4 ms·

By room you mean radio frequencies ? ok that makes sense. But for example my mom lives in a very rural area of germany but luckily still gets around 4MBps from

by kayoone 12y ago

By room you mean radio frequencies ? ok that makes sense. But for example my mom lives in a very rural area of germany but luckily still gets around 4MBps from DSL. That has been the case for 10 years though and will probably never increase while my own bandwidth has increased to 100Mbps in the meantime. The wireless network is hardly used at all in her area though and could offer up to 50Mbps if it weren't for the high traffic costs.

manicdee 12y ago
Part of the high cost of mobile delivery of last mile services is the requirement for this heavy infrastructure to service a small number of people. The further away from a regional centre the fewer the number of extra customers you will reach for the same investment in infrastructure. The mobile tower still has to provide backhaul of some kind. In the usual scenario the backhaul will be provided by microwave connections, though in some cases it might be a fibre connection. Microwave is easier to manage since you don't have to keep leasing right-of-way for your cables, and if something goes wrong it's either one end or the other (as opposed to cables, where your problem with connectivity from, say, Canberra to Sydney might be in Canberra or Sydney or any point along that 400km cable). Wireless is not a solution for last-mile fixed services except in very sparse rural settings. It will always be lower-speed than wired connections. The only advantage of wireless is the ability to reach more people in a given service area for the same infrastructure cost.
- kanzure 12y ago
  > Part of the high cost of mobile delivery of last mile services is the requirement for this heavy infrastructure to service a small number of people. How much of that infrastructure cost is regulatory cost versus just the cost of people building their own antennas? Specifically I am wondering if this is another industry where equipment isn't as difficult or costly as the folklore (or marketing materials) would have you believe.
  - XorNot 12y ago
    This is what a regular analog TV station looks like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXXmUWD9_0w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXXmUWD9_0w Does any part of that say "cheap" to you? Radios are difficult. Radio transmitters which don't pollute the spectrum are more difficult. There's a reason mesh networking is a big research area at the moment - because the little bit of 2.4ghz you use around your house absolutely doesn't scale. You keep it contained and low power, and use wired backhaul. You want to go to high power? You now need electronically aimed beam-forming antennas, much higher power levels, you need all of this linked to the national backbone anyway.

by kayoone 12y ago

manicdee 12y ago

Part of the high cost of mobile delivery of last mile services is the requirement for this heavy infrastructure to service a small number of people. The further away from a regional centre the fewer the number of extra customers you will reach for the same investment in infrastructure. The mobile tower still has to provide backhaul of some kind. In the usual scenario the backhaul will be provided by microwave connections, though in some cases it might be a fibre connection. Microwave is easier to manage since you don't have to keep leasing right-of-way for your cables, and if something goes wrong it's either one end or the other (as opposed to cables, where your problem with connectivity from, say, Canberra to Sydney might be in Canberra or Sydney or any point along that 400km cable). Wireless is not a solution for last-mile fixed services except in very sparse rural settings. It will always be lower-speed than wired connections. The only advantage of wireless is the ability to reach more people in a given service area for the same infrastructure cost.

kanzure 12y ago
> Part of the high cost of mobile delivery of last mile services is the requirement for this heavy infrastructure to service a small number of people. How much of that infrastructure cost is regulatory cost versus just the cost of people building their own antennas? Specifically I am wondering if this is another industry where equipment isn't as difficult or costly as the folklore (or marketing materials) would have you believe.
- XorNot 12y ago
  This is what a regular analog TV station looks like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXXmUWD9_0w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXXmUWD9_0w Does any part of that say "cheap" to you? Radios are difficult. Radio transmitters which don't pollute the spectrum are more difficult. There's a reason mesh networking is a big research area at the moment - because the little bit of 2.4ghz you use around your house absolutely doesn't scale. You keep it contained and low power, and use wired backhaul. You want to go to high power? You now need electronically aimed beam-forming antennas, much higher power levels, you need all of this linked to the national backbone anyway.