Re: [LINK] Wireless Broadband for Regional Australia
On 30/12/2013 10:55 AM, Jan Whitaker wrote: ... did they just do this on the back of an envelope? ... From what I see, that would have been an improvement. Development of the current proposal seems to have started with the outcome and worked back from there. As a rural, though not particularly remote, Australian I'm worried. The copper won't last forever. When it finally gives up the ghost, will it be replaced: - with fibre? - with copper? - at all? I fear that I'll be left relying on wireless for all of my communications. That might seem ridiculous, but our current government is barking mad on the issue (IMHO). -- David Boxall | Cheer up they said. | Things could be worse. http://david.boxall.id.au| So I cheered up and, | Sure enough, things got worse. | --Murphy's musing ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] Wireless Broadband for Regional Australia
On 28/12/13 17:41, Richard responded to my posting of 28/12/13: ... anywhere genuinely fast connections are available, and people subscribe to them like mad? Good question. Does anyone have statistics for the take-up rate for high speed broadband in other countries? The take-up rate for the NBN in Tasmania was reported to be 38.5% after three years: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-08-16/questions-over-nbn-take-up-rate-in-tasmania/4892792 The previous government was not too worried about the NBN take-up rate, as the copper network was to be switched off, so consumers would not have much of a choice. And look at the trade-offs. The picocell model ... Yes, there are disadvantages to wireless broadband, but it is being installed for mobile users anyway. My suggestion was that rather than install two separate broadband infrastructures, the one infrastructure could be used for mobile and home users. The one fibre backbone would have cells attached as well as copper and fibre connections to homes. To expand on my posting: ... With advanced video compression 4K TV can be carried on existing free-to-air TV spectrum and wireless broadband. ... The advanced compression I had in mind is the HEVC codec, which is reported to allow HD TV at 6 Mbps and 4k TV at 12 to 30 Mbps. This could be carried on a 4G LTE-A network, using the Multicast-broadcast single-frequency network (MBSFN) option. See: 1. In High-efficiency video coding will help bring 4K video to internet TV (Network World, 01/25/13), Steven Vaughan-Nichols suggests that the HEVC codec will allow 4k TV at 20 to 30Mbps: http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/high-efficiency-video-coding-will-help-bring-4k-video-internet-tv 2. In Netflix is bringing 4K streaming to TVs with H.265 and House of Cards (GEEK NEWSLETTER, 19 Dec 2013), Russell Holly suggests 12 and 15 Mbps: http://www.geek.com/news/netflix-is-bringing-4k-streaming-to-tvs-with-h-265-and-house-of-cards-1580160/ 3. Multicast-broadcast single-frequency network (MBSFN): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multicast-Broadcast_Single_Frequency_Network Home health care doesn't need high bandwidth. ... A person's vital signs (body temperature, heart rate, blood pressure, and respiratory rate) would only need about 10 bps to transmit. More sophisticated monitors require more bandwidth, bit still far short of broadband, such as such as electrocardiography at 4 kbps: http://www.researchgate.net/publication/228876616_Performance_analysis_of_the_IEEE_802.15._4_based_ECG_monitoring_network/file/79e4150e8748b7d578.pdf But the greatest benefit from home health monitoring is likely to come from checking on the patient's general level of activity and asking them how they are. Advice to doctors, commissioned by the Department of Health recommends a minimum of 640 x 480 Video, with a minimum throughput on the link of 384kbit/s should be available, which far less than high speed broadband: http://www.mbsonline.gov.au/internet/mbsonline/publishing.nsf/Content/connectinghealthservices-guidance On-line education doesn't need high speed broadband, it needs trained teachers and some educational content. ... While students like rich multimedia, this does not necessarily improve learning. The report Evaluation of Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning: A Meta-Analysis and Review of Online Learning Studies from the US Department of Education found that video does not improve online learning: http://www.ed.gov/rschstat/eval/tech/evidence-based-practices/finalreport.pdf Australia now has free Internet access in public libraries, which is an achievement. ... Internet in libraries builds on the library's traditional role providing access to information and literacy. Universities and TAFEs are turning their libraries into learning centres, with computers in place of books. They are keeping the staff to help the students, not only work the computers but with finding, using and creating information: http://lib.dr.iastate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4193context=etd The Gungahlin Town Centre Library in Canberra is a good example, where the one building accommodates the public library, a school library, a TAFE campus and broadband connected community rooms. This could be extended to provide support for university students as well: http://blog.highereducationwhisperer.com/2013/09/university-satellite-campuses-like-co.html -- Tom Worthington, PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia http://www.tomw.net.au ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] Wireless Broadband for Regional Australia
