Since we're talking about the NBN OH
GOD PLEASE MAKE IT STOP the next time you decide to make a serious
business decision based on a Business Spectator story, take a look at this story first.
Don't want to? OK, here are the high
points: instead of the NBN, build fibre to the street, and do the
rest with WiFi.
“WiFi is getting to the point where
it could be used for the last bit of the network that connects
households and businesses to the fibre. This is what should be the
focus of an "open and transparent debate”.
Did I already yell “please make it
stop”? Yeah, no need to repeat that bit.
The short version.
- WiFi hotspots are shared: securing an individual's traffic is not trivial.
- WiFi hotspots are shared: one user can swamp the network.
- WiFi hotspots suffer interference from other WiFi hotspots – they use shared, unmanaged spectrum.
Read on:
“The NBN fibre could be brought to
smaller neighbourhoods and then connected to each home and business
using new powerful WiFi options, specifically little things called
"picocells”.”
A picocell isn't a WiFi hotspot (PLEASE
MAKE IT STOP!), it's a little mobile phone base station designed to
connect to the fixed network and eliminate in-building cellular
blackspots. That is: if there's a blackspot inside (say) a shopping
centre, Telstra or Optus or Vodafone might decide it's worth bringing
in a picocell so people can still use their smartphones.
It's got nothing to do with providing
last mile wireless access.
Now, if you have the IQ of a fence-post
and spare cash, go out and spend a couple of billion on a WiFi
last-mile network, on the advice of Business Spectator, and go broke.
I'll be laughing in the wind-up proceedings.
