Government blows away wireless threat to NBN
- 16 February, 2011 12:17
- Comments 3
The federal government has dismissed suggestions wireless technology is a threat to the national broadband network (NBN)as Telstra plans to boost mobile internet speeds.
The telco giant aims to have the new 4G technology ready in capital cities and some regional areas by the end of the year.
Telstra chief executive, David Thodey, said demand for mobile data is doubling each year as more Australian opt for smartphones, mobile modems and tablets.
Fourth generation wireless can deliver speeds comparable with the NBN in areas where there is good mobile reception.
The potential could threaten the viability of the government's $36 billion NBN.
Telstra's vow to improve its mobile technology also comes only a day after a report commissioned by the Gillard government said wireless technology was a key risk to the NBN business case.
Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has downplayed this suggestion, and welcomed Telstra's announcement.
"Far from being a threat to the national broadband network, wireless is an important complementary technology to fibre," Senator Conroy said in a statement.
Opposition communications spokesperson, Malcolm Turnbull, said wireless would become a competitive force and undermine the case for installing optical fibres to Australian homes.
"The government shouldn't be putting all of its billions of dollars of subsidy into one technological basket," he told Fairfax Radio.
The Australian Greens defended the government against criticism that it backed the wrong technology.
"If you wanted to have all-wireless strategy, you'd have one of those mobile phone towers on every street corner and you only get top speed if you're standing right next to the tower and no one else is using it," communications spokesman, Scott Ludlam, told Sky News.
Telecommunications consultant, Paul Budde, said the NBN would still be viable even with strong growth in wireless services.
Sectors such as health, education, media and energy, will favour the NBN's fibre-optic technologies.
"Yes, there will be an overlap ... but there are applications that are impossible to run over a wireless network," Budde told ABC radio.
The heat on the NBN began on Monday, when a government-commissioned report identified wireless technology as a key risk to the project.
Corporate advisory firm Greenhill Caliburn said the competition from mobile-centric broadband would challenge take-up forecasts of the NBN.
The government aims to connect 93 per cent of Australian households with high-speed optical fibres by 2020.
NBN Co, the company building the network, has ambitions to deliver broadband speeds of 100 megabits a second, which would rise to 1000 megabits in the longer term.
As this happens, Telstra will decommission its copper network.
But far from being a collaborator, the corporate behemoth is emerging as a key NBN competitor.
Announcing Telstra's plans at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Thodey said his company wanted to remain Australia's technology leader, a title the commonwealth is also vying for.
Turnbull said there was nobody in the telecommunications industry who didn't think the government's plans were reckless, crazy over-investment.
"This is one of the maddest things the government has done," he told ABC Television.
"The political prize, the political objective is to say we will deliver fast broadband and to all Australians but then your job as a government is to do it at the lowest cost to taxpayers."
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Comments
Kevin
"in areas where there is good mobile reception." And that is ?????
The extra towers will be built where????
Technology will overcome interference how????
"Turnbull said there was nobody in the telecommunications industry who didn't think the government's plans were reckless, crazy over-investment." Apart from the TV/Cable/Newspaper moguls, who are the others????
Will Turnbull ever shut up about NBN and just let us get on with providing Australia with what we needed 15 years ago when Howard stopped the optic fibre rollout.
Jules Rumsey
It is unfortunate that many journalists and industry observers tend to focus solely on 'speed' when comparing mobile data services to those that will be offered via the NBN.
Plus the focus tends to be on the peak speeds that will seldom be achieved and not on what you will typically see in practice. And of course little consideration is given for the fact that most mobile data services are assymetric (i.e. that the upstream speed will be a fraction of the downstream speed).
Mobile data services typically have much higher latency and jitter (the variance in the latency) than the sort of services we can expect under the NBN. Coupled with the fact that they are assymetric and the fact that mobile networks typically restrict the number of TCP sessions per device/end-point they will not perform in line with NBN for many applications.
High latencies will reduce the throughput that is possible using TCP based protocols like HTTP and FTP regardless of the speed of the link. High latencies and jitter will impact voice and video applications, which is why they never tend to work as well over mobile data services. Limiting the number of TCP sessions means that web browsers like IE and Firefox can't deliver the same performance that they otherwise could. And of course it will have a significant impact on performance where a mobile data service is being used in a multi-user home or office environment.
In short, whilst I am all for having ubiquitous high speed mobile data services via the likes of LTE they will compliment and not rival/replace the services we will get with NBN.
The debate relating to the NBN tends to be sensational and lacking in detail. As a result, the average punter is ill informed to consider the pros and cons of the NBN. It's about time we saw appropriate attention being paid to the facts.
David Sumner
I agree with Jules Rumsey in part but the ones that need to know what they are doing is the politicians that are using the money of the tax payers of Australia, going by their past record on making smart decisions leaves one sceptical on making a wise technical decision for Australians on the NBN. Maybe private enterprise is far better equipped and able to meet investors expectations rather than a bunch of politicions with little or no qualifications in the communications market and absolutely no financial investment to keep them honest and caring.
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