinion I guess

but look I respect the

work you're doing I don't agree

with everything that happens but I do want

parents to be informed because it's going to be

a challenging few weeks

ahead when this all happens especially

through the school holidays for the parents that are

having their kids work out what the heck

they do now on their phones maybe

just send them to e-safety.gov.au

look for

social media minimum age and we've got

a huge repository of resources

and thanks Trevor

for giving us the opportunity

to talk to you

and share with your

listeners. Commissioner thank you so much

thank you

the EFTM podcast

thanks to SWAN home security

to connect, detect

and protect

great to have you company would love to hear from you

if you've got a tech question on any topic

you want to brag about something you bought you're worried about something

you're using or you want ideas

about what to buy or you need my help choosing

something happy to help

and Robert's on the line today Robert

Oh good morning and how are you Trevor? Yeah really good

what can I do for you?

What I'm ringing about is I've got

fiber to the premise

oh yeah

and it's on Telstra and Telstra tell me

it's all installed, everything's sweet

but I can't get any more than

54 on the wi-fi

oh my goodness

that's 54 out of 500

now so I was just going to say

so you've got fiber to the premise is the technology at your home

you're with Telstra but what plan have you signed up for

the 500 meg plan is that it?

Oh yes that's right yes

yep yep alright so it was the

100 you got boosted up to 500

beautiful

and where is the modem

because fiber to the premises

there's probably a little box

an nbn box somewhere

oh yes well the nbn box

sorry is in the garage

but the modem is in the centre of the house

so we have a direct cable that goes

from the garage to the

centre of the house

and what modem is the Telstra modem?

it is the Telstra modem

okay so

I talk to people

there you go

now what I say is I talk to people

and they all say it's the modem

get a new modem you know

but then you go and talk to people like

Harvey Norman if I can say that

and they come out and show me something that's

$900, $1100

and say this will fix it

but I can't afford $1100

Gotcha okay so

there's a bunch of things I could recommend to you

from $200 up to $4000

but let's not spend any money until we know what the problem is

so have you

what devices do you own?

have you got a laptop that has an ethernet cord

you know the ethernet port though?

No I don't

but I do have a thing that's called

Sam knows

I don't know if you're aware of it

it's about a firm in England

that actually check your internet

all through the month

so they're the first thing that I plug into the modem

but where's that? that's plugged into the modem

that's right

that's no good to us

I'm getting $500

oh sorry okay that's very good to us

okay so let's start again here

I'm drawing my own little map of your home

I've got a garage and there's an NBN

I've got a wiggly line

which is a cable you've obviously had plumbed in

by an electrician to the middle of the house

and there's a Telstra modem there

the black box is it the black one or the white one?

the black one

and then in the back of that

through the land port

you've got the Sam knows

that's reporting

500 megabits per second

that's correct

what numbers is it actually saying

it doesn't say 502, 505

291

it says 521

you should be getting more

that's actually a really good point

if you are hard cabled

plumbed into the back of the NBN

you should actually be getting a little more than what you're paying for

so that's good to know

so what this tells us is

it tells us the NBN to your house is fine

it tells us that little wiggly cable

from the NBN box to the modem is fine

it tells us that the modems

ethernet ports are fine as well

but we seem to have a problem

with the wifi

now

I haven't actually tested the Telstra smart modem

on a faster plan

but have you had any conversations

with Telstra about it?

I've had numerous conversations

but is that the stage where I

have lost faith in Telstra?

