There’s a small percentage of the population that’s going to miss out on fibre as the NBN rolls out around the country, and that percentage is going to get wireless. That rollout took a big step forward today according to Mitchell Bingeman at the The Australian, with NBN Co purchasing spectrum from Pay TV operator Austar.
The deal, which is worth $120 million, will see NBN Co walk away with Austar’s 2.3 GHz and 3.4 GHz spectrum for delivering a minimum of 12Mbps fixed wireless services to rural Australians. The first commercial services are expected to be launched in the middle of 2012.
With the NBN steaming ahead for both the wireless and fibre parts of the plan hopefully the opposition will have a change of heart about killing the project completely should they come into power.
Josh
Thursday, February 17, 2011 at 1:16 PMThe australian not posting anti-nbn content? Have I magically been transported to a parallel universe or something
Brendan
Thursday, February 17, 2011 at 2:29 PMWhat a joke 12Mps for the hard working backbone of Australia – whom already have depleted and limited health + education + IT services AND over 100Mbps for the rest.
Kroo
Thursday, February 17, 2011 at 1:54 PMI think your a little too much of a fanboy for the NBN. Telstra just upped the ante with the 4G network announcement (of which our company has been apart of). I have said it before and I’ll say it again, the NBN will be the most expensive white elephant Australia will produce, and we’ll look like a laughing stock. For one thing, it hasn’t been approved by the senate and the greens are getting cold on the idea as each day goes by. Yes, we would all enjoy faster broadband, but at what cost? How much would you pay Nick? The reported speeds of 100mbps wouldn’t even be realised this decade mate. By that time, better wireless systems will have come and gone and we’ll be stuck with a fixed line system for a generation and beyond. *Newsflash* The world is moving towards mobile computing devices and without the infrastructure we’ll be stuck with a poor wireless and expensive wired systems. Look, I’ll show my hand. I work in the telco industry. We build towers. What is on the horizon will blow the NBN to hell. By the time the NBN has subscribers, wireless technology speeds will be comparative if not surpassing those reported by NBN co. It’s far cheaper and easier to update and maintain a wireless system than it is for a hard wired one and you upgrade bandwidth along with the technology. Cheaper means cost benefits to the customer in the long run. For $37 billion you could well cover the country and the city areas with spectrum to spare and once the analogue tv spectrum is freed up, even greater speeds will come. It’s not pie in the sky, it’s what every major telcos around the world will be gearing up to in the next couple of years. Why do you keep hounding on the opposition? They’re not in government, and won’t likely to be in the near future, so what they say is irrelevant, but you seem so worried about them, why? Ask the money guys at Telstra and Optus which system they’d pay to install, wireless every time. But a government monopoly will go for the most expensive outcome because it ain’t their money they’re spending ay?
Bernhard de Kok
Thursday, February 17, 2011 at 3:47 PMWell Mr. Telco, if wireless is so good, why can’t you give me 100GB per month like the city people get? And at the same price I might add. I’m sick of paying $90 for just 12GB cap. And the speed in rural Victoria is barely 3GB
And how will the wireless network cope with millions of people all using wireless at speeds > 12GB with their 100GB caps?
I’ll shut up if you can guarentee I’ll get this from Telsta by mid 2012 using NextG or LTE in rural Victoria for the same price as the City people can get it.
P.S. Please explain to me again why you’re ripping me off.
Edward Luck
Thursday, February 17, 2011 at 10:37 PMThat’s a lot of text there buddy. Shame it’s not based in reality.
I suppose we could sit on our arses and wait for the magical mystery wireless technology to be invented rather than invest in fibre, which has been proven already and hasn’t anywhere near reached theoretical capacity limits.
Yeah, that’s a good idea eh?
Nodeity
Thursday, February 17, 2011 at 1:58 PMGood,.. maybe we’ll get some decent content from Austar when the transaction is approved… Oh, who am I kidding,.. the budgie smuggler will kill the NBN first opportunity he gets,… :[
Kroo
Thursday, February 17, 2011 at 2:07 PMOne more thing. You pay for an expensive fibre to the node connection for your home, and you move house, or you rent and get moved out, you’ve lost out for an expensive cost outlay. Wireless on the other hand follows you no matter where you live (given that as much money is spent on tower rollouts as well as fibre rollout). Wireless stations across the country areas that have been flooded lately, kept on working while the below ground systems failed, and took days to restore. All the towers in country Victoria have high levels of flood prevention, and they all survived the floods and kept people connected in seriously dangerous situations. Without it, people would have died.
