Skip to main content

No home line? what about the internet

Having just moved to Wellington I have recently been through the process of setting up broadband access. The whole process was more difficult than I had planned for but it got me thinking of various approaches to avoid sitting in the internet cafe....

ADSL
Naked DSL
Cable Broadband
AirCard
Public WiFi
Public WiMax

The classic approach would be ADSL. The apartment we moved to didn't have a phone line already connected which is the pre-requisite for ADSL. Who says you don't need copper anymore?

Given the take up of mobile handsets as the only phone of choice for many people what then are the choices when you don't have a land line? This is where Naked DSL comes to the fore. There are however scarce numbers of providers that run Naked DSL lines into homes, none that I could see in New Zealand.

There is however Telstra Clear that operate a cable network to supply TV, Voice and with a cable modem broadband access. This is the best option for subscribers in the US if you want to drop your Ma Bell telephone in favour of your mobile "line". The down side is that Telstra Clear are still pushing cable and haven't got as far as pushing cable anywhere near our apartment yet :( If you're in Auckland, Vector is extending their fibre network at the moment.

AirCards are quite popular here. In a country with ~4 Million people only 400K households have broadband subscriptions. This is where the AirCard fills the gap. Run by Vodafone it's usage of the CDMA network to get "broadband" access, faster than dial up (but we'll ignore that as we're assuming we don't have a phone line) but not by much. OK for IM and Email but not much more than that.

The last two are nowhere near developed in New Zealand yet, although plans are moving forward for a network of WiFi hotspots in Auckland.

Still there is a strong argument for Telcos to invest in their most visible asset, that of the public telephone network (pay phones). So I raise the notion again that if people are really dropping their land lines in favour of mobile then use the copper assets to drive some value added connectivity for people who want broadband access. The other option for public WiFi is for utilities companies to build out capability. Vector is an electricity, gas and communications company. Street lights are even more common place than payphones, many phone boxes have already been decommissioned. This is a natural network than could easily be adapted to provide more than light.

The final part is the continued promise of WiMax. Telecom did win the auction for spectrum and have asked to begin to develop plans around the technology. We could see extensions to the Broadcast trials to build out a real alternative for broadband coverage. After an unsuccessful foray into fixed wireless access by Ionica in the UK WiMax will become the fixed wireless access platform of choice for many countries.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

PC over IP - The Teradici Effect

Teradici are hoping to blur the lines between PC and Data Centre. Their solution allows a use to view multiple screens and control the blade PC over IP. This is kind of like the dumb terminals with a new edgy deployment. The intention is that all of the computing power is performed offsite in a centralized area, the Data Centre, and this will save on power and maintenance costs as the engineers are co-located with the hardware and therefore don't have to go out to the client site for basic maintenance. The Teradici Company Article found in the Wall Street Journal
Post a Comment
Read more

e-Olympics

This year's Olympics should be the best ever for coverage. Fring are looking for onsite commentators and as a means to encourage people are offering a 3.5G phone as your reporters tool. I hope that this will be the games of the micro blog. The potential for services like Twitter or Jaiku to open up access to the games in a way never seen before is encouraging. Essentially there are three dimensions to the games: Nation Event Athlete Typically broadcast of the games ha content defined by the nation. The USA channels closely follow the USA squad, the same for UK, NZ Australia etc. This is targeted at the national pride. For those people who are actively engaged in an event themselves, marathon, it's the event that is king. There will still be an element of "my country" but this is equally balanced by "my sport". The final element is the followers of a specific athlete. Friends, family and fans may elect to follow all of the events surrounding a person. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Cashless Society? Micropayments up for disruption

New Zealand, although small, is a long way ahead in many aspects compared to the UK. Some of their new schemes are being adopted by the UK government. What I remember from my first trip here 6 years ago was the impact of the EFTPOS system. Long before the UK was using Chip and PIN New Zealand was moving towards a cashless society with the ubiquitous EFTPOS (Electronic Funds Transfer Point of Sale) cards and terminals. The system is good and robust. But the one place you can't find it for some of those micropayments is on the public transport system. Buses would benefit from some form of electronic payment system. There is one drawback of the system in it's implementation today, the time taking to pay. For small payments, say a Moro (think Mars) Bar at the local dairy (corner shop) is the time taken for the system to recognise the card and for the user to select the account (Cheque, Savings or Card) and input their PIN. This would certainly slow down the boarding process...
Post a Comment
Read more