At 10:27 AM 30/12/2013, Tom Worthington wrote: Australia now has free Internet access in public libraries, which is an achievement. ... So what? QOS is bad. The problem is contention for bandwidth in those places and lack of trained IT staff. Neither come cheap to provide. Our library does offer free wifi, but the performance is shaky most of the time. And the lack of trained staff in other places, such as another facility we used to use, was hair-pulling frustration. The lack of reliability meant it may have well been turned off for the good it did us. Plug and play would have been nice from the NBN. That ain't going to happen now. And wireless won't solve the local provision problems. Has anyone done a serious multifactorial analysis of these systems to find out what the optimum combinations are in terms of location, demand, cost, functionality etc.? Was any of that in the provisioning studies done for either the original NBN or the NBN-lite, with future expansion needs? Or did they just do this on the back of an envelope? Any linkers involved tangentially to this directly? I'm tired of the speculation. Melbourne, Victoria, Australia jw...@janwhitaker.com Sooner or later, I hate to break it to you, you're gonna die, so how do you fill in the space between here and there? It's yours. Seize your space. ~Margaret Atwood, writer _ __ _ ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] Wireless Broadband for Regional Australia
On 26/12/13 13:54, Frank O'Connor wrote: ... Factor in Super High Res TV ... With advanced video compression 4K TV can be carried on existing free-to-air TV spectrum and wireless broadband. home care/monitoring/treatment of the elderly and infirm ... Home health care doesn't need high bandwidth. It needs a trained medical professionals and some software. online education ... On-line education doesn't need high speed broadband, it needs trained teachers and some educational content. ... Don't let yourself suffer from a failure of imagination Proposing more bandwidth does not take a lot of imagination. What takes imagination is coming up with credible uses for high speed broadband, or at least ones where someone is willing to pay for. ...high standard network rather than the fragmented high maintenance hodge-podge that's being proposed. ... What I proposed was to run fibre run down each suburban street, with a pico-cell (about the size of a loaf of bread) on an electricity pole for every six homes. Those who wanted could have FTTN or FTTH from the same fibre, provided they were willing to pay the installation cost. The fact that you and I are likely to be dead before the network is in place is irrelevant ... It should not take more than a decade to put in place high speed broadband, which I hope is within my lifetime. Our generation hasn't exactly been studded with achievement. ... Australia now has free Internet access in public libraries, which is an achievement. A new goal could be to provide post-secondary education, up to a bachelors degree level, free on-line, to all citizens. Most students would still have to go to a campus for part of their education and pay some fees, but could do some vocational certificates and degrees completely on-line for free. We could invite others in our region to join our students on-line, for a modest fee. While this is not quite the same as fighting a world war, or tunnelling the Snowy Hydro Scheme, it would be a worthwhile goal in cultural and economic terms. -- Tom Worthington FACS CP, TomW Communications Pty Ltd. t: 0419496150 The Higher Education Whisperer http://blog.highereducationwhisperer.com/ PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia http://www.tomw.net.au Liability limited by a scheme approved under Professional Standards Legislation Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Research School of Computer Science, Australian National University http://cs.anu.edu.au/courses/COMP7310/ ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] Wireless Broadband for Regional Australia
[snip] ... Don't let yourself suffer from a failure of imagination Proposing more bandwidth does not take a lot of imagination. What takes imagination is coming up with credible uses for high speed broadband, or at least ones where someone is willing to pay for. How do you reconcile that statement with what happens anywhere genuinely fast connections are available, and people subscribe to them like mad? Others have asked this, Tom, and you dodge it as irrelevant: why do you consider fixed-mobile broadband to be an exclusive-or decision? If it's from your personal usage, it's an anecdote rather than evidence. ...high standard network rather than the fragmented high maintenance hodge-podge that's being proposed. ... What I proposed was to run fibre run down each suburban street, with a pico-cell (about the size of a loaf of bread) on an electricity pole for every six homes. Those who wanted could have FTTN or FTTH from the same fibre, provided they were willing to pay the installation cost. I'll ask again: from what we know now that the new government's policy is public, the huge savings from a node deployment are relatively trivial. Why should an incremental benefit be sought at excremental cost? And look at the trade-offs. The picocell model offers: 1. Bandwidth shared with neighbours 2. A poor security model 3. An energy efficiency penalty (since wireless is, expressed as energy per unit of data transferred, wildly wasteful) As for let the customer pay, I'll leave that alone because it's politics rather than networks or economics. RC The fact that you and I are likely to be dead before the network is in place is irrelevant ... It should not take more than a decade to put in place high speed broadband, which I hope is within my lifetime. Our generation hasn't exactly been studded with achievement. ... Australia now has free Internet access in public libraries, which is an achievement. A new goal could be to provide post-secondary education, up to a bachelors degree level, free on-line, to all citizens. Most students would still have to go to a campus for part of their education and pay some fees, but could do some vocational certificates and degrees completely on-line for free. We could invite others in our region to join our students on-line, for a modest fee. While this is not quite the same as fighting a world war, or tunnelling the Snowy Hydro Scheme, it would be a worthwhile goal in cultural and economic terms. ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] Wireless Broadband for Regional Australia
