John Linton let alone the 'NBN2'.....because - well - because stupid and ignorant people without a clue say things like that.
Telstra's switch on of LTE services yesterday:
http://technologyspectator.com.au/industry/telecommunications/telstra-4g-strategic-call
in four capital city CBDs continues to demonstrate that the planned development path for wireless telephony and data services that has been in place for the best part of 30 years continues to meet its published milestones either on or before the scheduled dates. For many people, including me and other Exetel managers as well as well over ten thousand of Exetel's customers, using wireless broadband in Australia and around the world has become the only broadband service we use outside our various workplaces. Of course we don't use a Telstra service but the Optus/Exetel service we do use is a more than adequate replacement of ADSL - and its at a much lower cost........
......and that has become, as it was always going to, the key issue. For $35.00 a month any user can obtain a 9 gb plan that, for over 50% of Exetel broadband users is more than their combined upload and download monthly usage. Ignoring the massive advantage of wireless broadband (that it can be used anywhere that a signal is available in Australia or anywhere else in the world) the continuing increase in speed and the continual lowering of cost, as set out on the published development path, leads any sensible person to only one view of what technology will be used by a considerable and increasing percentage of the market in the near and medium term.
LTE/4G netorks in the US and EU are already providing much faster speeds than ADSL as can be seen here:
http://delimiter.com.au/2011/06/07/telstra-doubles-bundled-data-quotas/
and these networks will rapidly grow in terms of areas serviced.
Before the end of calendar 2011 the ABS statistics will almost certainly show that there are more wireless broadband users than ADSL users in Australia. This will simply mirror world statistics:
http://www.infonetics.com/pr/2011/Fixed-and-Mobile-Subscribers-Market-Highlights.asp
What those statistics won't immediately show is that it has taken only four years for that to have happened with wireless broadband having zero users in late 2007 with ADSL beginning to be available in late 2001. Statistics don't begin to tell the whole, or even in this instance, the 'real' story. As TPG has clearly demonstrated in the ADSL markets - price is a key determinant of acceptance of a service. When wireless broadband prices fell to near or below ADSL service prices (ignoring the cost of having to have a telephone line) a real, and ongoing, change began to happen in the data marketplaces. Just how that change will continue to develop is pretty clear but it won't be clear enough to some people for a while.
One of the, many, mis-assumptions by Stupid Stephen's advisers allowed him to spit out in unguarded moment (during one of his uncounted fits of public pique) was his typical union thug response to a question on his assertion that 90% of people will take up the 'NBN2' was - "because they will have no choice because we will rip out all the copper". Typical thuggish response from a thug. But, oh dear, such crass stupidity and lack of understanding of both technology and marketplaces. By the time, if there ever is such a time, that Telstra is forced to "rip out its copper" all that will happen is that more people will change from using ADSL to wireless than will change from using ADSL to 'NBN2'....why?.....because wireless will be less expensive and more than adequate for probably over 60% of all possible customer's needs. (no not the copyright thieves nor the shoot em up games players - the 60% of honest people with lives).
I could be quite wrong - I am on many occasions - but I doubt whether any real analysis exists of what will happen when/if PSTN is no longer available. Somehow I doubt that any such analysis has ever been done. Technology is inexorable. It doesn't stop developing just because a pea brained politician tries to grasp concepts that are totally beyond him/her. For those people who continue to mouth off about how wireless will "never" be anything it might be interesting for them to check wireless progress over the past thirty years....or even the last four?
Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2011
ABN 350 979 865 46