Australian Broadband Report

The Australian Department of Communications released a Broadband Availability and Quality: Summary Report, 23 December 2013. The report found 91% of Australian premises have access to xDSL and 28% other high speed broadband fixed connections. In this report "availability" is a synonym for geographic coverage of premises and "qualify" for broadband speed. The report did not look at the affordability of broadband, which should be a factor in availability, nor does it look at reliability or latency. The issue of latency is one for satellite links and some terrestrial wireless links, where the data takes a long time to transit the network making some real time applications unworkable.
The report found the major issue with access and quality were regional areas and some pockets in urban areas. One option I suggest which could be used to address this is are 4G wireless networks. Rather than build a completely separate fixed wireless network which was the policy of the previous government, I suggest supplementing the 4G networks of the mobile phone carriers.
Curiously the DOC version of the report at 1.4 Mbytes is about five times as large as the PDF version. This is due to one image of a tag cloud being stored in the wrong format. The image is a 1.2 Mbyte JPEG file, when converted to PNG format it reduces to 180 kbytes (with no loss of quality). As I pointed out previously, on its own broadband will do little to benefit Australia. What is also needed is training in how to make use of computers and telecommunications. In this case it appears that staff at the Department of Communications have not been trained in how to format documents correctly.

Availability

The total of this section exceeds 100 per cent because the majority of premises have access to multiple broadband technologies.

• Approximately 9.9 million premises (91 per cent) have access to fixed line broadband services delivered via xDSL technology.
• Approximately 3.1 million premises (28 per cent) have access to a high speed broadband platform (defined as including fibre-to-the-premises, fibre-to-the-node, hybrid fibre coaxial networks and fixed wireless networks).
• Approximately 8.8 million premises (81 per cent) have access to 3G mobile broadband services and about 6.4 million premises (59 per cent) have access to 4G services.
• All Australian premises are covered by satellite broadband, although there is a ceiling to the capacity of these services and therefore not all premises can access a service.

Quality

• Approximately 3.1 million premises (28 per cent) have access to peak download speeds of between 25 megabits per second (Mbps) and 110 Mbps.

• Approximately 7.1 million premises (65 per cent) are in areas that have access to peak median download speeds of less than 24 megabits per second over the copper network.

• About 0.7 million (6 per cent) premises are unable to get access to a fixed broadband service.

• Of premises with access to xDSL broadband services over copper, about 3.7 million are located in areas with an estimated peak median download speed of less than 9 Mbps, and 920,000 in areas with an estimated peak median download speed of less than 4.8 Mbps.

Wireless Broadband for the Community

The take-up rate for the NBN in Tasmania was reported to be 38.5% after three years. The previous government was not too worried about the NBN take-up rate, as the copper network was to be switched off, so consumers would not have much of a choice. Does anyone have statistics for the take-up rate for high speed broadband in other countries?

One option I suggest for Australian urban areas is to combine 4G wireless mobile services with wireless broadband. This could complement FTTN and FTTP. The existing mobile service has limited capacity, but could service moderate home use. The service could be exp[anded by installing picocells on the same fibre used for FTTN and FTTP. Roaming could be enabled to allow a subscriber to any mobile company to use these cells. Also a lower tariff, comparable to wired services, could be offered for those using the wireless service "at home".

Using mobile broadband would create a virtual NBN at low cost. Rather than have to build an extensive wired network and home there were customers, the existing mobile network could be used and then cells added as demand increases.

With advances in 4G the mobile broadband service could carry 4K TV. The advanced HEVC codec allows compression of a HD TV at 6 Mbps and 4k TV at 12 Mbps to 30 Mbps. This could be carried on a 4G LTE-A network, using the Multicast-broadcast single-frequency network (MBSFN) option.

However, many of the community services envisaged for home broadband do not need high speeds. Instead they need trained staff and well designed applications. As an example  home health care is mentioned as a use for the NBN. But a person's vital signs (body temperature, heart rate, blood pressure, and respiratory rate) would only need about 10 bps to transmit.  More sophisticated monitors require more bandwidth, bit still far short of broadband, such as such as electrocardiography at 4 kbps.

But the greatest benefit from home health monitoring is likely to come from checking on the patient's general level of activity and asking them how they are. Advice to doctors, commissioned by the Department of Health recommends a minimum of 640 x 480 Video, with a minimum throughput on the link of 384kbit/s should be available, which far less than high speed broadband.

On-line education is also an application often given for home broadband. But while students like rich multimedia, this does not necessarily improve learning. The report "Evaluation of Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning: A Meta-Analysis and Review of Online Learning Studies" from the US Department of Education found that video does not improve online learning.

There can be considerable public benefit from broadband without running it to each home. Community centres provide not only a way to consolidate technical services, but also provide experts in health and education. Australia now has free Internet access in public libraries, which is an underrated achievement.

Internet in libraries builds on the library's traditional role providing access to information and literacy. Universities and TAFEs are turning their libraries into learning centres, with computers in place of books. They are keeping the staff to help the students, not only work the computers but with finding, using and creating information. The Gungahlin Town Centre Library in Canberra is a good example, where the one building accommodates the public library, a school library, a TAFE campus and broadband connected community rooms. This could be extended to provide support for university students as well.

The Lexus and the Broadband Network

Political commentators in Australia are struggling to explain the difference between ALP and Collation broadband proposals to the voters in nontechnical language. The ALP proposes continued roll-out of Fiber To The Premises (FTTP) for the National Broadband Network (NBN), whereas the Collation wants to use mostly Fiber To The Node (FTTN). My suggested analogy is: Should you buy a new car or fix up the old one, or "The Lexus and the Broadband Network".

The Lexus and the Broadband Network

The ALP FTTP proposal is like the car salesman offering you a new Lexus: sure it is expensive but it will be fast and reliable and last a long time. The Collation's custom auto centre says your ten year old Toyota Camry (copper cable) is mechanically sound, it just needs some new parts (FTTN) and will be much cheaper. Your kids say they don't want an uncool Lexus, or an old Camry, they want a cool Italian Scooter (Wireless Internet). You tell them they will grow out of the scooter in a few years and then want a real car, to which they reply "Whatever". ;-)

ps: In my view, if the government, whoever they are, want to save money, they could prioritize fibre roll-out in greenfield sites and areas with no, or poor broadband.

We have had TFFN in Canberra for just over a decade, with the Transact system. If you have power poles handy, and the citizens don't mind more overhead wires, it is a cost effective system. Also it works okay in new buildings. My apartment building has a fibre optic node in the basement and twisted pair copper to each unit. But if you are going to the trouble of putting new cables underground, then they might as well be fiber-optic, as most of the cost is in digging the trenches.

The areas with copper phone and Pay TV cable could be left for last, where it is working okay. This would be a slight change to the current government's NBN FTTP to achieve cost savings proposed by the opposition. Installing new FTTN should only be done on a limited scale, where the copper cable is new enough to be kept, but so far from the exchange that higher broadband speeds are not possible. The FTTN should be done so it can be upgraded to FTTP later.