I'm still with them

but they're no help

you talk to a woman in Brisbane

the next day I talk to a woman in Hobart

and they tell me

turn it off and pull out the plugs

and one woman tells me

it's your iPad

that's not an iPad

I'm on a phone

I've got a computer sitting next to it

I've got an iPad

and that's the critical thing

you've basically got an issue with the wifi

now

it depends

how nerdy and deep you want to get into it

but there are some things you could do to that modem

if you're able to log in

to the back end of it

I don't know how hard that is to do it

but changing the wifi channel

may be

to wifi channels they range from 1-30

oh right

sorry

it's a very deep in the back end thing

not your network

and your network 5G

that's a different deal

that's the SSID

deep in the back end of this thing

there may be the option to change the wifi channel

and often

there is congestion in your area

you might have neighbours that are using the exact same channel

and that could cause some conflict

with your wifi network

it's honestly

I don't think you'd be seeing the diminished speeds that you're seeing

that sounds

challenging to me

I'm somewhat disappointed by what Telstra has said

and done for you

and I'll give you this one upsell

do you know how much you pay every month

for the 500 megabits per second?

$108

straight off the bat

let me tell you that Aussie Broadband charges

$95

now $95 isn't

a huge saving but it's $13

$13 a month

that is saved if you

don't tell me but I've got to buy an

Erie or Eero

if you switch to Aussie Broadband

yes

that's what they recommend for the modem

correct the cheapest one of those is $180

that they sell directly

now

how big is the house just broadly speaking

is it a small home or a bit

no it's an arch home

that's why I've got the modem right in the middle

so that it can go

those tests you're doing

are you standing next to the modem

I'm sitting right next to it

so that's good because wifi degrades over distance

right so I'd expect you to

get $50 in the backyard

but I'd expect you to get on wifi

I'd expect you to get $270

or $340

I'd expect you to see triple digits

sitting next to the modem basically

the problem is

the Telstra smart modem

is an old device

it doesn't have the capability to do

500 megabits per second I don't know

but here's what I want to do

before we go spending any money

on your behalf

I want to see if we can get a little bit of

escalated support for you

from Telstra

so I want to see whether my contacts at Telstra

can hook you up with

an individual who you can have one or two conversations

we don't want to drive him baddie

but we want to have one or two conversations

to say listen we've worked this out

crap okay it's the router

and as soon as you tell them that you've measured

the internet speed at the router

at the modem

at 500 megabits per second

but the wifi speed is poor

that should be an instant sign

that there's a need for something else

now the only other thing that I'd like you to do

before I arrange that

is I'd like you to try if you can

and locate pretty much every

wifi connected device you have

and turn them on

alright okay now I can do that

because I plug everything else

into Samnose

so Samnose gets the first

feed

I've actually done this

I've actually turned them all off

and turned the box off in the garage

and turned the modem off

and then done it in reverse

the reason I want you to turn off the wifi devices

it's the wifi devices we're worried about

so all the ethernet ones doesn't matter

all good

so let's say you've got a phone

a tablet maybe there's a TV

in the back room whatever it is

turn them all off at the power point

so that they are not connected to your

wifi network

because here's the weird thing

and this doesn't really apply much anymore

but it absolutely does on older

wifi technology

if you have 10 devices connected

and 9 of them are capable of

the latest wifi 500 megabits per second

and they get 500

and the 10th one is old

doesn't have the latest technology

and it connects

and it's only getting 25 or 50

the whole network

slows to 2550

so the slow

it used to be and I'm saying this is not

generally the case now but it used to be

that your wifi was only as fast

as the slowest device connected to it

so what I want you to do

is turn off all the wifi devices

and then turn them on one by one

so on your mobile phone

which is probably the most modern thing you own

sit next to the

next to the router turn it on

and go right here let's connect and let's do a speed test

and if you only get 25

turn it off go to another device

do the same thing

once you've done 3 devices if they're all getting

2550 then don't worry

forget the test it's the wifi network

but we need to eliminate

our device on your network

as being the cause of the speed

being diminished

okay good I will be honest with you

but all the devices we've got

are one laptop

and three telephones

and three ipads

so they're all pretty modern

but I can do that

that's easy that's easy

this is that whole thing of you know what

