[LINK] How fast is the NBN?

Tom Worthington tom.worthington at tomw.net.au
Fri Feb 26 08:30:31 AEDT 2016


On 24/02/16 23:11, Glen Turner wrote:
> ... speakers, games consoles, televisions, PVRs, blueray players all  >  want internet. Even the water systems ... doorbells. ...

PVRs, blueray players, water systems and doorbells are are only going to 
be sending a few bytes or kilobytes of control data a day. "Speakers" 
will need a few megabytes. Games consoles and televisions will need more.

> You won't make it through school these days from Year 9 upwards > without access to a computer to make assignment-writing more > 
efficient. ...

The Australian Government estimates that "... a typical distance 
education student will download 15 to 20 gigabytes (GB) of data in a 
month" (Fletcher, 2015): 
http://www.minister.communications.gov.au/paul_fletcher/speeches/commsday_satellite_summit_putting_satellite_to_its_highest_value_uses

That 15 GB is an overestimate (my students need far less for a semester 
long course). But on its own the Internet is not going to make 
assignment writing more efficient: students who are left to copy from 
the Internet are not getting a good education. What is needs is 
educational design which incorporates use of the Internet (which is what 
I am studying at the moment, with school and higher education teachers 
around the world).

> Actually it makes no difference to the need for first mile fibre if > the antenna is within the home or outside the home on a powerpole. > ...

The first mile of fiber is cheap to install. The expensive part is 
getting the fiber from the street into people's homes. It is much easier 
to put an antenna on a pole outside in the street.

> I also think there's still substantial benefit to a "home area > network" for TVs, printers and so on. And one you've got a wifi core 
 >  device, running the Internet to that is a no-brainer. ...

You can have a home network which is then connected to the network in 
the street. The data between the devices in the home need not go outside 
the home (its an "inter-net").


On 25/02/16 01:59, Paul Brooks wrote:

> ... Four to six laptops/desktops each downloading the same antivirus  > database updates hourly. ...

Six laptops seems a lot for the average home of less than three people. 
I doubt that they will have any laptops or desktops in the future. All 
you need is a docking station for your mobile device, to connect it to a 
large screen and keyboard.

There is a crowd-funding campaign for "NexDock", which looks like a 
laptop but uses the processing power of your smartphone: 
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/nexdock-turn-your-smartphone-into-a-laptop--2#/


-- 
Tom Worthington FACS CP, TomW Communications Pty Ltd. t: 0419496150
The Higher Education Whisperer http://blog.highereducationwhisperer.com/
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia  http://www.tomw.net.au
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Legislation

Adjunct Lecturer, Research School of Computer Science, College of 
Engineering & Computer Science, Australian National University
http://people.cecs.anu.edu.au/user/3890 http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4799-8464





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