Realistic future of wireless...

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FibreFan

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#58758 18-Mar-2010 16:12

Hey, I'm currently trying to gain awareness for Vectors Fibre to the Door campaign and I personally feel it's a great plan that will truely help NZ's to grow in the future, on the contrary to a recent blog I read from 'frogblog'.

However, a bit of this topic, I am quite lost in the field of NZ's/global wireless capabilities and am wondering if anyone can fill me in on a realistic approach to what wireless will become in the next 5-10 years. Will it still be necessary for homes to have fibre optics running to the door in order to achieve fast land speeds or will this become irrelevant as the wireless generation takes over...? Will it become one or the other or will both still be acceptable?

Would love to hear your knowledge on the subject along with your estimated time-frame on when it would become possible!!

Cheers,
Fibrefan

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#308829 18-Mar-2010 16:25

IMO I doubt NZ will see wireless as a suitable BB provider, compared to any cable alternative. The topography of our great country means that the costs will be too great to support our population.

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hellonearthisman

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#308841 18-Mar-2010 16:58

Slingshot is planning to provide wireless internet using WiMax TDD, which would provide 10mb up and down. They should have something on the market in a year or so.

eXDee

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#308845 18-Mar-2010 17:19

WiMax is quite likely as the most cost effective solution for consumers. Cellular based broadband is very expensive, i imagine Wixmax will be a fair bit cheaper. It'll be interesting how long it takes LTE to arrive here too.

I know a few companies already have WiMax setup - Eg RuralLink is broadcasting in hamilton and tauranga
http://www.no8wireless.co.nz/plans/no-8-wimax

Overall though, fibre i reckon is the most 'future proof' method. The fibre optic medium allows for new fibre standards, and doesnt have the same limitations as copper or wireless which will require a rather huge cost to upgrade to future technologies.

I dont think any kind of wireless will overtake the potential that fibre has.

yuxek

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#308863 18-Mar-2010 18:07

wireless needs spectrum.

fibre doesn't use spectrum i think.

sbiddle

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#308888 18-Mar-2010 19:54

hellonearthisman: Slingshot is planning to provide wireless internet using WiMax TDD, which would provide 10mb up and down. They should have something on the market in a year or so.

I'll believe it when I see it. They've been talking about a WiMAX network for 4 years now and haven't expanded beyond Whangarei.

rvangelder

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#308917 18-Mar-2010 21:08

I have been watching, on and off, the development of stratellite technology. Think 2 way satellites, but a lot closer (like a few hundred kms away instead of 35,000 km away). It doesn't have the latency issues of satellite so interactive applications work nicer.

My very simple understanding of it is that 2 or 3 could cover the country on a rotating basis (though some reports suggest it realisticly covers a much smaller area).

The technology may never mature, and it'd probably cost more than an NZ operator could afford, but it's exciting to think about!

webwat

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#308958 18-Mar-2010 23:13

Obviously fibre uses light spectrum, being optical and everything... but of course the laser is fired down a bit of glass.

Wireless has its place reaching users that cant get anything else, and providing a fallback for users that fall victim to the anti-competitive pressures that will always exist in an industry with such economies of scale. Wireless is also ideal for long term provision of rural networks, for which fibre is inherantly unsuitable, and similar areas with insufficient population density to justify replacement of legacy POTS phone lines. 802.11 WiFi as well as 802.13 WiMax both have advantages and disadvantages and frequencies, and should be able to happily coexist on the same radio towers. However they do require line of sight which OFDM can't always compensate for.

NZ company RoamAD are an example of a wireless mesh developer, their nodes can route through other nodes until traffic reaches working backhaul. Will be SLOW to avoid overload, but probably useful for convenient urban networks and critical rural telecommunications.

Time to find a new industry!

hellonearthisman

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#309012 19-Mar-2010 09:08

sbiddle:
hellonearthisman: Slingshot is planning to provide wireless internet using WiMax TDD, which would provide 10mb up and down. They should have something on the market in a year or so.

I'll believe it when I see it. They've been talking about a WiMAX network for 4 years now and haven't expanded beyond Whangarei.

