NBN Co has declined to say what levels of latency can be expected from the wireless technology it will use to service most of the small percentage of Australia that won’t be covered by fibre-optic cable, in the wake of concerns the technology might be a step backward from what is currently offered by ADSL2+ fixed broadband.
The issue came to the fore after Tasmanian technology activist group Digital Tasmania said last week that some Tasmanians with ADSL2+ were worried NBN Co’s wireless network – which will cover up to seven percent of Australian premises with a minimum of 12Mbps speeds – might not be up to spec compared with ADSL2+, despite the fact that in wireless areas, the existing copper network providing ADSL broadband will also be maintained for a decade once the NBN is rolled out.
There usually certain technical advantages to fixed ADSL over wireless services — with one historically having been being better latency (or response time to the broader internet), and another often being throughput, or speed. For example, tests of the fixed wireless network operated by vividwireless have shown latency was not on par with that offered by ADSL broadband.
Latency is important for some internet applications, such as gaming or any activity which requires a quick response time to online servers.
Terry Walsh – wireless director for the Australian division of global networking giant Huawei, said applications which required less than 50 milliseconds latency were considered ‘real-time’ and could be affected by latency issues. “The lower the latency, the better the user experience,” he said. “Examples include video chat, online gaming, online role-play games, and shooter games where the faster a player can shoot means better odds versus another player who has slow latency.”
In a response to the issue, an NBN Co spokesperson said the company was still in the process of finalising its procurement process for the fixed wireless technology.
“However, we are designing our fixed wireless service to deliver to rural and regional Australians better services and higher speeds than many people in metropolitan areas would currently experience, and to have lower latency characteristics than people would experience with mobile wireless,” the spokesperson said. “We will need to finalise the solution and enter a testing mode before discussing network performance in more detail.”
“Speeds actually experienced will depend on a number of factors including retail broadband plan, equipment, in-premises connections, the location of the end-user, local conditions and the number of concurrent users.”
Walsh said wireless technologies were showing a continuous reduction in latency as they developed. For example, mobile networks built on the GPRS standard, released around 1997, had a latency pushing towards 700 milliseconds, a figure which has gradually decreased as the EDGE, WCDMA and HSDPA technologies have been introduced.
The Long-Term Evolution family of technologies which will shortly be introduced by mobile telcos Telstra, Optus and Vodafone will enable latency of just 10ms, according to Walsh. In addition, the reduction in latency has enabled more efficient use of wireless spectrum. In general, networking companies are constantly trying to push latency lower, as alongside overall data throughput (commonly referred to as ‘speed’), latency leads to a better user experience.
The current generation of ADSL2+ features latency varying from 10ms to 50ms, according to Walsh, whereas the fibre to the home platform being rolled out by NBN Co will offer reduced latency – between 15ms and 25ms. The latency of wireless networks is also affected by a variety of other factors, according to Walsh, such as the distance of the user from the base station, signalling conditions, signal strength, and environmental interference – and even the architecture and congestion of the network.
How is latency reduced, technically?
“The changes in latency occur as a result of new features and functionality in the network,” Huawei’s Walsh said, referring to the gradual decrease in latency over the years as mobile technologies developed. “For example reducing the TTI (Transmission Time Interval) in HSPA , introduction of fast scheduling and fast HARQ (Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request) reduces the latency time.”
“Introduction of new modulation schemes such as 16QAM and 64QAM and moving more of the signalling and call control to the base station and thus nearer to the user device also reduces the RTT of the signal. The network architecture affects the latency. For example, LTE has an all-IP , flatter architecture, with less nodes affecting the signalling path. Therefore the latency is reduced compared to a 2G or 3G network.”
Image credit: Josh Klute, royalty free, Huawei
Better Latancy is important. It’s finding the balance between throughput and latency to best suit the requirements of the user. I hope NBN Co gets it right. :)
I will be protesting in the streets if everybody in Australia is not able to simultaneously play StarCraft II.
