Friday, September 3. 2010The 'Need' For Speed And Lower Pricing.....John Linton .......has been the 'defence' for the 'need' for an Australia wide fibre network since Krudd tried to hide yet another of his mindless 'election winning' broken promises after his 'NBN1' fell in the heap it was always destined to. Telstra's latest announcement: is simply yet another example of how/why new technologies continue to deliver more for less as time passes. In itself it is not that important but as yet another 'mile stone' on the development path for wireless technology in Australia it is significant. The plan of $69.00 for 6 gb over 24 months (including wireless modem) is quite a step forward if you go back to the beginning of wireless broadband's very brief 'history' in Australia. Detractors of wireless, of course, never want to do that because, of course, it invalidates their view that only wire/fibre based broadband can provide 'true internet' for all Australians. Wireless technology has a clearly mapped out future development path (and has had since the EU put in place the 'standards' for developing mobile telephony across its members. Over the past ten years that 'road map' has proven to be very accurate in terms of both implementation times and technical achievements. If I wanted to be particularly bloody minded I would point out the wireless broadband has developed 5 times faster in 3 years than wire line broadband has done in ten years and covers far more of Australia's geography that ADSL ever will. But the key difference is that wireless broadband is less than 40% along its KNOWN development path and hasn't really begun to reach the scale that will allow pricing to reduce to achievable levels that only come with higher adoption by more countries resulting in far lower hardware pricing and much greater efficiencies of spectrum usage. The other interesting facet of Telstra's announcement was the speed at which it implies that 50% of Australian demographics will be able to use the new much faster, and cheaper, wireless services - almost immediately. While "50%" and "almost immediately" have to be taken in context it still demonstrates how much faster it is to add/replace some hardware on a 'tower' than it is to build a new Australia wide network. Sure, once you have spent some uncosted amount of money and undetermined amount of time you will be in the same position but just how much will that cost and just how long will that take? No-one, including Treasury based on their recently released papers, has any idea. What will wireless technology be capable of delivering in whatever time it actually takes to get a fibre connection in regional Australia? There is little doubt, based on the 4G/LTE 'road maps' that wireless broadband will continue to get faster and there is even less doubt that it will continue to get cheaper. By the end of 2011 wireless broadband will be faster, cheaper and more ubiquitous in Australia than Telstra's own ADSL2 network which is 3 times larger than any of its competitors. The only thing wireless will not be able to deliver is 'terabyte' downloads for $100.00 a month. But for 60% plus, more probably 75% plus, of internet users it will be able to provide more than they need in terms of speed, downloads and price per month than any ADSL2 service can do and that is the problem it poses for even the most stupid of 'NBN2' "supporters and proposers". Is a Labor coterie of completely unknowledgeable people trying to 'cling to power' by borrowing unknown billions building a network that, at most, only 25% of the projected market would ever contemplate using and perhaps not even that many? But even that isn't the real point. The real point is that technology moves so quickly and offers so many diverse 'paths' that then split in to so many more diverse paths that NO government (command economy or quasi democracy) has the knowledge necessary to make such decisions. Ignoring that the current nonsense of an 'NBN2' came about because an about to be disgraced politician attempted to cover up his ridiculous lies it wouldn't be possible for ANY government to make ANY decision on ANY technology scenario. The reason that technology is delivered to the possible buyers by multiple commercial vendors is because some decisions will be wrong at any point in time and those companies will collapse but others, who got that particular call correct, will continue. In the meantime the end users will continue to get a service at the best possible price and at the greatest possible 'technology level'. It's been the case for 4,000 years....only children, the welfare dependent and the poorly educated don't understand that simple fact. Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2010 Trackbacks
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I would be interested in knowing whether there is enough available wireless spectrum to support the projected increases in internet use.