Well, yeah ... but: 1. The original NBN design specified that the 7% of Australia not covered by the FTTP would be covered by a mixture of satellite and/or fixed WiFi. They didn't really mean conventional wireless or WiFi however, they meant 4G. 2, The guaranteed MINIMUM speed for any of these connections was 12Mbs (with the fibre connected wireless station using 4G LTE from memory). Think of it as a fibre connected 4G phone tower providing access. 3. Satellite probably would have been more pervasive, available and quicker than fixed 4G WiFi in many cases (which involved fibre to the wireless node) but the NBN was running short of channels on satellite in 2012/3, and had planned to launch a couple of new K-Band satellites in 2015 adding another 160 Gbs capability. More satellites were slotted for 2017 to up the bandwidth available. 4. The 4G WiFi could have been expected to suffer from the same limitations as overused 3G and 4G points near urban centres, and siting and channel availability for 'always on' Internet may have been problematic in so called 'WiFi' situations - especially if subnetted routers weren't involved at the 'premises'. Of course for really flat low population situations (like the Nullarbor Plain, Gibson Desert or the Centre ... except for that damn Rock) it would have been ideal. 5. Personally, I think that satellite (with regular upgrades) or eventual laying of pervasive fibre, was the answer to maintaining universal coverage in the bush, rather than 4G towers dotted over the landscape unless the NBN was to cater to two classes of Australians permanently. 6. Given our past commitment to a Universal Service Obligation I had no problems paying a premium for universal access to broadband services. I thought the NBN Mark 1 design was quite feasible, and indeed early adopters in the bush loved it. They did get speeds and services an order of magnitude better than they had been getting. It looked like it could provide communications an order of magnitude better than what's available now What we're getting now however is a dog's breakfast that will serve everybody poorly, particularly those future generations I mentioned in my missive. Now, Tom is questioning whether the bandwidth will be necessary (and I still think it will), and citing his lack of use of networks and networked services as a justification for this. I still think he is in error and that there are any number of services that will require high bandwidth communications in 10-15 years, I still think the 'compromises' involved in the 'new NBN' make it effectively useless (for remote country as well as urban users), and I still think that the original design was the most cost effective for easing the 7% of remote and rural users not covered by the FTTP into the network ... as long as they could look forward to full network connectivity and services in the near future. That is now unlikely to happen, and that's what I still see as the tragedy of my generation. We're selfish shortsighted users rather than builders ... as I said. Just my 2 cents worth ... --- On 26 Dec 2013, at 5:54 pm, step...@melbpc.org.au wrote: Hope I'm not intruding: Ditto. Appears that every post in this thread is thoughtful, and quite correct. But, Tom's thread-subject is *regional* Australia. And the original NBN proposal (whomever the politician was that initially proposed and drove the original NBN concept should be awarded a medal) included a wireless and satellite component for regional Australia. Imho, Tom is being very imaginative with this Link exploration of various and original regional wireless modus-operandi conceptualizations. Indeed, any newer wireless distribution ideas may well apply to ALL of us Aussies, with this current government's NBN plans. Personally, I am hoping for a above-gound cable compromise. Same speed but much cheaper. Whatever I seriously doubt small country towns will even see ANY cable. But, you too will only have NBN wireless yourselves, wherever you live. So please guys gals, encourage any and all left-field wireless ideas! Cheers, Stephen ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] Wireless Broadband for Regional Australia
At 07:26 PM 26/12/2013, Frank O'Connor wrote: That is now unlikely to happen, and that's what I still see as the tragedy of my generation. We're selfish shortsighted users rather than builders ... as I said. Not quite everyone, Frank, or else NBN Mark I wouldn't have been on offer at all. It's Abbott's destroyers, as many commenters to articles in the Age keep calling the current lot, who are the short sighted ones at their worst. I just hope we won't have to put up with them for more than one term, if that. Hope all our Linkers had a restful holiday and a super feast. I'm still recovering. Jan Melbourne, Victoria, Australia jw...@janwhitaker.com Sooner or later, I hate to break it to you, you're gonna die, so how do you fill in the space between here and there? It's yours. Seize your space. ~Margaret Atwood, writer _ __ _ ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] Wireless Broadband for Regional Australia