you want to be able to say to the support person

when they ring you you want to be able to say

yes I have done that and this was the outcome

so like when you said the sandbox

you immediately were able to dismiss

all a bunch of other questions I was about to have

so there's a level of

level of knowledge that comes with it

so I want you to test that forming

in the coming days send us a text back

and let us know how it went and then we'll start

referring you to a senior tech at Telstra

and see if we can get you any additional support

and frankly if that doesn't work

then I do think you should switch telcos

and I think you should look for somebody that has better support

and I believe Aussie have the best support

in the country

good all right very good good luck

okay well thank you very much for ringing me back

you'll let us know how you go

okay bye bye

good to hear from you thanks very much

look it's fascinating because that is a wealth

of information that Robert brings to that

he kind of knows exactly what's going on

there is some speed test that

accurately show the speed

is coming into the home

why is the Wi-Fi not working

why is the Wi-Fi diminished

frankly Telstra I think you should replace

really a loyal customer

replace the bike smart motor

and let's get it solved that's probably going to do the trick

this is the EFTM podcast

great to have you company

we'd love to hear from you if you've got a tech question

Ash is on the line can I ask

yeah good morning Trevor how are you

good mate what can I do for you

yeah I'm in a conundrum

so I've got the iPhone 17 pro

and love it and as you know

it's got three cameras

in the air I'm a fan of it

and I travel a bit for work

and I'm thinking do I invest in the air

do I wait

I can live with the one camera

but it's just so thin and

portable I think

can you really live with one camera

reading all the blogs

looking at it playing with it

at the Apple store zooming in and out

with the two times

I think I came from a travel point of view

the issue I'm going to face is

you know I don't want to get a second number

I want to keep my number that I've got

now it's an eSIM how hard

is it to transfer or use a phone

between two phones

with the same number using an eSIM

everything else is up in the cloud

you've lost me completely

you want to keep the 17 pro as well

yeah so you can't

you can't have two phones in one number

no

like it's ridiculous

because technically you'd argue

it's completely possible because

where you're thinking is you've got a phone

and an Apple watch that both have the same number

and they work independently yes it should work

but no in Australia

that is not a thing

I remember Jesus this is going back to the 90s

I'm pretty sure you can have a

a car phone and a portable phone

that had the same number and that works

but anyway for some reason

it's not supported it's not allowed probably the simple reason is

they want you to have another account

account that's right and

so mate that's just

physically not an option

so yeah not an option so I'd have to go

for the second number if I wanted the air

yep absolutely

so in your mind are you going to carry

only one around and just use the other one

no no no I would

still take the pro

but you know the simplicity

I thought it would be simple just to go from

okay I want to use the air or put the

upload the eSIM

and have that working and then go back

to the eSIM on the

on the pro when I wanted to use that

what's really annoying is eSIMs

broadly do operate that way so on my

on the phone I'm talking to you on now

I have

I think it's a physical sim for

Boost Mobile which I'm talking to you on

I have an eSIM for AT&T

in America

I have an eSIM for I think a

Vodafone in Europe

so basically right now

when I look into my settings it says

and you go mobile there's

you can see all three lines but

two of them are off they're just turned off

because I don't have writing or anything on them

and when I travel to America I just turn off the boost line

and turn on the AT&T

and turn on the other one and that's what I did

recently in China you know

I had a sim card for eSIM for China

and I've still got it in my phone

that's the question

but the issue is when you

so if you were to

what telco are you with

Telstra

so it's so easy with Telstra have you done it

where you just download the app and you go set up eSIM

done boom

in theory it's actually

if you said to me I wanted to change

week on week off

I'd say mate I don't know that there's a limit

to how often you can activate an eSIM

but it technically is very easy with Telstra

because you can just install

the my Telstra app on both phones

and then go yeah it's on this one now

but as soon as it's on

the other one

so as soon as it's on the pro

the air is no longer active

and it's actually not a valid eSIM

anymore so it needs to reinstall

on eSIM every time it'll probably add

to that list of sims

every single time

and basically

once you switch you can't switch it back on

so if I switch to my pro now

I can't then go turn it off

