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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
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."
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
Is there any doubt in someones mind that WiFi or WiMax is going to eventually permiate the metropolitan areas of the world and offer free access?
Yes, there is doubt. In fact, there is 100% certainty that it will not happen. Because it will not, and can not, be free. Someone has to pay for it. If your vision is correct (however badly described), I'd say that entity would be... people and businesses who pay taxes. Or, it will be indirectly so, by showing up as more arcane usage fees on your cell phone and cable bills. There is no "free" wireless service! It's not sunshine. Companies ("like AOL and other dial-up or broadband types") will be the ones providing this service, or companies like them, either directly, or through contracts with municipal or other governments. You say the market is dimishing, I say it's just re-arranging. But what about the millions that live in rural areas, or those that are out of line-of-site for these city-centered services? Traditional ISPs, in one form or another, will be around for a long, long time. Non-traditional ISPs will become the traditional, but someone still has to pay for the hardware, the people, the systems, the security, etc. Not free! Never will be - any more than tap water is, or electricity.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
I guess Philadelphia intending to offer the following, "Once a citywide wireless network has been deployed, the goal will be to provide some level of free wireless Internet access to everyone living, working or visiting in the city."
Was just my imagination... or was it? Read Article
Maybe diminishing wasn't the correct word, perhaps shifting is more appropriate. ... and yes nothing is entirely free, but the old methodology for charging to use wireless internet is definitely changing.
"Simplify, simplify, simplify!" Thoreau
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/
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.
You, like many other people on this board, appear to NOT know what WiMax is. WiMax is not the "cell phone" version of WiFi, it's a last-mile solution for fixed locations. It's basically a wireless version of DSL and cable modems.
Intercarve Networks, LLC
It depends on your definition of free. If one pays $100 on insulating ones house and it save $200 in heating and air conditioning cost than I would say the insulation was more than free as it was a money maker. This will be the case with broadband as it will save more money in other expenses than it will cost.
It's the flatest continent, so there shouldn't be a lot of line of sight issues and the remote cattle stations certainly would be users that would benefit from long distance wireless internet.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
We're a big continent with relatively few people (just passed 20 million recently). So most wired technologies aren't economically feasable outside of the metropolitan centres. The only reason that the bush has any telephone service at all is because Telstra started as a government-owned company (Telecom Australia). Almost half of it has already been sold off (so it's still government controlled) and now it looks certain that the rest will be sold as well. There's been all sorts of promises about maintaining services to the bush, but it's already bad enough and I can only see it getting worse. Deployment of WiMax (or something like it) might be the future of communications in regional areas. Expect to see WiMax/VOIP mobile phones soon. I reckon that's where it's headed - a unified IP network for voice and data.
Does Canberra count as a major metropolitan area? Oh please please please please please. . .
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.
It's the flatest continent
Except for the Great Dividing Range along the eastern coast, which is where about 3/4 of Australia's population lives. There's plenty of hills big enough to block line of sight anywhere in Australia - and the places where there isn't any hills, well, line of sight isn't far enough to get to the next outpost.
the remote cattle stations certainly would be users that would benefit from long distance wireless internet.
Except that this is *still* not long-distance enough. 100km is the distance to an average cattle station's back gate - and at the other side of that? Another cattle station. You might as well put a microwave link in, or go satellite, or rip out every single bit of copper wire left in rural australia and go with fiber (rumoured to cost upwards of AUD30 billion).
You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.