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Aussie Telcos Consider 3G For Last Mile
Mattygfunk writes "Whirlpool reports Aussie telco R&D labs are scrambling to transform 3G mobile networks into last mile solutions rivaling the best wired broadband networks, as telcos come to grips with lack of consumer interest in 3G mobile services and a likelihood of no payback on their multi-billion dollar investments in the spectrum."
Finaly the telcos have realized what 3G is, i.e. a broadband packet based data network. 2G is already adequite for talking, so 3G must offer good data transfer solutions. It may be files, it may be movies, or any other data, but not soley speach. With the suggested rates for the Swedish 3G networks I doubt that this will get a proper breakthrough, but still, it is cheaper and faster than my crappy 9600 GSM transfers.
The last mile has been a stumbling block for telcos for about two decades, now. Available silicon can easily handle fibre to the curb, but getting it in already existing buildings has been a problem.
The ISDN suffered from unknown physical plant characteristics - stubs, splitting pairs, and other analogue phone cruft seriously debilitated ISDN acceptance. ADSL leapfrogged the ISDN performance by learning from the mistakes in the ISDN development/deployment.
Hopefully, this repurposing of technology may be just the boost that an ailing telecommunucations industry needs. The hardware portion of the high-tech sector has suffered an abundance of losses after the dot-com meltdown.
This is progress?
This may be totally off base, but do any of you Teleco people out there know how many users can get access on a single 3G cell? might this be significantly less people that are within that cell (and wanted access), not only within a city, but in the suburbs too?
This worked in China but wont in America. You failed to mention the Chinese govt. "my way or the high way" approach to laying this out. If you live where they want a tower built your gone and the tower goes up. True to communism its probably better for the greater good but it would never go over in America. Have you ever been to Asia? They all have cell phones, good/inexpensive ones too. Maybe our system is antiquated. We cant rely on battling companies to do all of this for us.
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Not specifically aimed at your comments:
3G is just a faster mobile data pipe. What services someone wants to run on it is up to them.
You're right that there are more masts required.
You may well be able to get a mobile always-on net link with a 3G service provider. You may well find that some licence holders don't offer this sort of service at all.
3G will be a profit-making technology but not tomorrow and not next year. It's a long-term investment which so many analysts seem to forget.