My feeling here is that NBN Co would be reluctant to give latency figures because it could/would/will vary wildly from location to location.
A tower in a town with 500 subscribers is going to be sharing its allocated spectrum with more subscribers than a tower in a town with only 200 subscribers. The equipment could be identical in each case.
This is the inherent problem with a wireless solution – you’re sharing the bandwidth with everyone else.
I agree, but still, I think it’s something that really need to be addressed. The key problem with wireless at the moment is latency, and more and more applications are going real-time.
Shhhhh!!!!
Don’t let telstra hear you say that.
They would only be able to give an indicative number.
It will be a statistical reference to average connected user numbers, amount of data they pull on average, distance from the tower, average weather conditions, average interference, etc, etc.
They could give a number, but it’ll be highly affected by the above factors – (and more) – and you’d only have to find a community not significantly meeting this number, and some bozo who doesn’t understand would claim a massive scandal.
Almost any number would be difficult to apply in the real world.
I doubt many (if any at all) wireless carriers anywhere in the world would advertise “expected latency”, simply because you open yourself up.
Just to clarify:
I should have said: “…you’d only have to find a community not significantly meeting this number every once in a while…”
Also should have said: “…in the world would advertise “expected latency”, simply because you open yourself up to potential litigation and/or compensation claims for occassional lapses which WILL happen with wireless…”
Sometimes I type slower than I think… ;)
Excuse my ignorance on this topic, but my experience with wireless is that latency tends to fluctuate wildly, even from the same location on the same server.
On Next G, pinging the same Melbourne server, it can be anywhere between 45 and 100. On ADSL2 it sets reasonably steady on 40. Especially noticeable while trying to game over Next G as my ping will jump all over the place.
I understand that there are many factors that contribute to latency, but in general can somebody explain what causes this large fluctuation? Given the download speed also varies hugely (from 1mbps to 7mbps) I know this can be attributed to how many people are sharing that bandwidth over wireless, but is it simply congestion and variation of download speed that would also be affecting latency?
I can’t imagine having a steady ping of only 15ms over LTE. That would be truly awesome, but it’s hard to believe until I see it with my own eyes. And this surely has to be a best case scenario. As that bandwidth is shared with more users, that ping will surely fluctuate?
As much as I’m all for next generation wireless technologies, I simply can’t imagine a wireless connection ever having the consistency of fixed line broadband.
The problem you are referring it is known as “jitter”.
By their nature wireless connections will have high jitter, whereas fixed line connections will low jitter. In fact this can be extended to “shared” and “non-shared”.
However the jitter problem is far more observable on wireless because it is harder to overcome the one of the causes of jitter, i.e. due to interference of contending signals. Jitter on shared fibre connections (i.e. the PON setup on the NBN) however would mostly occur (and this applies to HFC as well) when the shared bandwidth is being overused, i.e. there isn’t enough bandwidth to account for all the active users.
This means that the jitter experienced on wireless will be higher than the jitter experienced on fixed line. For real-time applications have a connection with a consistent latency (preferably low) is far more useful than having a connection with an inconsistent, but on average low, latency connection.
I currently get jitter on my HFC connection because it’s a shared medium (of about 30ms), this jitter is very small however compared to the jitter I get on my 3G connection (of about 60-100ms). Even through the latency of LTE may be improved, they will still have jitter problems.
ADSL2+ for the moment actually generally has very low jitter, of about 5ms, which is good, and one of the reasons I prefer it to HFC for gaming.
However, because the bandwidth of the NBN will be quite underutilised at the last mile and the only real sharing contention come to down to how much CVC the ISPs purchase, I am pretty sure that, on average, the NBN will have better latency characteristics than both ADSL2+ and HFC, despite being a shared medium.
Latency is tricky. It’s not just about the time it takes to get from A to B, in order to deal with it you also need to deal with issues like collisions (two connections attempt to send a packet to the same location at the same time), and even priority (a VoIP packet obviously should be transmitted first in a contention situation).
