I suspect that while wireless may work for low volume like crackly phone calls, or for content where everyone is waching the same thing, if everyone wants to watch a different TV show or movie, in high quality, or communicate with each other over a high quality video link, you need a physical cable.

Something to do with bandwidth limits.

Fibre optics has been the best option for well over a decade now. Obviously it is possible that it could be replaced overnight, just as there was the possibility (now eventuating) that copper got replaced. Suggesting we hold off on fibre optics is like someone last century suggesting we stick with writing letters in case a new technology came along that was better than copper telephone lines.

Quote:


So people who listen to AM radio think it works well?

The international transmission is not the bottleneck. The local transmission is.

I can't help but fee that if Rabbit had proposed the NBN, Sappho would be lauding it.

I'm no expert, but I too am an avid ABC listener.  All the alleged www/it experts the ABC have hosted say the fibre optic Labor NBN is the way to go.

Yeah my college had that happen at least once a year when they put up the fence for a party. They would drive a star picket into the same fibre cable. For some reason they never learned.

It was the fastest internet I had ever had, and they would have to cut the cable far more often to make me put up with something slower.

I am a technical person so I'll tell you all the answer.

Fiber optic is the best way to transmit huge amounts of data long distances.

The radio spectrum is good for distributing the data once it
arrives at close to it's destination.

You can place 1000 times the data on an optic link compared to a radio
frequency - even in the microwave bands which are at Giga Hertz.
The light in the optic fiber is running at a frequency of Terra Hertz.
That's 1000 times greater potential bandwidth!
We don't even have the technology to fully utilise the bandwidth at this point in time
but we will very soon in the future.

freediver wrote on Sep 10^th, 2010 at 8:31am:

And the technology is still evolving. Hence the tenfold increase in capacity that caused so much mirth when announced. just before the election. Same infrastructure, more advanced technology.

The problem with wireless (OK, one of many problems) is that, particularly in urban areas, performance degrades rapidly as the number of simultaneous users increases.

I like really fast broadband, but what does it mean?
Streaming HD movies? That's not really important is it?

How will it impact upon us compared to what other technologies may be able to provide?
The price is upwards of $2000 per person. That's pretty huge.

We are also going increasingly mobile. For the most part, we don't even need that sort of capacity.

I really wonder why this has been made out to be a priority when it clearly isn't.