I am hoping that as Slingshot has started to put their own equipment into exchanges that they will put in some WiMax towers to user the 30MHz of spectrum at 2660MHz that they brought in 2007 for $500,000.

TUANZ reported that, "one block won't be enough to deploy high-end broadband applications." So that too could be slowing down the rollout. Which I think could be true.

At the time of the auction
"One bidder, Spectrumania Limited, was precluded from acquiring any spectrum
as that bidder was associated with Blue Reach Limited such that the spectrum
acquired by the two companies would have been aggregated. The effect is
that it would not have been possible for Spectrumania to acquire any lots in
addition to those acquired by Blue Reach Limited without breaching the
acquisition limits in the auction rules."

So yeah, I might be dreaming to see a WiMax roll out , but I still hope.

Fraktul

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#309023 19-Mar-2010 09:38

Compass already cover large portions of NZ with WiMAX.

WiMAX seems to be loosing ground to LTE anyhow for a varity of reasons.

cyril7

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#309029 19-Mar-2010 09:50

I have been watching, on and off, the development of stratellite technology. Think 2 way satellites, but a lot closer (like a few hundred kms away instead of 35,000 km away). It doesn't have the latency issues of satellite so interactive applications work nicer.

I too have kept an eye on this one, and think it holds a lot of promise, sadly all the plans to date have not resulted in any successfully working platforms. But I think this one has good prospects for rural NZ.

Cyril

Fraktul

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#309050 19-Mar-2010 11:10

The problems with LEO are manifold, from complex routing and handover, expensive and complex CPE to significantly reduced satellite lifetimes and a large number of satellites required for coverage.

The most likely commercial scenarios I have seen so far focus on equitorial constellations.

Would not hold your breath..

cyril7

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#309051 19-Mar-2010 11:13

ummmm, Tim, I agree with the situation regards LEO, but not stratosphere, its a much simpler afair, think large area coverage stationary Tx high spots that you cannot see on a hill near you.

Cyril

wellygary

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#309052 19-Mar-2010 11:17

Iridium poured billions into a LEO set-up in the .com glory days, only to have it go bust and get sold by the receivers for low double digit millions,

This scale of wealth destruction has scared most investors away from satellites that whizz around the earth, rather then stay still.

VFNZPaulBrislen

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#309053 19-Mar-2010 11:23

Each option has its pros and cons.

LTE will kick off here once the govt switches off analogue TV and lets us buy the spectrum rights, so expect that around 2013/14 depending on how fast they move.

LTE gives theoretical speeds of up to 155Mbit/s down, 50+ up and low latency.

Satellite will always have latency issues and if you're expecting real-time services on satellite you're likely to run into issues - but they get better at managing that all the time. Currently NZ is covered by the Shin Satellite (IP Star) that covers NZ with three spot beams giving great coverage.

WiMax is being pushed by the IT industry as a solution to something... the reason it is cheaper than LTE is because it's unlicensed spectrum, which means you can't manage it (I can build a louder device next door to you and swamp you out and there's no comeback) but it is far cheaper than managed spectrum (don't have to pay a licence fee at all) so there is that advantage.

Fibre doesn't use spectrum as such but has the coolest of all technologies: wave division multiplexing. Fibre works by firing a beam of light down a glass tube: on/off = 1/0. 1/0 is of course binary so you can rapidly build up a binary communication channel by flashing the light.

Some clever fellows managed to split that beam of light into its component colours - ROYGBIV - and switch each of those on and off independently of each other. Suddenly the capacity was increased sevenfold. From that point on it's all go - they split the beam of light ever finer each year - you just swap out the kit at each end of the cable.

That's as I understand it.

Cheers

Paul

Paul Brislen
Head of Corporate Communications
Vodafone

http://forum.vodafone.co.nz

FibreFan

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#309054 19-Mar-2010 11:28

Thanks for all the feedback! I'm now much more aware of the situation and has been a very informative discussion.

Will keep an eye out for the progression WiFi and WiMax throughout NZ

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