Thanks for such a comprehensive and clear answer nightkhaos. Makes a lot more sense now.
Jitter is something I’m familiar with from my audio/visual background, as many people believe it plays a role in the degradation of digital signals between source devices and amplifier. Can’t tell you how many debates I’ve had on that topic, but that’s completely OT so I won’t go there :)
Wireless is and always will be a primitive technology.
You simply cant give maximum speed, to multiple customers all at the same time sharing the same frequency. It simply doesn’t work.
Simple formula:
More Subscriber + More Speed = More frequency Spectrum.
Frequency Spectrum = big $$$$
More Subscriber + More Speed + Same frequency spectrum = High latency, Dropouts and Slow Speed!
Your a fool to think wireless can replace Fibre.
Yes Wireless has its place, but not as a long term replacement as most old people seem to think.
Yes. No. Somewhere in between. Wireless will only ever really be an additive technology.
There is no normal figure, no average or no idicative. Wireless latency can and does vary. Even for folks sharing the same AP. In the same way FTTN latency will also vary. Not to the same degree, granted, but there will be subtle differences just the same.
All of which is made entirely redundant by context. Latency is almost irrelevant for HTTP traffic. More relevant for FPS and latency sensitive apps/ services like VoIP and IPTV.
Telstra may talk-up it’s next-next-gen upgrade path, for example, but it will still be a companion technology. You only have to look at markets where uptake is high on the 3G and 4G networks, to see wireless doesn’t scale anywhere near as well as people/ vendors might like to make out.
These are people who will be on wireless worried about latency, what about people on satellite? There latency can be substantial I’m not even sure whether satellite will allow VoIP which will be their main form of communication.
This is actually why I think the 100% mandate is silly. There are some people who it is just impossible to serve with good broadband.
Frankly, if I lived in an area that can only get Sat I would be insulted. Let’s hope some alternative technologies come along for these people.
Still, I think that putting the Sats up there needs to be done, as we will need them.
Just checking that those leaving comments know that NBN wireless is fixed wireless, not mobile wireless. Wireless does not automatically mean high latency or jitter. As an example, Agile runs VoIP over their Coorong network that is serviced by wireless backhaul.
I think that most of the people complaining about the high latency and jitter that NBN wireless will have are barking up the wrong tree. Those problems are much more significant in mobile wireless access.
Actually it depends if it’s shared or not. But yeah. Exactly.
“As an example, Agile runs VoIP over their Coorong network that is serviced by wireless backhaul.”
Not to put too finer point on it, Agile use Microwave links for the backhaul. That’s not even remotely in the same class as 3G/ 4G/ WiFi. ;)
http://www.agile.com.au/data/coorong.htm
It will depend on the wireless technology chosen for the NBN.
The wireless link Agile (Internode) use is a Point to Point Microwave link, most likely 60ghz range which is able to provide 10gbps easy at short distance.
The wireless technology Agile (Internode) uses for its Point to Multi-Point is the 900mhz Motorola Canopy that has a real world NLOS throughput of only 3mbps. If you had clear line of sight to the microwave tower however, Agile (Internode) could offer you a WiMAX product of up to 12mbps.
Again, wireless has its place just not as a substitute for fibre.
Thanks, Renai, for producing a data-rich article on the subject!
Regional users in particular, wanting to replace STD call costs with free VoIP-to-VoIP calls (since everyone will be on the NBN there will be no last-mile copper cost for most calls), will be very interested in minimising latency and jitter to make VoIP useable.
The future for universal VoIP looks bright as wireless is improving from today’s offerings, though other posters quite rightly observe that nothing can beat a fixed service for consistently low latency.
Of course ‘free calls’ VoIP to VoIP assumes like VoIP today that all regional users will use the same VoIP supplier- big ask I would think.
Of course everyone is deliberately avoiding the elephant in the room which is the basis of the concern by Digital Tasmania, that is if NBN wireless REPLACES ADSL2+ in specific areas and if as discussed there is higher latency with wireless than ADSL2+ – why is it being replaced?
