[LINK] The PLAN, and broadband speeds?

[Stephen Loosley]

At 10:33 AM 19/06/2007, Saliya Wimalaratne writes:

>> Has anyone seen the detail of this 'new' 'plan'?  Jan
>
> in general, the longer the range, the lower the frequencies used
> (and the lower the bandwidth available per 'channel').. There are
> guys overseas that have done a 5GHz 300km WLAN point-to-point
> ink that they tested at about 5Mbps throughput - but they were using 
> 600mW of tx power, what is claimed to be 'the best' receive sensitive
> equipment in the world, and what looked like about 35dB of homemade
> antenna gain - an EIRP of about 175W! Regards, Saliya

With regards to "The PLAN", perhaps it may include mesh-arrangements?

Being a country cousin on a quite wobbly satellite / wireless connection now
(thanks, Broadband Connect) one is very happy to hear of plans for wireless
light-at-the-end-of-the-fibre on a national scale and therefore perhaps a more
reliable arrangement than my tiny, but try-hard and free, broadband suppliers.
 
However, two points .. if 'The PLAN' includes mesh networking arrangements
then according to this news report today country-dwellers seem stuffed again;

<http://www.theage.com.au/news/wireless--broadband/cheap-wifi-too-slow/2007/06/18/1182019028191.html>

The mesh is slow because it relays data from access point to access point, he
claims .. you want to get them out of the mesh at every node," he says. "We do
this on every third wi-fi node so the hops are tiny (however) Injection points need
power supply continuously (and) we work on 10 injection points per square mile"

"Nobody has high-bandwidth, low-cost networks that deliver," he says. "They are
not telling the truth, not even the WiMax vendors."

--
And, secondly, when country-wide broadband is satisfactorily achieved, we have:

<http://australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,21926920-16123,00.html>

Australian net users were becoming hungrier for bandwidth (but) TeleGeography
research analyst Eric Schoonover said Australian service providers paid some
of the most expensive international data carriage prices in the world. 

"Right now, regards international capacity there are only two routes out - AJC and
Southern Cross," Mr Schoonover said.  Bevan Slattery, chief executive of network
infrastructure provider Pipe Networks, said recent events exposed a serious flaw
in plans by the federal Government and carriers to promise Australian high-speed
broadband services. 

"This is the big fraud on fibre-to-the-node," Mr Slattery said. 

Mr Slattery was referring to plans being considered by the Government to use
fibre to upgrade Telstra's copper access network to carry 50Mbps broadband
services in metropolitan areas. 

Under the current backhaul pricing scheme, consumers with a monthly 80GB
download quota could expect to run a 50Mbps internet service for about three
hours before reaching their download quota, based on data provided by Pipe
Networks. "Just because you've got a faster internet connection doesn't mean
you're going to have a better internet experience," he said. "It just means you'll
use your quota quicker. 

"You know you can get 20Mbps to home, but it's not going to do you any good." 

Traditionally, ISPs have priced their services by shifting the burden of backhaul
pricing and international bandwidth costs to low-end users, Mr Slattery said. 

ISPs had been able to price their services based on the assumption that their
customers use only a portion of their download quota each month, Mr Malone 
said. "Tier three/four internet providers could start feeling the margin squeeze
if high-bandwidth users started moving to their services"   Mahesh Sharma
--

So, without more international links, what speed will *any* broadband plan run? 

Cheers Linkers
Stephen Loosley
Victoria, Australia