[LINK] How far the fibre?

[Antony Barry]

Begin forwarded message:


> From: Paul Brooks <paul-link at layer10.com.au>
> Date: 4 July 2007 2:37:36 PM
> To: Glen Turner <gdt at gdt.id.au>
> Cc: Craig Sanders <cas at taz.net.au>, LINK <link at anu.edu.au>
> Subject: Re: [LINK] How far the fibre?
>
>
> Glen Turner wrote:
>> Where telemedicine comes to the fore is the steps after critical
>> care. The post-recovery consultations. If all is going well, then
>> you don't want to drive to the city to be told that all is going
>> well or for a slight change in a drugs.
>>
>> Also, to be blunt, acute care isn't the issue in regional
>> Australia -- that's going to be done in the city just because
>> of the huge investment needed.  It's the next rung down --
>> specialist diagnosis and treatment consultations, psychological
>> evaluations and care, and so on.
>>
> And for this (to bring the discussion back to the topic in the  
> Subject line), you don't need fibre-enabled speed.
> 'conventional' broadband, in the single-digit Mbps range, is  
> sufficient to vastly improve a doctor and patient's efficiency in  
> these non-critical areas, which afterall occupy the majority of the  
> healthcare daily activities.
> Workable email, that can send and receive reasonable digital photo  
> attachments in minutes rather than hours, doesn't need 50+ Mbps.  
> Neither does online reference database lookup, or updating  
> electronic health records. The important characteristic of  
> connectivity in this environment is primarily 'always on', rather  
> than raw capacity. And so, if stumping for a different technology  
> such as wireless in preference to fibre will get an 'always on'  
> connection to these people's homes, surgeries, clinics, pharmacies  
> and schools in a shorter time than waiting for someone to justify  
> fibre-to-the-clinic and hundreds of MB of capacity, then I say go  
> for it - and drag the fibre or something  through later if the  
> first technology starts being a bottleneck.
>
> Paul.
>
>

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