Yeah Jan, The NBN was the one thing that my generation could have passed down to others ... our one legacy if you like. We've failed on the big things, I can't think of a single major infrastructure project we've actually initiated in the last 30 years. We've talked about a lot, but we can't agree on anything ... short term cost, self interest, not-in-my-neighbourhood, myopia, can't-be-done, and failure of imagination seem to rule. We're talkers not doers. All we have done, is complete the infrastructure projects started by our parents and grandparents 40-50 years ago. We can't even come to agreements on how to fix failing infrastructure and facilities (e.g. the Murray Darling River System, the rail network, the power network, sewerage and water in the cities, new airports and public transport services) because self interest and myopia rule. And it's not just infrastructure, it's the problems we're passing on to succeeding generations with no thought for the future. Pollution, climate change, housing affordability, erosions of rights and privileges, society sanctioned employment practices and the rise of the working poor, the ageing population bomb etc. etc. ... hell, if I was a GenY'er or GenX'er I'd be seriously miffed with the preceding generation. I don't blame them one bit when they rail against us ... telling us to get out of the way. As I said to someone else ... we won the lottery when we were born, but we've just peed it all away. Just my 2 cents worth ... --- On 26 Dec 2013, at 8:41 pm, Jan Whitaker jw...@internode.on.net wrote: At 07:26 PM 26/12/2013, Frank O'Connor wrote: That is now unlikely to happen, and that's what I still see as the tragedy of my generation. We're selfish shortsighted users rather than builders ... as I said. Not quite everyone, Frank, or else NBN Mark I wouldn't have been on offer at all. It's Abbott's destroyers, as many commenters to articles in the Age keep calling the current lot, who are the short sighted ones at their worst. I just hope we won't have to put up with them for more than one term, if that. Hope all our Linkers had a restful holiday and a super feast. I'm still recovering. Jan Melbourne, Victoria, Australia jw...@janwhitaker.com Sooner or later, I hate to break it to you, you're gonna die, so how do you fill in the space between here and there? It's yours. Seize your space. ~Margaret Atwood, writer _ __ _ ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] Wireless Broadband for Regional Australia
yup.. 64 here and feel the same ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] Wireless Broadband for Regional Australia
The infrastructure we have now for roads, power, sewage, water, phone, rail. It was established looking forwards. We have not moved onwards from that investment. How much of that infrastructure is still shiny where you are? If kids could talk about connectivity and what they imagined it might be like.. if your grandkids had work, learn, play, household, science, peer to peer communities, aspirations for their digital access and expression how would they describe it. It would be a shame if they all had to huddle at the exchange with laptops, phones, whatever the next devices will be, trying to get an edge on a share of wireless capacity provided by imaginations which could not quite reach the distance. Perhaps that is the next big thing. Kid-built rotundas in the parks for the digitally homeless generation(s) trying to access the best line of sight on the exchange. It is a joke but not in the funny way. j ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] Wireless Broadband for Regional Australia
Janet writes, yup.. 64 here and feel the same True in major infrastructure terms, many would agree you're right Frank. However, in terms of social organization, Australia has come a long way. Many might agree Australia has built a well functioning, and, reasonably safe, multi-layered, comparatively equitable and envied social structure. For eg, most Aussie capital cities often score your World's Best Cities. We are not particularly corrupt or dishonest, we score very well in terms of health, hospitals, schools and universities. And generally, many think Australia is an excellent place to live comparatively. And they are right. True, we've not lately built much lasting physical infrastructure. Rather we've simply added to what we already have. But recent generations surely have built strong social capital. We've built fine, good people. And fine communities of people combining a mix of all ages, races, genders etc who can and do consider our country truly wonderful. Not perfect, but getting somewhat nearer there. And, most of us believe, it'll be better in future. I guess it's been the 'Age of Aquarius'. Developing human structures, not so much physical structures. We've indeed come a long way, in human terms. Cheers, Stephen Message sent using MelbPC WebMail Server ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] Wireless Broadband for Regional Australia
On 26/12/13 9:12 AM, Tom Worthington wrote: On 23/12/13 10:39, Paul Brooks wrote: ... Mobile wireless broadband stats are counting USB dongles, pocket cellular/Wifi routers, and dedicated data-only SIMs ... It is not valid to intercompare the mobile broadband and fixed broadband stats in a meaningful way ... If we want to make rational resource decisions, then comparisons need to be made. The mobile wireless broadband statistics could be scaled down by the average number of people per Australian household, for comparison with household connections. In 2011, there were 2.6 people per household in Australia: http://www.censusdata.abs.gov.au/census_services/getproduct/census/2011/quickstat/0 Fine. There is a comparison available in the 8153 series, in which mobile broadband downloads represent a trivial portion of total downloads. Of course, part of this is telcos using price signals to minimise downloads, but there isn't any special fu just around the corner to change the constraints of mobile architecture: the base stations are a choke-point now and will remain so forever. The number of people per household in Australia is falling. With only two or three people per household, is it worth planning a roll-out of broadband to homes? If each home is to have a fixed connection, then that comes at a cost. I don't use a fixed connection at my home, so why should I subsidise yours? What subsidy are you referring to, Tom? The fibre rollout was intended to be recovered from