[LINK] Senator Coonan on 7:30 Report

[Stewart Fist]

Roger replies


> 
> At 7:43 +1000 19/6/07, Richard Chirgwin wrote:
>> I have one small experience. When at the ATUG regional conference in
>> Canberra last month, the exhibition room was connected by YLess4U to
>> a base station 19km away. I think it was using a 5.8GHz connection.
>> The service worked just fine. As you say, George, it doesn't go
>> through hills, so the transceiver was mounted on a 5m pole. That
>> isn't, however, that much of a hardship.
> 
> That surprises me, because Canberra's hills mean that a 19km line of
> sight is challenging (assuming a single transmitter rather than
> repeaters or multiple cells with some kind of cotention-avoidance).

What surprises me is that it works at all through that choking crap that is
polluting the Canberra atmosphere from its major polluter in the bunker on
the hill.


However,  WiMax does look like a reasonably solution for the intermediate
distance/population-density problems -- between where fibre to the node +
SuperADSL won't work, and where satellite with its latency problems is the
only solution.

Obviously with Europe having nearly a million on FTTH, and even countries
like India putting FTTH in like mad, that the real cost of moving to
full-fibre all the way in cities is now obvious.


I would expect now to see within 5 - 10 years:

€  fibre-to-the-home in all cities and country towns out to, say, 5 kms from
exchange.

€ fibre to the node with fibre or copper distribution out from 5 to, say,
10kms

€ Then fibre-feed-to-WiMax for the next ring of farms and homesteads out
from 10 to say 50kms. (ideally with 2.4 GHz frequencies)
 
€ Then satellite outside 50 kms



The WiMax type solution also seems to me to be capable of being used in a
cooperative meshed network, where every homestead has a radio-router which
relays the signals to the next.  That would make it far more reliable
(multipath), and cheaper (lower power), and provide a better coverage area.


-- 
Stewart Fist, writer, journalist, film-maker
70 Middle Harbour Road, LINDFIELD, 2070, NSW, Australia
Ph +61 (2) 9416 7458