Rstuart,

There are plenty of ways of increasing the flow of information beyond shannon's law, and they involve differentiating the signal. For example, the issue of band width is a major issue with satellites, as it is the single biggest bottleneck in their capacity.

For example, the same bandwidth can be used, for two data streams by using rotational antennae, one which emits a wave with left hand rotation and one with right hand rotation. Similarly polarisation can differentiate between two signals, (as used with 3D films) and finally, very directional antennae can cover different areas.

As for DIDO, I must admit some scepticism of the claims I saw in the paper, but without details I simply cannot comment.

However, with regards my comments on 1Mb/s bandwidth, if the 3G system is presently capable of 3Mb/s, a large section of present users would find no justification for paying a premium for the 12Mb/s of the NBN.

When 4G and 5G are rolled out with their vastly increased bandwith and data transfer rates, the NBN will have serious competition.

@: you're only intereested in hearing one thing:"fibre good, wireless useless"

No Anti, like everyone else who owns a smart phone I use wireless when a land line isn't available. In fact it is invaluable in my line of work. I look after critical infrastructure (or at least that is what my employer deems it to be), and I always carry a means getting to it.

Wireless can never offer what the NBN could offer in raw speed or quantity. I don't think there can be any dispute about that. There is also no argument smallish amounts of speed and quantity wireless can do it cheaper than fibre. Even the NBN uses wireless where the amount of data they have to deliver over a given land area (I guess you could measure it is bit/s/m^2) is small enough.

Thus the _only_ dispute is where the cross-over applies.

@Shadow Minister: but without details I simply cannot comment.

Just like everyone else on the planet, it seems.

@Shadow Minister: For example, the same bandwidth can be used, for two data streams by using rotational antennae, one which emits a wave with left hand rotation and one with right hand rotation.

A neat trick, but it doesn't break Shannon's law. if you are using polarisation it becomes part of the signal level. It can at best double it.

@Shadow Minister: very directional antennae can cover different areas.

They can. But again that doesn't break Shannon's law either. A series of high speed microwave links using parabolic antenna don't break Shannon's law any more than sending the same signal over a really fat noisy copper wire the same width as the beam does. The only thing it does is reduce wireless's annoying habit of your super strong signal becoming everyone else's noise.

The problem is none of these things have a much of an effect on the peak link spectral efficiency. That is measured when you are standing close to the tower, where beam forming gets you nothing because you are already close and there isn't any spatial diversity to take advantage of.

Rstuart,

For the user that wants high speed and 1TB of download, landline will always win over wireless, however, for the small user for whom 1Mb/s speed and a couple of GB per month is their only consumption, the starting packages for NBN are far too expensive.

Why pay a minimum of $60p.m. when wireless at $20pm meets your needs. That it is also portable is another plus that the NBN cannot match. With the cost per house hold about $6000 to install, irrespective of the package, the NBN needs lots of money from lots of people to be viable.

rstuart:"Wireless can never offer what the NBN could offer in raw speed or quantity."

And trucks can never offer what trains could offer in sheer capacity and efficiency. When was the last time you had a train deliver a load to your place?

@Shadow Minister: Why pay a minimum of $60p.m. when wireless at $20pm meets your needs.

Indeed shadow.

Did you notice that from http://acma.gov.au/webwr/_assets/main/lib310665/the_internet_service_market_in_australia.pdf the total downloads (gigabytes) rose by 50% from 2009 to 2010? 54% was increase was over fixed lines. 19% over Mobile Wireless Broadband.

I'll grant you if those those download figures freeze at 2010 levels my back of the envelope calculations show the NBN will be in trouble, as with investment of the same order that is being poured into the NBN wireless + advancing technology could cope. If it keeps growing by 50% per year on the other hand, it doesn't have a hope.

rstuart:"If it keeps growing by 50% per year"

And what is going to drive such an uptake? The driver to date has been increased interconnectivity and the ability to download content. Is the nature of either of those things going to change so rapidly?

And all that is quite aside from the issue of emerging technologies, doing things which you "know can't be done".

You haven't convinced me, I'm afraid. I think you're in love with the concept of having a big pipe going into your home, but how much bandwidth do you really use?

I'm not thrilled to be paying so you can be thrilled with your toy.