its customers. Perhaps in telecommunications terms there is no such thing as a household. Margaret Thatcher is supposed to have said no such thing as society: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Margaret_Thatcher Instead of a cable and wireless router for each house, one picocell in the street could be shared by about six homes. This would provide a service for about 16 people (plus those out and about in the street). This eliminates only one aspect of the fibre rollout - the last hundred feet. It's hardly a financial killer-punch to fibre, given that FTTN is costing way more than the optimistic predictions given by the opposition prior to the election. The limits on wireless capacity aren't merely an arbitrary impost on consumers. They're an attempt to manage the sharing of a limited resource. That resource doesn't become unlimited merely because someone believes it should be so. RC Are you telling me you have never 'shared' a printer connected to one computer so the other devices in your home could print to it? No, I have never shared a printer connected to on computer to others in my home. I rarely print anything. When I need to print, I carry the laptop to where the printer is and plug it in. Having a shared printer is a way to waste a lot of paper and ink. You've never shared a drive so you can access the files from another computer in your house? No, I have never shared a drive at home. The people I share data with are usually not in the same place I am, so a local network is not much use. Not if they have a low-quota broadband service, or a low-speed broadband service. ... The low quotas on mobile wireless services are arbitrary limits set by the telcos to maximise revenue. The speed could be increased by using smaller cells. But the apparent shortage of bandwidth suits the telcos who can then charge a premium for the mobile service. ... not if you have tens to hundreds of gigabytes of photos ... The clinical condition Hoarding disorder is a problem in our consumer society. High capacity storage devices allow the digital manifestation of this to remain hidden for far longer that with physical hoarding: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsive_hoarding ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] Wireless Broadband for Regional Australia
On 23/12/13 10:39, Paul Brooks wrote: ... Mobile wireless broadband stats are counting USB dongles, pocket cellular/Wifi routers, and dedicated data-only SIMs ... It is not valid to intercompare the mobile broadband and fixed broadband stats in a meaningful way ... If we want to make rational resource decisions, then comparisons need to be made. The mobile wireless broadband statistics could be scaled down by the average number of people per Australian household, for comparison with household connections. In 2011, there were 2.6 people per household in Australia: http://www.censusdata.abs.gov.au/census_services/getproduct/census/2011/quickstat/0 The number of people per household in Australia is falling. With only two or three people per household, is it worth planning a roll-out of broadband to homes? If each home is to have a fixed connection, then that comes at a cost. I don't use a fixed connection at my home, so why should I subsidise yours? Perhaps in telecommunications terms there is no such thing as a household. Margaret Thatcher is supposed to have said no such thing as society: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Margaret_Thatcher Instead of a cable and wireless router for each house, one picocell in the street could be shared by about six homes. This would provide a service for about 16 people (plus those out and about in the street). Are you telling me you have never 'shared' a printer connected to one computer so the other devices in your home could print to it? No, I have never shared a printer connected to on computer to others in my home. I rarely print anything. When I need to print, I carry the laptop to where the printer is and plug it in. Having a shared printer is a way to waste a lot of paper and ink. You've never shared a drive so you can access the files from another computer in your house? No, I have never shared a drive at home. The people I share data with are usually not in the same place I am, so a local network is not much use. Not if they have a low-quota broadband service, or a low-speed broadband service. ... The low quotas on mobile wireless services are arbitrary limits set by the telcos to maximise revenue. The speed could be increased by using smaller cells. But the apparent shortage of bandwidth suits the telcos who can then charge a premium for the mobile service. ... not if you have tens to hundreds of gigabytes of photos ... The clinical condition Hoarding disorder is a problem in our consumer society. High capacity storage devices allow the digital manifestation of this to remain hidden for far longer that with physical hoarding: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsive_hoarding -- Tom Worthington FACS CP, TomW Communications Pty Ltd. t: 0419496150 The Higher Education Whisperer http://blog.highereducationwhisperer.com/ PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia http://www.tomw.net.au Liability limited by a scheme approved under Professional Standards Legislation Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Research School of Computer Science, Australian National University http://cs.anu.edu.au/courses/COMP7310/ ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] Wireless Broadband for Regional Australia
Hope I'm not intruding:
On 26 Dec 2013, at 9:12 am, Tom Worthington tom.worthing...@tomw.net.au wrote:
On 23/12/13 10:39, Paul Brooks wrote:
... Mobile wireless broadband stats are counting USB dongles, pocket
cellular/Wifi routers, and dedicated data-only SIMs ... It is not
valid to intercompare the mobile broadband and fixed broadband stats
in a meaningful way ...
