NBN Providing Wireless for Regional Areas

In "What reporting of the Brunswick NBN survey didn’t tell you" (Commsday, 5 March 2013), Geoff Long looks at a study of early NBN first-release sites carried out by Melbourne and Swinburne Universities (Broadbanding Brunswick: High-speed Broadband and Household Media Ecologies: A Report on Household Take-up and Adoption of the National Broadband Network in a First Release Site, Dr Bjorn Nansen, Dr Michael Arnold, Dr Rowan Wilken, Dr Martin Gibbs, Australian Communications Consumer Action Network, 2013). While the researchers study concentrated on take-up of the NBN Long suggests there should be more research on why 20% of households have no Internet access at all, which is a good question. However, it was not clear to me from the study report if households where residents had one or more  smart phones or tablet computers with broadband wireless built in where counted as connected. If not, then the number of connected households would be greatly under-reported. The popularity of wireless devices might make the concept of "household" connection largely irrelevant, much as mobile phones has lessened the need for a home fixed telephone lines. Previously the number of telephone lines per 1,000 population was used as a measure of the communications access of a country, but this is now largely irrelivant.

 Long also suggests that the study shows that there is no urgency for urban areas to upgrade to fibre. This seems a reasonable conclusion: in urban areas which have good access to Internet via ADSL or cable, this is not a compelling case for fibre. In fact the latest take-up rates for NBN nationally show that of the 34,500 subscribers, 70% are via satellite or terrestrial wireless in regional and remoe areas, with fibre in urban areas being the minority. Also the issue of take-up in the city is not really an issue as the NBN will have an effective fixed line monopoly: the plan is to eventually remove the copper cable, so that if you want a fixed line it will have to be NBN fibre.

Australian Transport Future at AusRAIL 2012 in Canberra

Greetings from the National Convention Centre in Canberra where the Australian Railway conference "AusRAIL 2012" is on today. The conference exhibition has spilled out of the exhibition hall into the foyer and upper levels. Heavy engineering companies from around the world are alongside Australian logistics and ICT. The exhibition is free and open to industry, academia and government until 3pm today. The next conference is November 2013 in Sydney.

One exhibit which sparked my interest were IBM, with Doug Stapleton showing their "IBM Intelligent Operations Centre for Smarter Cities". IBM are partnering with management technology company SMS. Greg Halliday from SMS was showing various Sydney transport monitoring applications brought together on one screen for better co-ordination. I asked if they had a video to show to my ICT Sustainability students.

Dion Castle from PivoTel was showing  pocket size satellite terminals. The inReach is a 2 way satellite communicator is a solid looking almost cubic device which can be worn on a belt. It has no display and just a few buttons. On its own it can be used to send out a regular message to allow the wearer to be tracks and has an SOS button. But the device also has a Bluetooth interface allowing text messages to be received and sent from a smart phone.

At a time when the emphasis is on higher and higher speed broadband communications, it is important to keep in mind that much can be done with very low bandwidth high latency communications. This is important when you are outside the coverage of urban communications networks, or when those networks fail, especially in an emergency.

Australian Satellite Services Working Group

A Satellite Services Working Group has been established by the industry body, the Communications Alliance to look at use of satellites as part of the National Broadband Network (NBN). The group includes Optus, NBN Co, Telstra, Newsat, Intelsat, Thales, APN, Indigo Telecom, SES New Skies and Coutts Communications.

Google Android Powered Satellite

The University of Surrey is working on a Google Android Powered Satellite. The idea is to use a smart phone as the computer and sensors for a low cost satellite.

Metadata solution to battlefield information overload

Neil Pittaway reports in Asia Pacific Defence Reporter (March 2011) on " ISR imagery - information overload". He argues that large amounts of video information from UAVs and other sensor systems are overloading the military communications systems used on a battlefield. He discusses systems such as the Hawklink used by the US Navy to get around bottlenecks with other networks, the use of satellite communications (SATCOMS) for Command Control, Communications and Computer Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance(C4ISR). But as well as the acronyms, I suggest the amount of data to be transmitted can be trimmed, with a little care.

Even if military systems could transmit all of the high resolution imagery to every solider on the battlefield, this would hinder, rather than help. The operators would be drown in a mass of information. Instead what is needed is a way to get what is needed to those who need it. Where telecommunications links are limited, this will also allow only what is needed to be transmitted. Most ISR systems, including the most advanced UAVs are dumb when it comes to data. They transmit everything they see, at the resolution they see it. As a result the links have to be sized for maximum transmission. However, the Internet and the web have had technologies built into them to show just the information needed to be transmitted. Web servers can now run on computers the size of a matchbox which cost a few hundred dollars. Paradoxically, promoted by the low cost it is likely that smaller nations with limted budgets and private organisations will have this advanced capability before the military larger countries.

With intelligence built into the surveillance system, the sensor system need only transmit what the client wants, at a resolution required and which the link and their receiving device can handle. If the soldier on the ground is using a hand held pocket size screen, there is little point is sending ultra high resolution imagery, as they will not be able to see it. Apart from the standard Internet and web protocols, what is needed is an Electronic Document and Records management system using metadata (tags on the data) to identify where the imagery is from and when. Then those who need it will be able to find it (or better still register to receive it when it is updated).