Feel good platitudes like ADSL2+ will be around for at least 10 years after the NBN rollout in Tasmania is coming from who? – follow the link given, oh it’s from the NBN Co, it doesn’t even own the copper network in the first place. LOL!
Does Telstra know (prediction courtesy of the NBN Co) that they will have to keep maintaining the copper network after the NBN rollout for at least 10 years?
Of course everyone is deliberately avoiding the elephant in the room which is the basis of the concern by Digital Tasmania, that is if NBN wireless REPLACES ADSL2+ in specific areas and if as discussed there is higher latency with wireless than ADSL2+ – why is it being replaced?
From the article:
The Long-Term Evolution family of technologies which will shortly be introduced by mobile telcos Telstra, Optus and Vodafone will enable latency of just 10ms, according to Walsh.
…
The current generation of ADSL2+ features latency varying from 10ms to 50ms, according to Walsh…
If these figures prove accurate then the NBN wireless, if based upon LTE or another 4G technology, will have better latancy than ADSL2+, with the caveat of it maybe having slightly worse jitter. I hardly call the ignoring the elephant in the room.
Does Telstra know (prediction courtesy of the NBN Co) that they will have to keep maintaining the copper network after the NBN rollout for at least 10 years?
Yes, as maintaining the copper network is part of the USO, and the USO still holds until it is modified. Telstra thus have to operate under the assumption they will be maintaining the network indefinitely until the USO changes are passed.
Not only that, but it would be reasonable to assume that, given the nature of the deal between them and NBN Co and what it actually involves, that discussion of what happens with the defunct CAN network as NBN Co completes its rollout has been discussed as part of the deal.
I pointed this out to you in that very article you just referred to, but it’s actually the government that is requiring Telstra to maintain the copper network (via the USO) not NBNCo. Also, NBNCo doesn’t actually say that “ADSL2+” will will be maintained for 10+ years, just that the copper network will be.
Whether ADSL2+ will still be available over that copper network in 10 years is another question, and NBNCo (or the government) have not actually made any guarantees about that.
“Whether ADSL2+ will still be available over that copper network in 10 years is another question, and NBNCo (or the government) have not actually made any guarantees about that.”
Correct, although I find it hard to believe that any existing ADSL services will be shut down in non-fibre areas. If Telstra have to maintain the copper and the ADSL assets are already in place, what incentive is there to remove them? It’s even possible that ADSL penetration will increase in some areas, since there will be mountains of ADSL equipment made redundant by the FTTH rollout which could in theory be re-deployed in underserved regional areas.
@Dean@NightKhaos
The comments pertaining to the USO and the so called 10 year time frame is riddled with uncertainty in a post NBN landscape.
The USO is all about providing a basic telephony service to all, at some point in time assuming the copper is decommissioned exchange area by exchange area following the NBN rollout and the migration of Telstra Wholesale and retail customers the USO obligation would pass to the NBN Co, as Telstra is not in a position to provide the USO -you cannot buy PSTN anymore.
If Telstra is forced to keep the copper network maintained until the NBN rollout is completed I assume Telstra will need to be compensated at some point because the rapidly dwindling fixed line copper customer base is not providing enough revenue to support its existence.
Where does the USO obligation rest in area that is serviced by NBN wireless and Telstra copper?
Also as Dean quite rightly states the USO is not about providing ADSL2+ nor is it about providing any minimum criteria on a fixed line broadband, it is purely about a voice service.
In that instance Telstra could quite rightly provide a voice service and remove the DSLAM’s from a particular exchange and still meet its post NBN 10 year USO obligation.
“In that instance Telstra could quite rightly provide a voice service and remove the DSLAM’s from a particular exchange and still meet its post NBN 10 year USO obligation.”
Yes they could, but as mentioned in my above post, why would they remove a money-making asset that’s already in place? It’s not like they’ll be able to sell any of this equipment, it will be basically worthless. I just don’t see the incentive.