If we want to make rational resource decisions, then comparisons need to
be made. The mobile wireless broadband statistics could be scaled down
by the average number of people per Australian household, for comparison
with household connections. In 2011, there were 2.6 people per household
in Australia:
http://www.censusdata.abs.gov.au/census_services/getproduct/census/2011/quickstat/0
The number of people per household in Australia is falling. With only
two or three people per household, is it worth planning a roll-out of
broadband to homes? If each home is to have a fixed connection, then
that comes at a cost. I don't use a fixed connection at my home, so why
should I subsidise yours?
But, with little numbers like IPv6 and an IP address in every device, 'the
Internet of Devices', and visitors to household wanting to piggy back their
devices onto the owners broadband/WiFi whilst visiting bandwidth usage is
expected to explode dramatically.
Factor in Super High Res TV (that even unconstricted cable connections couldn't
handle), new applications like home care/monitoring/treatment of the elderly
and infirm to obviate spiralling nursing home and hospital costs. remote
medical procedures, ultra high bandwidth movies, TV, entertainment, music,
games etc on demand, online education, work-from-home and its impact on
business and employee overheads, smart appliances and home systems, the 'need'
to monitor kids, other dependants, the premises and valuable possessions at all
times, e-government (when and if it eventually appears), pervasive e-commerce,
pervasive Internet enabled manufacturing (transferring big complex 3D printing
and other design templates around with gay abandon to 'small and medium
manufacturers), design and implementation work on new templates and IP, an
explosion of remote area connections (and the propensity for networks generally
to get richer and more bandwidth intensive as more connections come !
online), increasing appearance of digitally upgradeable product ('smart' or
otherwise), new paradigms for the Net (other than the text dominated standards
that now apply ... maybe serious multimedia will be the go in 10 years).
Producer direct to consumer e-commerce, and a whole heap of things that can't
possibly be foreseen as yet.
All of this (and much much more) will require an inordinate increase in the
bandwidth, responsiveness, security
Look at what happened to the Net in the last 15 years, and try and extrapolate
it. Don't let yourself suffer from a failure of imagination
Perhaps in telecommunications terms there is no such thing as a
household. Margaret Thatcher is supposed to have said no such thing as
society: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Margaret_Thatcher
But networks have nodes and endpoints. The sad fact of life is that the speed
and performance of a network is governed by the performance of its endpoints.
Just as server performance can impact the client, so can client performance
impact the rest of the network in a truly pervasive Internet.
And the asymmetries we have now severely limit interactions, and the
possibility for 'rich' transactions between parties ... be they consumer and
producer, employer and employee, dependant and parent, client or server, voter
and party etc etc. The asymmetries we have now promote consumers and
consumerism, rather than entrepreneurs, partners and producers. We are expected
to be passive consumers sucking stuff down through the pipe, rather than
producing our own content, stories and IP - because there's no way to share
said IP at any reasonable data rate other than by booking space in the Cloud -
and we now know know how secure, private and trustworthy that is thanks to
Edward Snowden.
Bottom line: We need the best most pervasive most scalable and expandable
network we can get within the next 20 years ... and what's planned doesn't cut
it. Not by a long shot.
This is a public infrastructure thing. This can only be built by government.