Nodeity
Thursday, February 17, 2011 at 3:03 PMI’m pretty sure you won’t need a fibre connection to your home at this stage, I think the local junction/node is all that is required. As for wireless,.. it’s nowhere near the speed of the even the current network!!
ftjl
Thursday, February 17, 2011 at 3:47 PM“You pay for an expensive fibre to the node connection for your home, and you move house, or you rent and get moved out, you’ve lost out for an expensive cost outlay.”
Um what? Sounds like you believed a little bit too much of the propaganda The Australian was pushing. I’m assuming you’re talking about home owners and renters running fibre optic cable throughout the walls of their residence. That of course is a personal choice but for the most part people will connect their router and run either a wired or wireless network throughout their homes.
The government – and the population of Australia as a whole – doesn’t and shouldn’t care or mandate what people do once the NBN is run through to their home. All it cares about is that everybody has more or less universal access to to proper (and having travelled the world, I can honestly say that we have nowhere near ‘proper’, let alone universal) broadband speeds.
Also what? Your comments here make no sense – but to give you benefit of the doubt, what are these technological breakthroughs that allow wireless technology to ignore the laws of physics?
Kroo
Thursday, February 17, 2011 at 7:49 PMYou, the home owner or home renter, pay the $500-$1000 to connect from the node to your wall in your home. Expensive outlay. You move house or are asked to move house, you lose the benefit of what you just paid for. You Buy a wireless dongle or wireless capable device, subscribe to a telco, and it follows you everywhere.
There are localised LTE Advanced/4G technology testing of wireless hubs in San Francisco, New York, Soul (Korea) Singapore, Europe and now here in Australia pumping out speeds of 100-300mbps download speeds.
Telstras 4G system is capable of the same speeds and above. Don’t be a hater just because you don’t like the message, but those here in the industry believe the whole NBN is a crock and a huge waste of money (and union driven goldmine, as they don’t like contractors). LTE/4G technology is the future. You can’t keep hardwiring every new suburb that pops up without paying for it in your subdivision costs. Mobile data towers only cost you if you are a user. How many mobile data towers did you install last year my friend? Me? 15. Don’t believe everything a politician tells you mate.
Nick Broughall
Friday, February 18, 2011 at 7:56 AMI’ve edited this post to take out the unnecessary attacks. Happy for robust debate, but refrain from directly insulting someone just because they have an opinion different to yours…
ftjl
Friday, February 18, 2011 at 10:04 AM“You move house or are asked to move house, you lose the benefit of what you just paid for.”
Well this is true. However, most people would have already done the wiring required to connect from the node to the wall (wtf does this mean anyway? NBN’s connections come to the house, linking up to the same outlets as your current phone line. If you haven’t got a physical phone line then you’re in a place so old you might want to check for electricity and indoor plumbing as well). We’ve already had to make an outlay to connect to the internet in the first place. Since the NBN will be replacing the copper that we use for our phone lines, it connects directly through there. The only time this will cost home owners or renters ANYTHING is if they didn’t install a phone line in the first place.
Your argument that wireless is cheaper works only where a home owner or landlord has been so cheap as to not install a physical land line. Your argument that wireless is faster still breaks the laws of physics – I don’t care what politicians say (and as an IT person I rarely listen to what politicians say about technology, I usually know better and in more detail than they do) but like the rest of the universe, I have to obey the laws of physics.
As a mobile user, I’ve paid through my phone bills for every single mobile tower being put up by my carrier. By the amount of times I got billed when a call I made to a Vodafone user dropped out and I had to redial, I also paid for their infrastructure upgrades.
Congratulations for putting up 15 mobile towers, it’s great to know that your job in your industry provides you with fulfillment. Not quite sure what that has to do with why wireless is not better than fibre optics however. It would in fact argue otherwise – if we need to keep installing mobile towers to maintain such a low speed. 100 – 400mbs sounds like lots now but in about a decade unless your miraculous technological advances appear, we’re stuck with more and more mobile towers as the population of users increase. Though I guess that at least keeps you in a job. Which hey might explain why you keep insisting that wireless is better than fibre optic (despite the fact that wireless needs a wired option and without something LIKE the NBN across Australia will have drop out zones or areas with such low speeds as to be nearly useless) despite all scientific evidence to the contrary.
Edward Luck
Thursday, February 17, 2011 at 10:39 PMMate you’ve seriously been brainwashed by The Australian.