Telstra is on the move....

For those who read my last blog - heres a bit more about Telstra's activities.  I would like to think that the impact of LTE has been fully taken into account for the NBN - particularly as the current growth in broadband subscriber numbers is all in wireless - because people enjoy the flexibility of a "anywhere"  connection - and even if its not offering 100Mbs its still pretty good for video streaming on ipads and laptops etc.

Article at : http://www.theage.com.au/business/telstra-launches-4g-in-capital-cities-20110524-1f1ix.html

Wonder whats next - Apple bidding for spectrum in the 700 MHz range and opening their own iphone, ipad and mac device network???

If I ruled the world - or a tale of NBN builds

The other day I was in a forum meeting and to get the communication going our moderator asked one of these “keys of the castle” type questions – in this case it was what would you do if you had all the money in the world?  I don’t think I answered very well but it did make me think – how would I build a National Broadband Network anywhere in the world? – so that’s what today’s blog is all about!!

Starting in my own backyard, as it were, Australia – well the big problem here is that of course there kind of is a default wireless NBN that reaches 98% of the population – and that is Telstra’s Next G network – now I’m not normally a fan of Telstra but what they and Ericsson put together is a pretty robust wireless network that is mobile broadband capable and can, in places give 20mbps (the NBN Co target for wireless is 12 mbps).  Given that Telstra is now re-farming their 1800Mhz spectrum to roll out a LTE solution and you would have to assume they will end up with a mobile network with broadband capability (Next G) and a pure mobile broadband network (LTE) – and will have ditched fixed line with its falling revenues and the universal service obligation to NBN Co – nice work if you can get it!!. 

That said I do get the need for fibre roll-outs for eventual capacity – but it’s a bit surprising that NBN Co spent a lot of dollars on the old Austar wireless spectrum that covers a fair chunk of Australia and yet only intend to use it for something like 4% of the population – and that leads me to how I would roll-out NBN’s anywhere

Fibre will undoubtedly offer greater speeds and capacity over wireless – but only when demand reaches a tipping point – before you reach that subscriber number, wireless works just as well and where there is no existing infrastructure, copper or fibre, then it’s a clear winner.  There has to be a combination of both fibre and wireless but you will cover the ground quicker and cheaper with wireless than you will with fibre – particularly if you are covering rural/ regional areas.

So – what’s Telcotom’s plan for a “anywhere NBN”?  Well its basically use wireless technologies to create an “umbrella” wide area coverage in conjunction with fibre for backhaul combined with fibre to key areas that have proven demand – then as subscriber numbers build you can correctly match your fibre roll-out to the demand.  To play “build fibre and they will connect” is naive and commercially challenging at best, politically suicidal at worst. Progressive rolling out of fibre where you already have increasing numbers of subscribers on wireless allows the best match of dollar spent to coverage required.

Mind you – the subscribers might find that they don’t really need 100mbps to download a full length movie in 3 minutes (because they can’t watch it that quickly!!) and they might just like the flexibility of an anywhere connection they can get from wireless – which brings me back to what Telstra are doing here in Australia....