[LINK] Senator Coonan on 7:30 Report

[Tom Worthington]

At 07:43 AM 19/06/2007, Richard Chirgwin wrote:
>... And no, I would not expect to be able to take the laptop to the 
>farm shed in this scenario.  ...

A wireless gateway would do for a farmhouse and adjacent shed. I have 
one of these in my home office: it consists of an iBurst wireless 
broadband desktop unit, connected by a short Ethernet cable to a WiFi router.

The iBurst connects to the Internet and relays the data locally via 
WiFi. I have also used this at meetings, sharing the Internet 
connection between several laptops. It works fine and the iBurst and 
WiFi signals do not seem to interfere.

This arrangement should work just as well with WiMax and WiFi on a 
farm. For greater range you could put the WiMax unit and a router in 
a weatherproof enclosure and strap it to the TV antenna mast on the 
roof of the farmhouse. There would have to be consideration of the 
reliability and safety of the equipment in this environment. Power 
could be provided to the unit via the TV antenna cable (as is used 
for powering TV masthead amplifiers), or with a solar panel and 
rechargeable batteries.

Speaking of rechargeable batteries, has anyone given thought to what 
happens to the copper phone lines in areas where the wireless service 
is provided? Customers are likely to use the wireless system for 
phone calls and cancel their wired service. From a public policy 
point of view, it would be cheaper to provision the wireless 
broadband system to provide a reliable phone service, than maintain 
the obsolete copper one.

ps: This talk of communications on the farm reminds me of the old 
days of CB radio. Local firms who make a living out of putting up TV 
and CB antennas will do well selling extra bits and pieces to make 
WiMax go further. No doubt we will have regulatory issues, when 
neighbors realize they can share one WiMax connection.



Tom Worthington FACS HLM tom.worthington at tomw.net.au Ph: 0419 496150
Director, Tomw Communications Pty Ltd            ABN: 17 088 714 309
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617                http://www.tomw.net.au/
Visiting Fellow, ANU      Blog: http://www.tomw.net.au/blog/atom.xml