"Global IP traffic will increase by a factor of four from 2009 to 2014, approaching 64 exabytes per month in 2014, compared to approximately 15 exabytes per month in 2009.......By 2014, the various forms of video (TV, VoD, Internet Video, and P2P) will exceed 91 percent of global consumer traffic. " http://www.cisco.com/en/US/netsol/ns827/networking_solutions_sub_solution.html#~forecast Comments (2)
You're right on the money John. People DO want mobility and wireless CAN deliver into the future.
LTE is actually termed 3.9G because it doesn't go all the way to 1Gbps. LTE Advanced is actually in the works and will go all the way to 1Gbps with 100Mhz of spectrum! It's very hard to get in contact with you, I have a research project which I am going to collaborate with Monash University. >100Gpbs internet speeds (I know... that isn't really a real life benefit) all for around $20/mo (but that is). Can you please contact me so I can give you the details? Comments (2)
You can email:
j.linton@exetel.com.au but my 'knowledge' if it can be called that is based on broad brush trends that give early information for current decisions. Comments (5)
Wow, that "put a face to the name" page is amazing! Tele-customer service-with-a-face will be revolutionary - it's so much more friendly! Especially with the Sri Lankans, you instantly see them as "people" with a life, and better understand that outsourcing helps them and us.
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You are spot on with the pictures. I had a really good experience recently with some very quick and helpful service via email.
Basically I was sitting on my lounge trying to fine tune my voip settings. I was getting very quick response including some remoting into my router to check th ebest settings etc. It was quite surreal to think I was watching TV with the kids whilst communicating with someone in Sri Lanka who was fine tuning my router... I jumped straight onto that page to see who it was I was 'talking' with. Comment (1)
John, I think you're insight is impeccable in this matter. My hope is that any broadband policy will see the light and use wireless.
The arguments I've seen against it are appalling. One such argument is around the sharing of bandwidth - that the number of people on a cell will decrease your available bandwidth and that fibre delivers 100Mbps (or whatever it will be) direct to the door. Such an arguement fails to recognize that there is aggregation in every system and more than likely the same conditions that would cause congestion on a cell would in an alternative fibre solution have congestion at some local router. The whole public discussion on this has been full of misinformation delivered by vested interests. I'm with you, let the market decide. Comments (2)
There you have the core of the problem - "public discussion".
At what point in the history of the human race has the "public" ever had enough knowledge to even understand technology let alone express an opinion on it? Comments (5)
Or economics, or social welfare, or education, or immigration ....
Yet the "public" vote! Don't get me started. Technology is only one area. The "myschool.edu.au" webset is another where the "public" are misled by a lack of understanding - in that case a lack of statistics. I think it is possible to inform the "public" without technical information but nobody is interested in doing it (the truth is inconvenient) and it seems the public aren't really that interested in learning the truth. In general, people only say what will further their interest and the "public" will tend to listen to the message that confirms their current beliefs. Comments (2)
The problem with wireless is that speeds are variable depending on location, time and the number of users. Telstra might be touting 42 Mbps peak speeds but there a lots of users reporting sub 1 Mbps (down to 100 kbps) on Telstra's NextG network.
The spectral efficiency of 4G is good but it certainly cannot cope if 70% of the population moves their primary internet access to wireless. With spectrum potentially divided among half a dozen operators (or more), it'll be a nightmare trying to choose a wireless provider for your area. Wireless as the primary internet access medium is good for low-density locations (such as rural Australia) but it just doesn't add up in high density areas like inner Melbourne or Sydney. Comment (1)
The actual results of the Next G upgrade are less than amazing (3Mbits in Sydney, up to 6Mbits in Dubbo with one subscriber per cell)
http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2010/09/testing-high-speed-wireless-broadband-in-dubbo/ Given that 100Mbit and Gigabit were practically the same price when NBNCo started collecting quotes for Fibre, I think there's still an argument that Fibre will outpace Wireless by at least a factor of 10 for at least the next 20 years. Comment (1)
GL, not sure what you mean by less than amazing.. to get 3/6 on a 21Mbps carrier implies a contention rate of 1 in 5 to 7 or so. DSL (and fibre services) are generally contended at 1 in 50 at the DSLAM/POI bottleneck. Each of the 200 NBN style POIs will support 50,000 end lines... to provide uncontended 100Mbps service you would need 5 terabits per POI to make that work. This is more than Australia's entire lit capacity to the outside world. You simply will not get anywhere near 100Mbps at decent download quotas for the NBN in the forseeable future - the transit and backhaul costs to support it would be prohibitive. At current prices, it would cost well over $500 monthly to provide such a service. You would need to get the unit cost of capacity beyond the POI down by around 95% to even get into the league of affordability for these services.
