John Linton ....and of course at a much lower cost and much faster than Stupid Stephen's nonsensical/election sound bite 'project'.
Getting on for three years ago now I became interested in delivering data over the current mobile networks (long before the Australian carriers began to roll out their versions of their various implementations). I became interested because we had begun to consider our own ADSL2 DSLAM roll out, conceptually, and I wanted to get an idea of alternatives and also some general direction of where data communications might be going in the future. I knew, just as everybody else who had been associated with communications in Australia for more than five minutes, that any future solution that was dependent on 'land lines' of any sort would have the cost controlled by Telstra and therefore literally ANY OTHER solution would be more viable for a tiny company like Exetel.
Now, I would be the first person to unequivocally state that my engineering and technical knowledge is at best conceptual and mostly pretty useless. However faced with a major, to us, investment I had no option but to try and work out what were the best, in financial terms, options for a tiny company with only it's director's personal money available to it and no 'business track record' to make it easy to get a substantial lease. The provision by Optus and Powertel (as it then was) of residential ADSL2 services shortly after I started looking eased the immediacy of the decision which we gratefully deferred but I continued to investigate wireless via the various European web sites and news letters that were devoted to its progress.
I became aware that 3G and its successor 4G/LTE was going to play a very significant part in data communications before the end of the 'noughties' and this article today shows that the improbable scenarios being 'painted' back in 2006 are now not only becoming a reality but becoming a reality ahead of what looked like, then, unrealistic schedules:
http://www.itwire.com/content/view/22608/127/
It will be interesting to see just where the Scandinavians, Germans, Japanese and Verizon deploy 100 mbps data over mobile and what they do with it in the initial stages. So far, it's very impressive the ways in which these developments have continued, mainly in the EU, not only on the projected schedules but continually ahead of the original estimated schedules.
I'm not beginning to say that LTE is the be all and end all of data communications (I have only a very limited understanding of what spectrum costs and availability might be at these speeds) but you have to wonder why Stupid Stephen and the equally stupid Krudd (who admittedly both know damn all about any aspect of communications technology) are still pursuing an "NBN" when it must be perfectly obvious to people of even their limited intellects that the obvious 'way forward' is to 'allow' the major cities and regional centres to continue with the development of the copper/fibre networks already in place and use GSM/LTE to provide high speed access in the rural and remoter regional areas.
Even they, completely knowledge bereft as they continually demonstrate themselves to be, must have noticed reports such as this:
http://www.itwire.com/content/view/22620/127/
which give some indication of how data over HSPA is growing around Australia.
As I said well over a year ago now - providing 'assistance' to FOUR commercial GSM carriers to upgrade their data over mobile commercial roll outs in rural areas (oh wait - that was the OPEL concept wasn't it?) is going to provide true competition with no need for new regulation (and the concomitant legal issues) and it will be an 'immediate' solution. Obviously far too simple and obvious for the current bunch of morons in Canberra to figure out - maybe they haven't got a proverbial "back of a bus ticket and a blunt pencil"?
Now that Exetel is an 'expert' on data over mobile (having activated a huge 1,000 HSPA users!!) I can unequivocally state that our obvious thinking from three years ago about how to provide high speed broad band to rural Australia by 2009 at the same, or very similar prices that it's supplied to Sydney and Melbourne users, has turned out to be absolutely correct with a Yagi antenna proving itself very useful in adding significantly to the range of the current 3G mobile networks.
I, obviously, don't know what the current mobile carrier's plans (and budgets) are to continue to boost the speed and true coverage of their mobile networks. However it must be stunningly obvious, even to SS and Krudd, that if the current proposed "NBN funding" was used as a long term LOAN (or in the current 'new Labor' concept - providing Federal AAA rated borrowing guarantees to the carriers who then get the loans themselves - even cheaper for the tax payer) to the current mobile carriers on some tender basis then rural high speed broadband would be a reality practically 'over night' at NO cost to the Australian tax payer and they would avoid the extended 'litigation' and pointless delays that their current course of action will involve.
The Federal Government would, as a matter of policy, license the spectrum at no charge to the mobile carriers in rural areas to ensure the widest possible deployment at the lowest possible cost - wouldn't they? - of course they would.
Hey - and Australia would get true, and true ongoing, competition in the provision of high speed data communications throughout Australia without 'touching' Telstra and new low pricing would be a permanent reality!!
Why on Earth didn't I get to be Minister Of Communications in Australia - it isn't rocket surgery?