[LINK] Telstra - taking its ball and going home.

[rchirgwin at ozemail.com.au]

Apologies if this appears twice - sometimes I have trouble getting 
messages through first go.

>
> Don't dismiss wireless and if Telstra is giving up fibre for wireless I
> applaud this management decision.

I don't dismiss wireless, but a silver bullet it ain't. It's a good 
solution where it meets requirements, it's not where it doesn't. It 
certainly isn't any kind of replacement for fibre in terms of $ per Mbps 
per km. It is a moderately competitive customer link (in some forms), 
and a good long-haul medium capacity link (in others).

A good hint at the limits of wireless can be gleaned from the wireless 
ISPs themselves; most wireless plans look very much like DSL plans in 
terms of speed. Also, most are asymmetric because (among other reasons) 
they assume lower power at the consumer than at the base station.

There are only two ways to build a wireless access network: contended (X 
bandwidth shared among Y subscribers) or point-to-point. In the 
contended access network, you have exactly the same situation as in DSL 
or HFC: the nominal speed of the link depends on how many users at once. 
Or you have a more expensive point-to-point link where one base station 
serves one subscriber.

Reality is not dismissal ... I happily will endorse wireless for 
suitable applications. But it's not a fibre replacement (otherwise 
Longreach Communications would be a much bigger company)...

RC