Depends on how you view the concept of a ‘money making asset’.
Telstra has the most extensive ADSL exchnage network in Australia which they resell to other ISP’s and is the backbone of BigPond’s BB service.
Obviously the bigger urban and CBD exchnage areas are more lucrative than regional and rural, but that’s ok because the majority revenue in high density population areas help compensate for the low density low revenue areas.
If Telstra is told to to keep a ADSL exchange and copper maintained going and the BB backhaul requirement for say 50 customers in the absence of their high density ADSL revenue city areas that have long gone to the NBN they might want some serious compensation thanks.
And so they will shut down the ADSL2+ if they can’t get enough demand in regional Australia. So what? There are already lots of options coming out, the majority based on wireless, for these regional customers to migrate to. Only one of which is the NBN solution.
@NightKhaos
Yes but you are avoiding the point of the article we are discussing, that is Digital Tasmania’s concern that a NBN wireless service may not be as good as a ADSL2+.
The best I can see in the posts in here so far is that a future wireless service MAY be as good as ADSL2+ depending on what further developments in wireless technology MAY be made available by the NBN Co at rollout time.
If I was resident taking NBN Co wireless and I already had a nice clean ADSL2+ service I would be comparing them both and doing a lot of testing before putting my ADSL2+ modem on ebay!
If the wireless service was not to my satisfaction I would no doubt be lobbying my Government Federal member hard to keep the Telstra copper and DSLAM service going.
Yes but you are avoiding the point of the article we are discussing, that is Digital Tasmania’s concern that a NBN wireless service may not be as good as a ADSL2+.
The best I can see in the posts in here so far is that a future wireless service MAY be as good as ADSL2+ depending on what further developments in wireless technology MAY be made available by the NBN Co at rollout time.
So we’re avoiding the debate on if wireless MAY NOT deliver performance as good as ADSL2+ by showing that it MAY actually outperform ADSL2+, but we cannot be concrete on this figures until we have examples? Hmm. I think this is what you call an impasse. Neither side can advance until we have more information, namely, what technology NBN Co intends to utilise for its wireless. That’s a perfectly reasonable position to be in. We’re both not sure, but one side is coming from optimism and the other pessimism. In fact I’d say this is a very, very common impasse to reach on emerging problems.
If I was resident taking NBN Co wireless and I already had a nice clean ADSL2+ service I would be comparing them both and doing a lot of testing before putting my ADSL2+ modem on ebay!
As would I. And that’s exactly what any reasonable consumer.
If the wireless service was not to my satisfaction I would no doubt be lobbying my Government Federal member hard to keep the Telstra copper and DSLAM service going.
I wouldn’t, because maintaining the DSLAM is a commercial operation, not a government one. I would instead focus on showing community interest in maintaining our local copper loop and DSLAM, and if the company who owns it does not want to continue operating it, start fund raising in order to buy it off them.
” I would instead focus on showing community interest in maintaining our local copper loop and DSLAM, and if the company who owns it does not want to continue operating it, start fund raising in order to buy it off them.”
Oh come on NK, that is Fantasy Is stuff, the community would have to buy the exchange building and the internal DSLAM gear off Telstra, and the copper and the pillars and all the ducting, pay for the backhaul, subcontract out the maintenance of all of that to someone who is interested and convince ISP’s to provide them with a retail ADSL2+ service from the Wombat Co-Op exchange building for 100 customers, many of which will switch to wireless anyway because it’s a hell of lot cheaper on taxpayer subsidised NBN wireless Plan!
:)
Exactly. They probably won’t bother, because the benefits of having ADSL2+ will not be good enough to justify such an expense. Which is exactly the point I wanted to make with that statement. Thank you for making it perfectly clear for everyone.
@NightKhaos
“Which is exactly the point I wanted to make with that statement.”
Well it is now after I rubbished it, you were absolutely serious when you said it though.
” Thank you for making it perfectly clear for everyone.”
