John Linton ....at least it does in the USA:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704405704576063810512813874.html?mod=WSJ_Tech_RIGHTTopCarousel_1
and as reported in the Australian comms media both Telstra and Optus have been 'trialling' LTE on their Australian networks. While the dummies will scoff at this development with their stupid "wireless will never be as fast as fibre" nonsenses the point about this article is that wireless broadband has had a 'universally' accepted 'road map' of future technological development for the past almost ten years and delivered services have continued to have been commercially rolled out on time or ahead of those agreed schedules throughout that period.
The fact is that a commercial wireless broadband service operating at current wire line broadband speeds is now being delivered in the USA and while it's current prices are highish - prices of technology services only go one way. Everything that has happened with 2G, 3G and now 4G has been agreed by the world's major carriers and equipment manufacturers years in advance and all of the agreed advances have been delivered to end users on time and within an ever reducing costing scenario. So as ADSL reaches its point of terminal decline wireless reaches another milestone - being able to deliver the speeds that ADSL reaches (and unlike ADSL with no current end in sight to how much faster wireless speeds will become - current plans are for in excess of 150 mbps).
But what about the download 'restrictions'? 70% of Exetel's current users download less than 10 gbps per month and I would think that percentage would be higher for most other internet providers - possibly TPG would have a lower percentage but I have no idea. As wireless requires no wire line cost it has a built in $30.00 a month cost of use advantage that makes the CURRENT US pricing lower than ADSL (now at the equivalent speeds of ADSL) for a huge percentage of current users. So in general terms it has taken less than three years for wireless broadband to reach both the speeds and costs to something like 70% of end users and its only at the very beginning of its, universally agreed, development path.
From being a few percent of the market for data services it has become close to 20% and rapidly growing. Its inherent advantage over wire line internet is, of course, its 'use anywhere at any time' capability and the 'anywhere' component continues to expand day by day. I, personally (and Exetel generally) were neither clever nor insightful to form the views three years ago that wireless would overtake ADSL in terms of user numbers within five years. We are now three years in to that prediction period and, from everything I can see, there is no reason to change that view. The ABS numbers due out in February will undoubtedly confirm that view.
On a semi related topic (the difficulties in the ADSL residential business partly caused by the growth of wireless broadband) you can get a good laugh out of reading the latest EFtel 'announcement' and obfuscations here:
http://newsstore.fairfax.com.au/apps/previewDocument.ac?sy=smh&ss=SMH&docID=GCA01139280EFT&backTo%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fmarkets.smh.com.au%2Fapps%2Fqt%2Fquote.ac%3Fcode%3DEFT
Every single statement is totally misleading with the "top ten ISP" claim simply blatantly lying. What it is really saying about the company is up to you to determine if you bother to read it. A clue to what sort of company EFTel has become can be gleaned from their "new offices":
http://perth.burgessrawson.com.au/pol/property/search.asp?f_propertyID=1125145&xsl=4107&f_st=3&f_ct=&f_ps=4
Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2011
ABN 350 979 865 46