[LINK] How fast is the NBN?

David Boxall linkdb at boxall.name
Fri Feb 26 14:34:47 AEDT 2016


On 26/02/2016 8:30 AM, Tom Worthington wrote:
> On 24/02/16 23:11, Glen Turner wrote:
> ... 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...
No, it isn't. Rural, regional and remote students typically exceed it. 
For evidence, just pay attention to sites like BIRRR and ICPA. Why do 
you think education departments are going for (from memory) 50 GB per 
student per month on the LTSS?

Conservative spin notwithstanding, fibre is cheap. Its durability makes 
it so. I've heard it said that, over the potential service life, the 
cost of implementing fibre to every premises on the mainland would 
average out to less than $1 per premises per week. Over the same period, 
wireless would need so much maintenance, need replacing so many times 
and consume so much extra power that it would be ludicrously expensive. 
Which isn't to say that it doesn't have a place, just that there are 
more efficient and cost-effective options in most circumstances.

No extreme of bluster and denial will change physics. For example, I 
doubt that any development of wireless will carry multiple 8k video 
streams. Even if the density of transmitters was such that you could 
cook your lunch on the street. I also doubt that video will halt at 8k.

Wireless has its place, but it's not a universal solution, any more than 
fibre is.

-- 
David Boxall                    |  Perfection is achieved, not when
                                |  there is nothing more to add, but
http://david.boxall.id.au       |  when there is nothing left to take
                                |  away.
                                            --Antoine de Saint-Exupery



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