No I thank you, one of the best full pikes with a double twist I have seen for a long time, training for the London Olympics? :)
:)
Nope, you feel exactly for my trap.
I left a little bit of key information out of the campaign: most people won’t give a shit.
Because most people won’t give a shit, it will be impossible for anyone to campaign like that,
Ergo, the best option it to take is just to take the wireless option.
“Depends on how you view the concept of a ‘money making asset’.”
They earn revenue by selling ADSL services. Your talk of cross-subsidy isn’t relevant when we’re talking about equipment which has already been paid for and installed. Once again I don’t see the incentive to decommission this equipment; they lose the revenue and gain what exactly?
“If Telstra is told to to keep a ADSL exchange and copper maintained going and the BB backhaul requirement for say 50 customers in the absence of their high density ADSL revenue city areas that have long gone to the NBN they might want some serious compensation thanks.”
There is no talk of Telstra being required to do anything, it will be their own decision when it comes to ADSL – I’m just saying there doesn’t appear to be any reason why they’d choose to shut it down, unless the cost of running a DSLAM in a regional area is somehow greater than the revenue it provides – and that seems unlikely.
“They earn revenue by selling ADSL services.”
Hang on, first of all you are assuming 100% of the exchange customers before the NBN wireless rollout decide to stay with Telstra provided ADSL2+ and a PSTN voice service post NBN wireless activation in the area.
“Once again I don’t see the incentive to decommission this equipment”
The incentive is they can sell the land the exchange building is on and the equipment in it maybe overseas, also the exchange is not some inert object that requires no further attention because you think it is ‘already paid for’, it requires on going maintenance to the building, the copper links to it require ongoing maintenance as do the backhaul links, and Telstra has to maintain a technician presence in the area, if you think those costs are more than offset by the paltry amount of revenue from the few customers left on the exchange post NBN wireless activation in the area you are dreaming.
” I’m just saying there doesn’t appear to be any reason why they’d choose to shut it down, unless the cost of running a DSLAM in a regional area is somehow greater than the revenue it provides – and that seems unlikely.”
Well it’s DSLAM’s plural, the revenue today does not justify all rural exchanges having a ADSL capability, many of these exchanges were upgraded to ADSL only because Telstra applied for and got Government funds anyway, back in the Howard/Coonan era with the Broadband Connect program.
“The incentive is they can sell the land the exchange building is on and the equipment in it maybe overseas”
I’m talking about areas outside the FTTH rollout where Telstra will be maintaining its USO obligations for the next 10 years; the exchange can’t be sold because the PSTN services are still active. As for selling the equipment overseas, maybe, but I have my doubts it would be worthwhile.
“it requires on going maintenance to the building, the copper links to it require ongoing maintenance as do the backhaul links, and Telstra has to maintain a technician presence in the area”
Agreed, but all of this has to be in place anyway for PSTN services, so I still don’t see how Telstra can gain anything by shutting down existing ADSL services.
“I’m talking about areas outside the FTTH rollout where Telstra will be maintaining its USO obligations for the next 10 years; the exchange can’t be sold because the PSTN services are still active.”
Yes but the USO obligation doesn’t have to be PSTN, it can be wireless, all the USO is concerned with is a voice service, handing out $40 NextG rural ticked Nokia/LG/Telstra etc mobiles on a voice capped plan fulfils that obligation, Telstra have done it that way for major disruptions in the PSTN service or as a temporary solution until they can install a fixed line to new house/estate.
Such a USO obligation could be provided by the NBN Co regional/rural/ wireless footprint also.
So? Until we know how bad, or good, the latency is for NBN wireless connections this is a pointless argument.
BTW
Reading the lead article again I find it quite incongruous that the spokesperson for the NBN Co, the taxpayer fed company that is rolling out the biggest fixed line FTTH infrastructure in the world is pushing the benefits of wireless BB technology now and in the future.
I am sure Telstra , SingTel, Vodafone and 3 are heartened by this free plug for a service they already have and will continue to develop, not that they need it, their SIO’s are going through the roof.