This should be built to a high standard, because that will maximise the resale
value to shareholders when it is complete, and hence the government's returns
on the project and the offsets (profit) to be made. As a prospective
shareholder in 10 to 15 years time (whenever the government privatises the NBN)
would you be more likely to pay a premium for a universal pervasive network
that will, from Day 1, meet the country's bandwidth requirements for the next
50 to 100 years without substantial re-investment, or would you buy the
fragmented (part hybrid cable-copper, part
Re: [LINK] Wireless Broadband for Regional Australia
On 21/12/2013 8:53 AM, Tom Worthington wrote: On 20/12/13 13:27, Paul Brooks wrote: ... the initial assumption (most people are accessing their broadband via WiFi and Mobile Broadband) is an incorrect starting point. ... The ABS reported that at the end of June 2013 mobile wireless broadband was the most prevalent internet technology in Australia. It is just under half all the broadband connections in Australia: http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Latestproducts/D6B00147BF1749E1CA257BFA00127708?opendocument Numbers of accounts is not a credible proxy for usage or utility. Mobile wireless broadband stats are misleading and, IMHO, worthless as comparisons with other forms - they are only valid for comparing with past and future wireless broadband stats to look at growth trends within the series. Mobile wireless broadband stats are counting USB dongles, pocket cellular/Wifi routers, and dedicated data-only SIMs. By their nature, they are per-person or per-device (a household with two 3G-enabled tablets will have two SIMs and be counted as 2 in the stats), while other forms of broadband are per-household (very few households have two forms of fixed/satellite broadband) and could have tens of devices served through the same channel. Also, it is not either/or - a household with cabled broadband could well also be represented by several mobile wireless counts as well. My own house would be counted as 1 cabled broadband and 3 wireless broadband in the stats - but the 1 cabled link gets used far more, and relied on far more, than the mobile broadband SIMs which get fired up on odd occasions while travelling. It is not valid to intercompare the mobile broadband and fixed broadband stats in a meaningful way. Newspapers and politicians do it, but I expect better in here. I couldn't find any figures for WiFi use at home, but my observations of ICT in the home is that WiFi is used much more than wired connections. Huh? Its not either/or - WiFi is used as a last-few-metres method to connect devices to wired connections. Unless you were deliberately switching your use of the word 'wired connection' from a fixed-line broadband connection to referring instead to a hard-wired Ethernet cable linking a device to the home network, in which case I would observe that 'used more' is ambiguous, and repeat that number of links is not a credible proxy for usage or utility. My observations of ICT in the home is that all but the simplest homes have a mixture of hard-cabled and WiFi devices using their broadband network, and while there is usually a greater number of WiFi devices, the volume of traffic and performance issues lean to the cabled devices. Yes, most people are happy with wireless for web-browsing and email, but quickly use a cable for high bandwidth uses such as home NAS or video streaming, and when the WiFi isn't quick enough to do what they want to do or doesn't reach the back corners of the residence. At home, people don't 'access broadband', they use broadband to 'access devices/servers/content' ... Provided the cost is not significantly higher, I can't see why people would want to access different devices, servers and content at home, to the ones they use when out and about. ... its the same sloppy thinking that conflates broadband with the Internet... Do homes have many broadband interconnected devices? Home NAS servers don't sound like common consumer items. I assume that most people would be using broadband to connect to on-line storage and services outside the home, via the Internet, thus making broadband and Internet synonymous. Not if they have a low-quota broadband service, or a low-speed broadband service. The last 10 years of OS development has been in getting devices in the home interconnected. Shared drives and printers, ethernet-connected printers, 'Homegroup' in Windows and the equivalent in other OSs, all aimed at allowing family members on one computer to access content or devices actually located on a different computer. Home NAS devices are now the preferred way to offload large photo collections than USB-connected external drives, and many home broadband routers can advertise a USB external drive attached to the router as a network-available storage NAS drive. Are you telling me you have never 'shared' a printer connected to one computer so the other devices in your home could print to it? You've never shared a drive so you can access the files from another computer in your house? Sure you can use an external cloud provider for photo storage and files, but its limited - not if you have tens to hundreds of gigabytes of photos, and not unless you have an unlimited-quota broadband account, and not unless you are happy to take many days or weeks to push your content up to the cloud storage with our pitiful uplink capacity. Broadband and Internet have never been synonymous - one is the destination, the other is the means to get there.
