[LINK] Wireless Internet Popular in Australia

[grove at zeta.org.au]

On Tue, 21 Sep 2010, Tom Koltai wrote:


Everything I needed to learn about the wireless vs fibre debate I learnt by 
reading "Fleet of Worlds" by Larry Niven  (ISBN	0765357836, 9780765357830).

In the story, which is set several hundred years in our future, the aliens (puppeteers) 
demostrated their shipyards, where they massaged gigantic chunks of data over 
fibre optic cables.   The aliens had all types of wireless and other protocols available to them,
but when questioned as to why they used fibre rather than wireless, they explained 
pretty much:

i) fibre is incorruptible unless you have direct access to it, so it is hard to hack, wireless 
is easy to snoop and exploit  (that is not say you cannot tap a fibre link, it's supposedly not that hard).

ii) wireless has a tendency to drop out in the prescense of large energy manipulations

iii) you can't run supercomputer grids in real time very well over wireless

and so on......


If it is good enough for the puppeteers, it's good enough for me.....  ;)


rachel


>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: link-bounces at mailman.anu.edu.au
>> [mailto:link-bounces at mailman.anu.edu.au] On Behalf Of Richard Chirgwin
>> Sent: Tuesday, 21 September 2010 1:03 PM
>> To: link at mailman.anu.edu.au
>> Subject: Re: [LINK] Wireless Internet Popular in Australia
>>
>>
>>   Stil - this would appear to be "all wireless types". However, since
>> the ABS gives subscribers as 3.5 million mobile and 33k fixed, the
>> difference may be moot!
>>
>> RC
>
> Well we know that the Fixed Wireless numbers a wrong to start with.
> Excluding USB dongles for laptop and netbooks [2G, 3G] (arguably fixed
> wireless usage as opposed to mobile phone based IP) and concentrating
> only on unwired:
>
> http://thebernoullitrial.wordpress.com/2010/08/07/australian-isp-market-
> share-2009-2010/
>
> Suggested the numbers for unwired alone were 131,103 in December 2009
> indicating growth from a 2005 Zdnet article claiming 75,000 subscribers
>
> http://www.zdnet.com.au/unwired-shareholders-go-slow-on-seven-takeover-b
> id-339283249.htm
>
> An electronic lodgement to ASIC by the Seven Group... suggests that
>
> Quote/ FY10 Revenue was $25.1m, down 26% from FY09 due to a decline in
> Unwired subscribers /Quote
>
> http://www.sevengroup.com.au/_uploads/documents/sevengroup/Investor%20Pr
> esentation%20for%20the%20Year%20Ended%2030%20June%202010.pdf
>
>
>> On 21/09/10 10:34 AM, Stilgherrian wrote:
>>> On 21/09/2010, at 9:43 AM, Richard Chirgwin wrote:
>>>>   Looking at the ABS data itself, I'll correct. I'm not working
>>>> through the whole exercise, but:
>>>>
>>>> Wireless users - 3.5 million
>>>> Wireless downloads - 13.3 thousand TB
>>>>
>>>> DSL - 4.2 million users
>>>> DSL downloads - 142 thousand TB
>>> Is that "wireless" just the mobile wireless, or all wireless types?
>>>
>>> Stil
>>>
>
>
> Paul Budde, suggested in 2008 (pre the NBN announcement) that:
>
> http://www.budde.com.au/Research/2008-Australia-Fixed-Mobile-Telecoms-St
> atistics-tables-only.html
>
> Quote/
> Wireless broadband
>
> The fact that progress in wireless broadband is so painfully slow is
> creating anxiety in the market. The reality is that mobile voice and SMS
> still generate 90% of mobile revenues in coming years. Full-blown,
> end-to-end IP-based wireless broadband infrastructure will not be in
> place until 2012-2015. So the changeover, especially over the next few
> years, will remain rather slow, with an initial change starting perhaps
> later in 2009 when Optus has its nationwide 3G HSDPA network in place.
> Nevertheless we are seeing a real explosion in mobile wireless
> broadband. People are starting to take up an extra subscription: one for
> voice one for data. This will continue for a while before we see more
> combined offerings.
>
> And...
>
> Market Outlook to 2018
>
> The industry is currently experiencing rebalancing and cannibalisation,
> but the underlying growth factors remain high and demand for high-speed
> infrastructure will outperform supply. This means significant growth in
> new IP-based NGN systems. That, in turn, will open up the market for
> digital media services, applications, video content hosting and
> distribution. By the end of 2018, FttH and wireless broadband will be
> widely available and will be used by the telecoms, IT and media
> industries.
>
> /Quote
>
> Of course we have covered the lack of spectrum and/or the need for
> thousands of towers to supplant FTTH with wireless in previous threads
> and Paul obviously knows how to calculate spectrum versus users times
> bandwidth.
>
>
>
> TomK
>
>
>
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-- 
Rachel Polanskis                 Kingswood, Greater Western Sydney, Australia
grove at zeta.org.au                http://www.zeta.org.au/~grove/grove.html
    "The perversity of the Universe tends towards a maximum." - Finagle's Law