So? Wireless is great, the problem is it doesn’t scale well in high population densities. That has, in fact, always been the problem with wireless, and unless there is some breakthrough the defies the laws of physics as we understand them, then it will always be the problem with wireless.
@NightKhaos
Yes I know all of that, but it has no effect whatever on wireless takeup demand in high population densities whether you think it scales well or not, buyers of the new IPad 2 with 3G queued up at the Apple stores before 5PM this Friday are not going to give it a miss because they have done the maths and decided it doesn’t ‘scale well enough’.
You and others keep making tech tyre kicking comparisons between wireless BB and FTTH and only wanting to see that is the sole reason behind why we should be spending $43 billion on a FTTH rollout.
In the meantime the end user interest is moving away from fixed line, the wireless technology is leap frogging incredibly because that’s where the $$ in R&D are going and where the investment risk of all that R&D will be fulfilled over and over.
The sucker taxpayer is rolling out the FTTH because no one else is interested and wouldn’t touch it with a barge pole – hmm I wonder why?
Yes I know all of that, but it has no effect whatever on wireless takeup demand in high population densities whether you think it scales well or not, buyers of the new IPad 2 with 3G queued up at the Apple stores before 5PM this Friday are not going to give it a miss because they have done the maths and decided it doesn’t ‘scale well enough’.
And I wonder how many of these will buy the WiFi only edition, or have a WiFi connection at home / where they work because they don’t mind the fact that they are tethered to a smaller area with WiFi because they can get the internet much cheaper (per GB) with WiFi + ADSL2+/Cable.
In the meantime the end user interest is moving away from fixed line, the wireless technology is leap frogging incredibly because that’s where the $$ in R&D are going and where the investment risk of all that R&D will be fulfilled over and over.
Do you want me to point you to ABS report on Broadband usage again or can you look it up again?
“and I wonder how many of these will buy the WiFi only edition, or have a WiFi connection at home’
I know where you are trying to go with this but it makes no difference to the rabid demand for 3G wireless data in what proportion downloads/uploads are WI-Fi or 3G from every smartphone, IPad etc out there.
It also makes no difference to the ongoing avalanche of fixed line disconnections either, just because NBN FTTH is going past the door doesn’t mean they will reconnect again either, well they might get a “HEY IT”S FREE” connection, you will watch those connection stats like a hawk NK, no fudging on the takeup figures by Conroy – naa he wouldn’t do that. :)
“Do you want me to point you to ABS report on Broadband usage again or can you look it up again?”
If you feel it has some relevance to R&D investment in wireless and the ROI from that investment, which is what I was referring to.
Do you think Telstra and their shareholders are kicking themselves the management at the time fast tracked NextG investment and deployment and are now poaching high ARPU disgruntled customers by the bucket load from the other wireless providers because of their poor performance?
“It also makes no difference to the ongoing avalanche of fixed line disconnections either”
LOL what avalanche, the ABS stats you’re trying so desperately to dodge show fixed-line connections are growing, not shrinking. And yes I know you’re itching to link to that report showing that households all over the country are dropping fixed-line PSTN services, but everyone here knows that has nothing to do with broadband.
“If you feel it has some relevance to R&D investment in wireless and the ROI from that investment, which is what I was referring to.”
Nice attempt at misdirection, but what you were actually referring to was “end user interest is moving away from fixed line”. The ABS report Nightkhaos referenced shows you are either misinformed or dishonest. Which is it?
“LOL what avalanche, the ABS stats you’re trying so desperately to dodge show fixed-line connections are growing, not shrinking.”
You should read the Telstra Financials more, that’s where I am getting the fixed line disconnection figures from, yes I know when it comes to revenue falls we are talking about PSTN revenue, but I am referring to the net fixed line disconnection total.
Telstra is also the supplier and owner of the other two main fixed line options that ISP’s can resell, LSS and ULL , the latter as in the Naked DSL product.