Check out the new Singapore NBN plans - headlined at 150Mbps but shaped down to 15Mbps for all international downloads! Yes, 15Mbps - an ADSL2 speed! Comment (1)
If wireless is so good, why then does anybody "who knows" and has used HSPA wireless regularly state that latency is a major issue? Has wireless gone completely wrong in it's implementation in AU?
Latency is just one of the "issues", it isn't a lonely one. IF wireless can provide solutions to all the real problems that real people are seeing today, then why hasn't it to date? Or do we just have to wait a few years for it to really catch up with it's promised benefits -- in the meantime, fibre will go forward in leaps and bounds at a greater order of magnitude. Give me wireless any day for pure mobility, but not for low latency, reliable speeds. Heck, if fibre works out well, whose to say that local areas won't be able to put together better local WLAN open access points or a mesh network to make mobility a "free" benefit of being in an area that is suitably setup to provide such an opportunity. Comments (3)
Andrew,
As every single thing Exetel does is 'crap' why don't you move on and represent a company that does something right. I am sick of your negativity. Comments (5)
Please sir, I differ on your opinion in some musings and offer alternative views to the reality as I see it? I must just be an idiot as you imply time and time again.
I DO NOT think everything Exetel does is wrong; that is simply a very big stretch. Having different views on topics "that matter" is something that is normal and I am not a "yes" man. I speak my mind just as you do and have a fair right to be heard just the same. Comments (3)
Besides, which part of my post had anything to do with Exetel? It was purely about wireless and I did ask why has AU not got the kind of implementation that doesn't have issues that people are raising -- lots of people.
I would be very happy to hear solutions to the issues, if they do, in fact exist. And why such solutions are not properly in place today. Comments (3)
We previously used virgin broadband @ home, it is a (fixed) wireless service provided using a modem/router that also allowed you to make calls over the mobile phone network. Latency was terrible and often web pages would not load as a result if we did not give up in frustration first. VBB@home is a particularly notorious service but as a result we would be reluctant to try wireless again as main broadband.
We are now happily using Exetel naked ADSL without problems. It was actually Andrew that signed us up and I thought he represented you very well and that his quality service probably saves you a fair amount of support from more needy customers. I will recommend any friends needing an ISP to contact him. Comment (1)
You, like most other people who extrapolate from their personal experiences assume that:
a) Your experience is/was general b) Your experience will never get better as networks are enhanced and increased. c) Your supplier wasn't under provisioning their part of the network and it had nothing to do with the real network capacity. Do you remember the ADSL experience in 2001? Comments (5)
No, I really don't. I have read on your forums and elsewhere about people that have very positive experiences even using voip over wireless. I am just sharing my experience and how as a result I personally would be reluctant to use it as my main service (and I know that VBB@home was a particularly poor service and technology always improves with time). The best thing about Exetel's wireless services is that I can try again if/when I feel inclined without having to commit to an expensive plan I won't use (When I bought my modem/router I ensured it supported usb wireless modems). For now I'm happy with exetel naked ADSL.
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I am confused. Why dont people mention the prices of symetrical lines when talking about contention ratios re: NBN ?
Am I missing something beyond the SLA ? Comment (1)
...because the 'NBN2' is nothing more than an uncosted/unscheduled political stunt perpetrated by a discredited political zero.
No-one, let alone Treasury, has any idea about what it is other than it, temporarily, diverted attention from the dummy who made it up to save face when his previous nonsense fell in a heap. Comments (5)
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