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WiBE Shared Hotspot Pitched For Rural Broadband in UK
justice4all writes "A British company claims to have solved the problem of delivering a reliable broadband connection to people in rural communities. Deltenna has developed a small, self-installable gadget called the WiBE (Wireless Broadband Enabler) that uses the 3G mobile network to create a 2Mbps web hotspot. The device sounds similar in concept to devices like Novatel's MiFi, but Deltenna claims it works even in places where a 3G mobile phone wouldn't register a signal. The WiBE has five times the range of a 3G dongle, and can deliver 30 times data throughput compared to a 3G USB modem dongle, Deltenna believes."
Presumably it's an industrialised unit, with proper antennae that allow it to pick up a 3G signal in poor reception areas. OK, nothing too exciting there. ...Profit!
1) What agreement do they have with the phone companies? Presumably they need a special licence to resell their bandwidth?
2) Cost - what's the charging model for this?
3)
While I applaud any effort to bridge the gap between rural and urban internet access, two things strike me here:
1) No mention of price in the article - if current 3g broadband setups are anything to go by, don't expect to see much of a GB allowance compared to standard 'wired' dsl
2) Apparently it can scale to a maximum of 7.2mbps, with a claimed rural 'average' of 2.8mbps - is there much point in a network investing in rolling out these sorts of standards if the average speed is going to be pretty slow? I understand that in rural area's its better than nothing, but the limitations of speed and download allowance I suspect makes this sort of broadband access not very appealing. Frankly, I'd prefer a group scheme using line-of-sight where you are at least going to get a reliable, fast connection. My 0.02 lampsie
It all seems like a bit of a double up.
While I'm no fan of Telstra here in Australia, they have recently trialed LTE at 75km using Nokia Siemens Networks equipment.
http://www.itnews.com.au/News/215787,telstra-lte-trial-100-mbps-wireless-over-75km-cell.aspx
I know I'd prefer 100Mbps peak (88Mpbs average) over 2Mbps.
Long-haul optical fiber combined with DSL/a reasonably modern landline phone system for more remote sites; taxpayer money funds the backbone, and the goverment (that isn't hideously corrupt and can be trusted not to use the lines to strangle kittens as soon as you take their eyes of them) leases the last mile to private companies. But of course, there's no profit in that, so such a thing can't possibly exist outside of covert communist dictatorships such as those found here in Sweden. And Japan, to take a ideologically neutral example. Actually, both Japan and Sweden's networks came about through cooperation and understanding between the public and private sectors, more than anything else; it would never have been pulled it off as good as it turned out if the gov. actually had appointed a public sector company in charge as ISP.
*Pets his RJ/45 jack connecting to a 100mbps line in an appropriately condescendingly smug manner*
Emotions! In your brain!
Now that sounds like tech to be used in rural areas! When they combine the receiving station with a 3G node you would have broadband with an added mobile broadband bonus... This is the way to go, I'm pretty sure Australian farmers would see the benefit of using their mobile all over the ranch and would see a box like that as a good infrastructure investment. The cell companies would probably charge them big time, but this way there should be a mutual benefit, the farmer gets coverage and pays a little more for it, and the telco gets coverage and pays a little less for it...
On that same note, there should be more access points that double as 3G node, so you can have fast cheap mobile internet everywhere you are willing to make the investment where the telco's aren't. Another added bonus is this: transmit power can be lowered significantly so less radio-noise is produced... and your cell's battery will last twice as long when using the internet.
Yup, I have. My mother lives in north Devon, the land that time forgot. It took them ages to roll out ADSL, so until last year I'd use my mobile phone for Internet. GPRS reception was pretty poor, but it was faster than a modem for transfer (2 second RTT sucked though). UMTS reception is a lot better. The house has very thick walls that block the signal, but if I put the phone near the window I get a strong signal and can get 50KB/s downloads with around 200ms RTT over that. I don't think they've rolled out HSPA (or LTE) yet. Now they have ADSL, I can use their WiFi. I get downloads of 50KB/s. The latency is better than the UMTS connection, but the speeds are the same (and some of the latency may be caused by the bluetooth hop to my phone - I'm not sure how that compares with WiFi).
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Yeah, and has anyone ever had any reception in a 'rural' area?
This is UK-rural, which isn't really that rural.
See, for example, the yellow bits on this map.
the unit does look fairly large compared to a dongle, maybe about the size of a large dog food tin can? (i.e. next size up tin can from a normal size one)
How many Kilderkins would you say that is? Or I may with difficulty be able to visualise the volume in Firkins if you'd prefer to stick to conventional units.
which is totally what she said
I'd be surprised if it wasn't. You house generally doesn't move about all that much, so it's trivial to point a high-gain antenna towards the nearest mobile phone mast/strongest local reflection. You can even stick in on it's own mast to increase line-of-sight.
When O2, curses on its head, first launched the iPhone, I had constant problems with 3G dropout near iPhones. I began to wonder if O2 was somehow prioritising their iPhone customers, or whether they were bandwidth constricted and the iPhone was sucking up everything. Whatever. Change to Vodafone, no more problems.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Try this: http://www.gsmworld.com/cgi-bin/ni_map.pl?x=0&y=0&z=0&cc=gb&net=hu
That's the map for "3 mobile", IIRC the first to roll out 3G in the UK, and advertise the best 3G coverage.
See also: Orange, T-Mobile, Vodaphone and O2 (haha).
The only problem is that UK residents can't combine all the networks' coverage without swapping SIM cards - there is no roaming agreement between UK operators. However, this is changing with the merger of Orange and T-Mobile (http://www.shinyshiny.tv/2010/05/orange_and_t-mobile_everything_everywhere.html), and also network sharing between some other operators.
Ironically a visitor with a non-UK phone will see much better coverage - even UK residents willing to pay extra can't get access to this coverage without using a foreign SIM card.