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Australia to Become WiMax Testbed
shrewd writes "AU News site Whirlpool has news on a huge AUD $37 million investment by Intel in a WiMax project. From the article: 'Australia will become the world's testbed for WiMAX - Intel's wireless broadband technology - with the announcement that the chip giant will invest AUD $37million in the expansion of the Unwired network in Australia ... Unwired CEO David Spence said the investment will make WiMAX an absolutely mainstream technology. 'Unwired will be in the unique position of having access to the majority of the WiMAX-designated 3.5 GHz and 2.3 GHz licensed bands in Australia's major metropolitan areas,' Spence said.'"
I see live video streams of the Crocodile Hunter in our future.
"She's a beautiful critter! Look at the power of her jaws as she's chomping on my laptop!"
Until somebody comes onboard and provides the same kind of service, talk about monopoly.
37 million AUD ($27 million US) would be a huge investment if it came out of my bank account (which would then be very much overdrawn). Coming from a company the size of Intel, it is NOT a huge investment in a new technology.
[Insert pithy quote here]
Ok, that was lame. I really need to get some lunch!
Evil people don't think they're evil. - George Lucas, Making of Ep III
Companies like AOL and other dial-up or broadband types should start thinking about alternative methods for bringing in revenue, because their market is quickly diminishing.
"Simplify, simplify, simplify!" Thoreau
Is having all these signals flying through the air a good thing? What are the long term effects of human physiology?
Someone needs to study this - frankly, I think it's to blame for the steadily increasing cancer rates.
You can call it what you want - I call it cancer from above.
or the black shakes.
This is kind of old news, Unwired have talked about this for a while. I'm an Unwired user in Sydney and I get awesome results, i've been able to use it across the span of 30km's.
I heard about this a while ago I can't recite the source, but when I spoke to the Unwired consultants they said they were looking into this for sometime next year.
The only benefit this will provide me as an existing customer of Unwired is hopefully better pricing, coverage in trouble spots and I would be able to use the service while roaming as opposed to having to log in everytime I change to a different suburb.
That said we also have http://www.iburst.com.au/ (iburst) who provide true roaming, but their plans are ridiculously expensive.
What's more interesting news for me is the announcement Unwired recently made of a partnership with an Australian company called Engin http://www.engin.com.au/ who are an awesome VoIP provider (I also use).
That does remind me, the only place I had trouble with reception using Unwired was in an apartment block 30+ floors up.
-Sj53
Most monopolies do make whatever they touch a mainstream technology. Looks like competition will be scarce here however.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I just can't see how a life without 24/7 connectivity over your PDA/phone/device will be acceptable. Wireless is the way to go. I will not upgrade my phone till I can connect through it to the net, at any point, at any time, at a good speed (for simple messaging). I will ave to wait quite a few years I guess :)
--gks
Does it frighten anyone else to know that Intel may be publicizing themselves as the brainchild of WiMAX?
Progress isn't made by early risers. It's made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something. -Heinlein
Verizon wireless has started setting up high speed data wireless networks up in several areas of the US. Other companies have done the same. I'm not sure they're the same thing as WiMax, but they are starting to pop up in highly populated areas all over.
When the roll-out is complete, Unwired's service will be available to 66% of the population, Wallace said.
I like how easily accessible Internet is becoming. I still know people that either can not afford it, or have it so slow that they don't use it.
WiMax is a nice idea, but hopefully it won't be replaced or hacked right away. What about p2p over these networks? Will the speeds be evenly distributed between clients? You know people are going to try and leech/abuse their privalege
Just slap on a tinfoil hat, make some new window shutters, and go back to your tofu on a stick...
Don't anthropomorphize computers: they hate that.
If these things cause cancer. ;)
Wait 5 years and see what happens to the Australian population.
I mean Australia got like 20 million people, with 66% of the population covered that's over 13 million test subjects
Technology, the cause of and solution to all of life's problems.
... Because trying to get through all those pesky FCC barriers, not to mention giant US monopolies whose business model will impact, would make it sooooooooooo easy to do in the US.
It's a TEST project, which suggetss that it will be rolled out elsewhere after this proof of concept. First-gen WiMAX is just a last-mile wireless connection from ISPs to fixed clients. The next gen will be for mobile clients (like RoadRunner, only affordable). This is not philanthropy, and I doubt Intel would ever represent it as such. It is a pragmatic, calculated test, which Intel will probably use to tell ISPs why they should invest in a proven real-world, deployed technology. Then Intel benefits by having lots of folks wanting their WiMAX silicon. It all sounds smart, logical, and calculated to me.
Hmm.. This sounds ideal for pen testing the laptop security of 66% of the AU population.
A nationwide wimax effort by Craig McCaw, and is being beta tested across the US at the moment. Starts at $30 a month, and completely portable (bring the modem with you). http://www.clearwire.com/
Yeah, I bet Intel is really doing it out of the goodness of their heart.
I love it when Americans think that just because a company is centered there, all their money comes from Americans.
News flash: People outside the US buy Intel products.
Centrinos for everyone!!!
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
This is good news. If WiMAX turns people into zombies, the problem will be confined to Australia.
Oh yeah, and here's the obligatory bash quote for the local phone monopoly:
Bugs are just features that have been fixed.
Hung by his jawls until cleansed...
