The brilliant minds CSIRO have spent the past few years developing a new wireless technology to deliver high speed wireless internet to rural Australia. Now dubbed Ngara – an Aboriginal word from the Darug people that means ‘listen, hear and think”, the technology promises 12Mbps symmetrical speeds for six simultaneous users and is set to be demonstrated next week in Sydney.
The technology aims to take advantage of the analogue TV spectrum once analogue TV is switched off in 2013. By mounting transmitters to current TV broadcasting towers and attaching a modified modem to individual household TV antennas, Ngara makes a unique connection between the tower and the household using a patented beam-focussing technique. The technology currently supports six individual househholds maintaining symmetrical speeds of 12Mbps.
In addition to the direct connection, the technology has also focussed on the wireless backhaul, which can sustain a reliable backend connection of several gigabits a second, which is significantly faster than current solutions for rural customers.
Designed specifically for towns of less than 1000 people, there’s a lot of potential for Ngara, especially given it has the potential to both support more users and faster speeds in the future. Here’s hoping it can make its way into rural Australians homes as part of the NBN rollout
Sam
Thursday, March 17, 2011 at 4:19 PMI wonder what the latency on that is like? 12Mbps is faster that what I currently connect at and this is in the suburbs.
Steeeve
Thursday, March 17, 2011 at 4:44 PM“Ngara – an Aboriginal word from the Darug people that means ‘listen, hear and think’”
That’s a really useful word. I wish we had an equivalent in English. It’s seems far too often these days that people cannot manage to achieve all three.
Bob
Thursday, March 17, 2011 at 6:46 PMListen & hear are the same, and a person pointing to their ear could be interpreted as signing “think”. This is what makes the language primitive, as each word has more than one meaning across various tribes with their own languages.
They should find a word that means “Look, listen, misinterpret then rage”, as that’s the internet of today.
StevoTheDevo
Friday, March 18, 2011 at 10:17 AMYou’ve never been to a professional development course if you still think Listen and Hear mean the same thing…
As they tell you, “you might always hear, but you’re only listening if you’re paying attention to what’s being said.”
James-Mac
Friday, March 18, 2011 at 11:14 PMSo… the CSIRO have developed the wireless technology that Tony Abbot has been shopping around as an alternative to the NBN?
nicky miller
Sunday, March 27, 2011 at 4:24 PMhi, will gold coast hinterland actually get coverage then, dial up isnt my favourite choice!if yes when is this ment to be happening?
nicky