[LINK] Wireless Broadband for Regional Australia

[Karl Auer]

On Fri, 2013-12-27 at 10:48 +1100, Frank O'Connor wrote:
> How much a 4G Tower would be worth, other than as an eyesore, after 10
> years in service is highly debatable. I'm guessing it would be largely
> obsolete by then.

The hardware attached to it, maybe. The tower will still be in good nick
(unless they built it poorly) and people can upgrade the hardware
cheaply and easily. The real danger to towers is a changing landscape or
cityscape around them; in that sense, especially in urban areas, towers
can become obsolete quickly. But in rural areas, less so.

Upgrading a satellite is massively expensive.

> Let's analyse 638ms. That's .638 of a second.
> Now sure, for online games and the like .638 of a second is the
> difference between nailing an opponent or getting fragged ... but for
> somewhat more productive high bandwidth uses the Bush would put it
> to? 

It's the difference between cured and killed in telemedicine. It's the
difference between bearable interactive (ANY interactive) and unusable.

> For pricing and trading

Maybe. Certainly not for high-speed, computerised trading. No sniping on
Ebay, that's for sure.

> , for online education and instruction

Only the sit and absorb variety. Ever tried talking to someone with a
0.6s delay? Adults might be able to be educated with such systems, kids
will walk away. Actually, so will most adults.

> , for buying and selling stuff online

Yep. But not providing your own services online.

> for doing research

ditto

> , for accessing health and welfare services

ditto (but certainly not any kind of live interaction with a medical
professional)

> , for e-mail and sending and receiving instructional videos, large
> files and attachments, and the like ....

yep, yep, yep.

>  satellite would be ideal.

Nope. Satellite would be *acceptable* maybe, if the alternative was
worse. But it is not "ideal" for anything at all except TV-style
delivery. And fibre is still better even for that.

>  For contacting friends, relatives and the like in real time (by
> phone, chat or whatever) it would suck, but the old radio phone
> service and the like is already in place for when serious real time is
> needed (if you can't stomach the delay).

I.e., give up. And what's "serious real-time" anyway? More to the point,
what kind of real-time is "non-serious"?

> The point is that for any number of uses high bandwidth satellite
> would be a huge improvement on what they already have, and a stop gap
> until the NBN (or some local company looking to make a buck) ran the
> fibre land line to their door.

No - satellite is big improvement only if what you had before was damn
close to nothing at all. For anyone else it is a marginal improvement at
best, with other, new downsides, better only in the inbound bandwidth
department.

All your examples, by the way, see the user in the "Bush" sitting there
consuming some service or other, There's a flip side - the ability of
the people in remoter areas to provide digital services, to be producers
rather than consumers. If they are behind a 0.6s eight-ball, that's out
the window.

It is critically important that we never let the pollies ever hear a
positive word about satellite, or they will grab it with both hands and
foist it on anyone who is more than 30cm off an existing fibre path.

Satellite is acceptable only where connectivity is absolutely essential,
and absolutely nothing else is possible. Latency is a disaster, the
wrecker of all forms of interactivity, all forms of live exchange of
information. Don't accept it; tell any ignorant bastard that offers it
as some kind of "alternative" to stick it up their jumper.

Regards, K.

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Karl Auer (kauer at biplane.com.au)
http://www.biplane.com.au/kauer
http://twitter.com/kauer389

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