John Linton
Yesterday I met with some people we have done business with over the past three years to determine what, if anything, we could do together to put in place a Wimax/3G solution to overcome the current price limitations of paying for a largely redundant telephone line (needed by ADSL) while also overcoming the incredibly high cost of data delivered over the current mobile network structures. I have been having similar discussions with two other 'groups' and maybe, just maybe, there is a glimmer of hope on the far horizon.
We made the decision not to install ADSL2 dslams some two years ago because, at least I, couldn't see any point in making mojor investments in a 25 year old sunset technology (and yes I'm aware that copper in the ground has had a usable life of over 100 years and counting) that also ensured that you relied on Telstra to make it operable and the backhaul costs were such that there was every chance that you could never really deliver a service that would make an ROI inside 10 - 12 years - and that ROI was so dependent on so many factors it just wasn't a sensible risk.
WiMax and 3G have the great attraction of being sunrise technologies and removing any dependence on Telstra and getting rid of the, largely obsolete, residential telephone line. They have the obvious problems of being dependent on Telstra replacements (mobile network owners or new wireless network owners) and relatively limited data capacities; at least at the moment. Right now the "wholesale" cost of 1 gb of data over a 3G network makes any consideration pointless. However, Unwired, for all its limitations and issues provides data at an affordable cost to the retail and wholesale buyer but has location and capacity issues - it also has an ongoing worrying characteristic of losing a lot of money every year. Maybe the prospective 'merger' with Engin, backed by Channel 7's money will change that scenario but it seems unlikely that any such entity will wholesale its services at any realistic price.
So the glimmer of hope is based on a premise that data costs on an IN (or some equivalent basis) will become acceptable in the not too distant future if a persuasive enough argument can be made that a 3G network provider will find attractive enough. There are a lot of dependencies in that sentence. The reason I'm mildly encouraged is that as I continue to gain a better understnding of the way mobile and wireless carriers view the future marketplaces and opportunities (and as I learn far more about the technologies) it seems that there is a real place for a 'wholesale' distribution of data services premised on some aspects of business that are, at least currently, not immediately available to a 3G carrier.
Anyway I'm encouraged enough to trial a couple of low end data over 3G plans and see what the reality can become in a shorter timeframe than I originaly had in mind - perhaps as early as May 2008.