in the settings and then turn it on

because the other one is just not on the network anymore

they've deregistered it

so mate it doesn't work

probably that being a problem that's right

it'll probably get to like you said

maybe a couple of times or a few times

and then go hang on what's going on here

I worry so

a little known fact that

people outside of my industry probably wouldn't know

you can only install

log into Spotify on a certain

number of devices

and once up yes

I mean over time so once you've

once you get a new phone

you log into Spotify let's say for example

I get a new phone every

four weeks right so

about a year ago I hit this limit

I don't know what the limit was it might have been 30 or 40

and see for most people

that's 60 years because you get a new phone every

two years so they haven't even

thought about it but I had to email them and say listen I

review phones I can't log in

and so they had to kind of blank my account

so that it worked again so I worry that

people are going to go 10, 15, 20 weeks

and then Telstra's going to go hang on a minute

they might see it as like a fraud activity

you know because obviously sim cards

and scammers and stuff like that so they made

unfortunately and let me be clear

I'm still using the year

and for context

I've got all of them

I've got every iPhone 17

three of them are downstairs in a drawer

this one I love

and it worked out why I love it

because it is a big screen

Stephen and I often talk about how I hate big phones

I don't think it's the size of the phone

that I hate I think it's the weight of the phone

I will say

the air is so big

that I don't love having it in my front pocket

when I drive like it kind of pokes me

so I do take it out of my pocket whereas a smaller

standard 17 or even the 17 Pro

standard edition

they're just a smaller phone I don't find that

but dude this thing is so light it's so thin

and that's what I was attracted to

that's the peeling bit about it

once I started playing

and holding

and so on and going

I should have

do I miss the third camera

the second and third cameras

yeah I think I do

have I grabbed my wife's phone

and taken photos yeah I have

but has it made me

yeah it's hard to give up

it would be hard to give up those three cameras

but I think it's hard to give up the air

in the same way

the sacrifice is the thinness

and the lightness of the air

I think the reports of its battery life

are greatly exaggerated

look it's not the best battery at all

but when are you not near your desk on a wireless charger

when are you not in the car like seriously

let's be real here

we're not running marathons anymore

we're not trying to get through 17 hours

that's ridiculous and yeah I've had days

where I have been away from the office

I'm at 30% now

I've thrown in a low power mode and off we go

it's not rocket science

100% and again

it's not every day you've got to be on it

100% depending on what you're doing

I totally agree with that

I'm sad that we can't

get you in a dual operating

phone situation

but mate at this point

if you feel like you are going to miss those cameras

mate you're going to have to stick with the pro

yeah I think that's the only

way at the moment unfortunately

if I can't do that so

no thank you very much for that

no problem at all mate good luck

alright thank you

thanks for getting in touch

I thought that question was going to be about

switching from phone to phone

to actually get a new iPhone

but I haven't thought about that for a while

the idea of a sim card

working on multiple devices

and look I'll say this now

I had a conversation with someone

in the industry who sold

or was like a country manager

of a company that sold

cheap mobile phones

cheap phones not even smartphones

right and I said to them

the idea of a weekend phone

is so appealing to me

and I think it would work really well

for people that I don't know why the telcos

don't allow it like the second sim

on a just a dumb phone

so that I can have a weekend option

and that it just works

I don't have to switch sim cards

and take them out and all that kind of stuff

but I got the

sensor in there that was going to happen

but it never did so

maybe it's because they want our business

and they want more of our money

thank you so much for joining me today

thank you for listening, thank you for downloading

it's been a pleasure

and great to be wherever you are

walking, cycling, running, sleeping

sitting, working, however you listen

it's great for you to do so

and it's appreciated. Next week we're going to talk Amazon devices

with their country manager

for devices here, Jackie Corbett in Australia

we've got a bunch of calls

lined up because there's lots of people in the list

ready to go

so be one of them

you're getting in touch

we'll get you on the show

and it'll be great to have you company then

next week, here on the AFTM podcast

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Kids Social Media Ban: eSafety Commissioner joins Trevor Long

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