[LINK] Wireless rival to NBN in Tasmania

[Tom Worthington]

This morning I talked to Andy Muirhead on ABC Radio Hobart about 
wireless broadband options. Tasmania is getting the first National 
Broadband Network home connections next July. But Optus has announced 60 
new 3G towers to double their wireless broadband coverage in Tasmania 
(which is currently confined mostly to the road between Hobart and 
Launceston). There was concern that people would sign up to a low 
monthly wireless broadband plan and be locked in for 12 months, too late 
to see the NBN provides a better deal: 
<http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/11/05/2734414.htm>.

On radio I explained that the 3G wireless broadband was better for 
people who moved from place to place (including renters). Wireless 3G is 
good for email and web browsing, but not so good for downloading the 
gigabytes of data in a full length feature film.

In theory the 3G can provide 14 Mbit/s which compares well with ADSL2+ 
at 24 Mbit/s and the promised 100 Mbit/s for the NBN. But in reality the 
3G operates at tens or hundreds of kilobits per second depending on 
location and load on the network. I use the Virgn 3G (reseller of the 
Optus service) and this works reliably throughout Canberra, except in my 
lounge room. On a recent trip to Tasmania the Virgin 3G broadband worked 
in Hobart and Launceston, but nowhere I went in between: 
<http://www.tomw.net.au/blog/labels/Tasmanian%20Holiday.html>.

In addition the included amount of data tends to be lower for wireless 
than fixed services and the excess data charges larges (10 to 100 times 
larger).

Andy asked what Tasmania could do with the broadband service. I talked 
on this to the ACS in Launceston, suggesting improving tourism services 
online and specialised wood products: 
<http://www.tomw.net.au/technology/it/information_economy/>.

One thing I forgot to mention is that CSIRO is developing a system for 
"broadband to the bush". This would provide 100 Mbits/s and could use 
existing TV transmitter towers. If they can get it to work this would 
provide a good rural broadband service, but this might take ten years. 
This work is being funded from some of the royalties from CSIRO's 
wireless LAN patent:

---
     "The present invention discloses a wireless LAN, a peer-to-peer 
wireless LAN, a wireless transceiver and a method of transmitting data, 
all of which are capable of operating at frequencies in excess of 10 GHz 
and in multipath transmission environments. This is achieved by a 
combination of techniques which enable adequate performance in the 
presence of multipath transmission paths where the reciprocal of the 
information bit rate of the transmission is short relative to the time 
delay differences between significant ones of the multipath transmission 
paths. In the LANs the mobile transceivers are each connected to, and 
powered by, a corresponding portable electronic device with 
computational ability. ..." <http://www.freepatentsonline.com/5487069.html>
---

John O’Sullivan spoke at the CSIRO ICT Centre symposium last week and 
related how he went from radio astronomy to indoor wireless. He was 
generous in sharing the credit with his colleagues: 
<http://www.csiro.au/science/wireless-LANs--ci_pageNo-2.html>.


-- 
Tom Worthington FACS HLM, TomW Communications Pty Ltd. t: 0419496150
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia  http://www.tomw.net.au
Adjunct Lecturer, The Australian National University t: 02 61255694
Computer Science http://cs.anu.edu.au/people.php?StaffID=140274