Summers was punished for being right, remember that. The numbers drop quickly for the fairer sex when socialization of boys is commonplace or less cadence is given to flapping one's gums in a coherent manner (anybody see another change in educational standards in favor of mindless babbling?).
Sry, but the boys need the ego boost, you misandrous and unholy lot. North America is lagging in yet another area...
Aside from giving a bunch of lucky Australians access (and who knows how man 'roos :-) ) Why did Intel pick Australia? Was it something to do with the 3.5 GHz and 2.3 GHz licensed bands being availble there now and not in the US, or something else entirely?
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
Well I can say one thing, your view is "Truly American" or at least the worlds steretypical view of one. Intel is, wait for it, a multi-national you moron.
I thought it was french...
They could have invested their money into wisconsin, which would be a much wiser investment, as wisconsin residents have almost no options for broadband, except for SBC... which doesnt even reach most people, and our stupid cable company (where I live), comcast, has been promising broadband for over 3 years now, with an actual deployment nowhere in sight, and will cost upwards of $55/month... yay.
-P8R
Judging from the complete lack of intelligence in your post, I'm guessing you must be the first woman ever to post on slashdot. Stick to minding the babies and leave the technobabble to us, please.
This is the largest area that has good operational mesh networks everywhere, all operated for free by the people, over 4000 nodes.
So here comes the greedy bastard corporations to screw it all up, WTF?
http://www.nodedb.com/australia/
http://www.locustworld.com/
Progress isn't made by early risers. It's made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something. -Heinlein
Nice Sig... reminds me of the quote:
"Necessity is the mother of all invention. Laziness is the father."
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
The big question is whether you want to condem a company for being first, or condem a company for sticking around.
The latter. But specifically, I condemn a company for raising barriers to entry by using "collusion with the government to prevent competition," as you put it in the case of Standard Oil, as a means to stick around. AT&T owned what was by far the largest telephone network, and it chilled innovation in phone hardware and services by requiring that only its own phones be connected to the Bell System, using state governments (private property law) and local governments (public utility franchises) to further its market power. Microsoft uses copyright law along with contract law (specifically anti-reverse-engineering clauses in non-negotiable EULAs) to prevent anybody else from making a working reimplementation of the Win32 API and has begun to use patents against competing free software projects. Here, the collusion is with the judicial system (state and federal courts that interpret copyright, patent, and contract laws) and with trial lawyers (which Microsoft can afford but competitors cannot).
My experience with WiMAX is it doesn't work if you don't have LOS or NLOS. Our office is in the heart of a major city on the west coast where a popular DSL-provider is headquartered. Our WiMAX service had to be cancelled because of dropped frames at our location due to the "canyon effect" created by a street full of tall office towers. Apparently, that robs their other WiMAX customers of available bandwidth as their access point attempts to retransmit.
If this is true I can't see WiMAX hitting critical mass in metro areas without signifcant buildout by the WISP. Rural areas on flat terrain would probably be okay as long as customers don't bump/move/taunt their antennas.
The tech could be delicate in a rugged geographic environment, otherwise they would have used the Worlds test-bed: New Zealand.
In post Patriot Act America, the library books scan you.
Nice that all the ignorant Americans jumped on with Crocodile Hunter jokes. I hope you still enjoy paying for someone to ring you on your Mobile (I mean CELL phone - the benefits of being aware of other cultures). Some advanced cultures have made the caller pay the full amount.
If you actually read the article there is competition with Telstra's CDMA wireless offering. The CDMA offering piggy backss on the mobile phone network.
The Intel/Unwired offfering is different with the use of Wimax. Very glad to have Telstra competition as Telstra is a monopolist has hindereded ADSL take up for years to keep prives up. Funnily enough, Telstra is now being run by yet another culturally ignorant American.
Does Canberra count as a major metropolitan area? Oh please please please please please. . .
I have been an Unwired user for almost a year. Although the service is quite reliable and is one of the very few broadband options in places with no ADSL, I still find it quite slow. I am using the 256/64 kbps plan with 12GB of monthly downloads. It can get easily to 30 KB/sec when downloading one or two files (i.e. one or two connections to any Internet service). But the slowness feeling when downloading multiples files or doing different things simultaneously (e-mail, web, usenet, etc.) is quite significant. It is particularly exhasperating trying to work through ssh or telnet. Someone told me it is due to its low latency. And of course, P2P via Bittorrent or eMule is almost impossible due to the stupidly low transfer rate (it is probably limited by Unwired).
I would wonder why Intel are using Oz as a test. It wouldn't be in any way connected with their attempts to break Australia's CSIRO patents on WiFi technology would it? Why test it in the US when they can muscle right in at the source of their legal case.
Down here in New Zealand i have been running on a generally available WiMax system for about 2 months now, and it have been available well before that.
Guess I must have dreamed that.
Nice strong 1Mbit/512Kbit (down/up) link at around 4Km from the transmitter on 3.5GHz.
Only about 30% more expensive than wired ADSL broadband, which is not available here as we have fibre bearers out here in the country (go figure, Telecom wont install local DSLAMS).
There are tons of these system rolled out over here, have been for quite some time.
Even with incoming airtime charges the United States of America has far cheaper cellular call charges than in Australia.
Yet another service for places that already have multiple (or even one) affordable connectivity options. I wish they'd work on extending the range of DSL instead so that the rest of us aren't stuck with expensive ISDN.