Re: [LINK] Wireless Broadband for Regional Australia
On 20/12/13 13:27, Paul Brooks wrote: ... the initial assumption (most people are accessing their broadband via WiFi and Mobile Broadband) is an incorrect starting point. ... The ABS reported that at the end of June 2013 mobile wireless broadband was the most prevalent internet technology in Australia. It is just under half all the broadband connections in Australia: http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Latestproducts/D6B00147BF1749E1CA257BFA00127708?opendocument I couldn't find any figures for WiFi use at home, but my observations of ICT in the home is that WiFi is used much more than wired connections. At home, people don't 'access broadband', they use broadband to 'access devices/servers/content' ... Provided the cost is not significantly higher, I can't see why people would want to access different devices, servers and content at home, to the ones they use when out and about. ... its the same sloppy thinking that conflates broadband with the Internet... Do homes have many broadband interconnected devices? Home NAS servers don't sound like common consumer items. I assume that most people would be using broadband to connect to on-line storage and services outside the home, via the Internet, thus making broadband and Internet synonymous. -- Tom Worthington FACS CP, TomW Communications Pty Ltd. t: 0419496150 The Higher Education Whisperer http://blog.highereducationwhisperer.com/ PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia http://www.tomw.net.au Liability limited by a scheme approved under Professional Standards Legislation Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Research School of Computer Science, Australian National University http://cs.anu.edu.au/courses/COMP7310/ ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] Wireless Broadband for Regional Australia
At 08:53 AM 21/12/2013, Tom Worthington wrote: Provided the cost is not significantly higher, I can't see why people would want to access different devices, servers and content at home, to the ones they use when out and about. It's not a matter of what one wants to connect to from home or elsewhere, it's a difference of cost. Wifi is much more expensive than wired broadband if you are a heavier data user, which one would tend to be in the home with multiple people using the same connection. (cont. below) ... its the same sloppy thinking that conflates broadband with the Internet... Do homes have many broadband interconnected devices? Home NAS servers don't sound like common consumer items. I assume that most people would be using broadband to connect to on-line storage and services outside the home, via the Internet, thus making broadband and Internet synonymous. It's the number of people with multiple devices involved, not remote storage or added bizarre appliances, such as fridges or remote control devices. Eg right now I have a tablet and a laptop connected and on. I could also have my desktop going and, if I had one, a Smart TV. Think a typical family of 2 parents with 2 children. That is a potential of four people in one household using a wired BB with an in house wifi network, nothing to do with NAS. Kids are going to use the home network and avoid using their 4G connections if they have any limitations on those accounts in terms of data limits. e.g. Telstra prepaid wireless is $140 for 8Gb. Internode home wired service, not phone bundled, is $50 for 50Gb. Major pricing difference. TPG is 500GB for $50, even better! There is obviously the question of availability in regional areas, which was the start of this thread, so things will vary in those environments. But for those who can get a wired service, it makes much more sense to do that and get a mobile service only if you need to be mobile for things like smart phones and possibly tablets. Jan Melbourne, Victoria, Australia jw...@janwhitaker.com Sooner or later, I hate to break it to you, you're gonna die, so how do you fill in the space between here and there? It's yours. Seize your space. ~Margaret Atwood, writer _ __ _ ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] Wireless Broadband for Regional Australia
On 18/12/13 11:40, Paul Brooks wrote: ... FTTdp model in the Strategic Review ... distribution point) is a pit at the bottom of the driveway - or more likely, attached to the side of a nearby power pole ... If most householders are accessing their broadband via WiFi and Mobile Broadband, could you use it as the link from the distribution point (DP) in the street into the household? That way no extra equipment would be needed in the house and a service could be provided to mobile users in the street, as well as households. Where the DP is on a pole the wireless signal would have a reasonably clear path to the surrounding houses. If the DP is a pit, would the existing copper phone cable carry the signal into the houses? -- Tom Worthington FACS CP, TomW Communications Pty Ltd. t: 0419496150 The Higher Education Whisperer http://blog.highereducationwhisperer.com/ PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia http://www.tomw.net.au Liability limited by a scheme approved under Professional Standards Legislation Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Research School of Computer Science, Australian National University http://cs.anu.edu.au/courses/COMP7310/ ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] Wireless Broadband for Regional Australia
On 18/12/2013 10:53 AM, Tom Worthington wrote: The major cost with FTTP is running the cable from street to the home, with FTTN, is installing new cabinets in the street and reconnecting all the copper cables to it. However, an alternative would be to install the optical fibre in the street and then only connect customers as they require a service. Copper cable can be used for up to 1 GBPS, but limited to a distance of about 100 m. Perhaps rugged optical modems could be installed in the existing pits in the street, to provide service to about eight to sixteen homes nearby. Thats the FTTdp model in the Strategic Review, with the copper driven as VDSL2 or better G.FAST when it becomes commercial in a couple of years. The 'dp' (distribution point) is a pit at the bottom of the driveway - or more likely, attached to the side of a nearby power pole, TransACT-style. 1 Gbps is a stretch - as the articles below note, where this is mentioned its usually upstream+downstream summed, but 200 - 300 Mbps symmetric should be achievable. http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/12/500mbps-internet-over-phone-lines-might-solve-fibers-last-mile-problem/ http://www.itu.int/net/pressoffice/press_releases/2013/74.aspx#.UrDreOJjJoM and for some idea of the kit: http://www.adtran.com/web/page/portal/Adtran/group/3463, maybe physically a bit smaller. P. ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