If you read the latest six month report to 31/12/2010 it indicates there were 44,000 fixed line connections cancellations, not singularly PSTN line cancellations but fixed line cancellations.
In the 12 month reporting period to 30/6/2010 there were 200,000 net line cancellations.
Note also Telstra distinguish between the net line losses as stated above and retail line losses, for example in the 12 months to 30/6/2010 there were 326,000 retail line losses, in the six months to 31/12/2010 it was 109,000.
Your assumption is that all of these cancellation are more than offset by LSS and ULL uptake, I don’t see it that way, as a significant portion of that 244,000 total over both reporting periods are dropping fixed line altogether for a mobile service.
Sorry I still call that a bloody big avalanche, and it’s still rolling on month after month.
Well, we can ignore everything up to June 2010 because that is far as the ABS figures take that and they show an increase of about eighty thousand users over the year prior. After that point their were 44K disconnections from Telstra you say?
Look at this, here:
In the past six months, some 52,000 TPG customers have taken up its bundled offerings. Although overall off-net and on-net customers shrank in the period, the bundled growth made up for it, with the company now boasting 516,000 broadband subscribers in total, a number up 27,000 on July 2010. The numbers of mobile subscribers also grew by 16,000 in the period.
Up 27K. And that’s just TPG. It is therefore entirely possible. But we’ll have to wait until we get more results, collate them, or for the ABS June 2011 numbers.
alain, you *really* don’t like wireless, do you.
Given we do not presently know which wireless technology is going to be used for the NBN, your immediate concerns that it will not ever compare to ADSL is flawed, in that we cannot make concrete comparisons with a solution that’s not yet defined.
To further muddle the waters, ADSL2+ isn’t actually “everywhere” yet. Indeed given the NBN, it’s highly likely that ADSL deployments will gear down over the next few years.
It is not financially viable to run fibre to every single premises across Australia. The law of diminishing returns means by about 97-98% the costs travel in a non-linear fashion upwards. Which means alternatives have to be considered. Including wireless.
It means locations that have either no ADSL service at all, or limited speeds (such as ADSL1) will benefit from a potentially faster solution. Otherwise you’d be freaking out about even more cost to the NBN rollout. And we can’t have that, right? :)
I find it heartening, in fact, that NBNco *is* reviewing a broad range of connection options. It’s very easy to think of wireless in terms of ‘consumer grade wifi’.
I would tend to expect the solution used will be a tad more robust and far less latent than that. Indeed, the CSIRO has been playing around with a pretty useful solution:
http://www.itnews.com.au/News/237468,csiro-develops-wireless-bush-broadband.aspx
There’s more than one way to wirelessly connect. By keeping it’s options open, NBNco has a reasonable chance of finding a pretty decent solution.
@Brendan
“alain, you *really* don’t like wireless, do you.”
Huh? – you addressing the correct person here?
” your immediate concerns that it will not ever compare to ADSL is flawed,
Huh? again – I didn’t say that, the concern is from Digital Tasmania in the lead article, I only repeated it as part of my post.
“Indeed given the NBN, it’s highly likely that ADSL deployments will gear down over the next few years.”
Well maybe, but in the meantime:
http://delimiter.com.au/2011/03/23/tpg-is-rapidly-expanding-nbn-or-not/
… and Telstra is upgrading its high speed HFC deployment to more areas.
“It is not financially viable to run fibre to every single premises across Australia. The law of diminishing returns means by about 97-98% the costs travel in a non-linear fashion upwards”
Running fibre to 97-98% of residences is not the same thing as 97-98% of residences actually using that fibre for a BB or voice service, but that’s not the ‘law of diminishing returns’ non-linear fashion you meant I take it? :)
“There’s more than one way to wirelessly connect. By keeping it’s options open, NBNco has a reasonable chance of finding a pretty decent solution.”
Indeed I also look forward to the NBN wireless overlap footprints with the other existing or new wireless providers who are also keeping their options open by rapidly expanding their current capability and reach.
Interesting times eh?
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