@Shadow Minister: Survey systems can get accurate readings, they just need to average over a few minutes.

I always thought they achieved the accuracy through terrestrial augmentation, so I went and looked it up.

Turns out the GPS manufacturers were naughty and figured out a way to use what was supposed to be the military only L2 signal to correct for unpredictable delays in the ionosphere. A "few" minutes is a wee bit off - it takes 45 minutes, and the accuracy is around the 60 cm level. This unit is typical: http://www.resourcesupplyllc.com/pdfs/SXBlueGPS_RSLLC.pdf

If all you want to do is measure the distance between two points, then using two GPS's positioned at the two points and chatting to each other works because they both see the same ionosphere delays. You then get millimetre accuracy for the relative distance between the two points, but it takes an hour. I presume the absolute accuracy remains at the 60cm level: http://www.icsm.gov.au/mapping/surveying4.html

1mm relative accuracy would be good enough I think, but your box needs a good view of the sky, the towers still have to be involved, and if your strongest signal is a reflection rather than line of sight it still isn't going to give you the answer you need. I think you would be better off just measuring the real delay from the towers.

Rstuart,

You are right, I must have confused my units between metres and cm.

"Relative Kinematic Positioning (RKP) is another approach for a precise GPS-based positioning system. In this approach, determination of range signal can be resolved to a precision of less than 10 centimeters (4 in). "

However, most of this error is due to atmospheric distortion. Not a problem experienced in wireless cells.

NBN Co's attempts to gouge retailers has suffered a setback.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/australian-it/backlash-forces-nbn-rebates/story-e6frgakx-1226111965800

AN industry backlash against the NBN Co for how it charges internet providers for usage of the $36 billion fibre network has forced the company to change its controversial pricing model and revise parts of its corporate plan.

@Shadow Minister: NBN Co's attempts to gouge retailers has suffered a setback.

Ye gods - even for the Australian that is an over the top headline. Ah but when I look I see they didn't say anything like that, did they Shadow? The truth was a little humdrum perhaps? Felt compelled to tart it up a bit did we? Shame.

That aside, do you remember this?

@rstuart: There is an almighty sh1t fight going on over NBN wholesale pricing right now, some of it in public http://delimiter.com.au/2011/07/21/pulling-apart-the-nbns-untenable-pricing-model-by-simon-hackett/ . This is situation normal for telecom industry. The ACCC has been presiding similar sh1t fights between the incumbent monopolist, Telstra, and is customers for years.

You've managed to dredge up a something I mentioned two weeks ago.

I am not sure Hackett has a good point, but nonetheless the NBN has moved a little. Well, a tiny bit actually. All they did was introduce a honeymoon period - the NBN won't start charging an ISP at a POI until they have a few paying customers to connected to it. Hackett has already said this isn't enough. Surprise, surprise.

As I said, situation normal. An equivalent sh1t fight currently going on the traditional copper arena would be this:

http://www.itwire.com/it-industry-news/strategy/48453-telstra-price-squeeze-hackett-slams-accc-inaction

I guarantee you will got nuts with tedium if you keep following the internal machinations of the ISP industry at this level.

"It is not a charge based on real costs; Rather, the quantum of this charge has simply been chosen to fill in an otherwise huge hole in the Federal Government policy requirement that the network return funds to the Commonwealth at a commercial rate and in a short timeframe (relative to the expected lifetime of the network). "

A prime example of a monopoly wholesaler gouging the retailers. This would not be possible if the alternative copper lines were maintained, and the customers had a choice.

It is just like the Sydney tunnels, where in order to get traffic through the tolls, the alternative routes were closed off.

Ralph Norris, the outgoing chief executive of the Commonwealth Bank, joined the criticism of the NBN, saying governments did not have a strong track record of operating commercial ventures. "I've never been a great fan of government's running commercial or business entities," he told The Australian. "What ends up happening is that they end up getting run on a non-commercial basis."

@Shadow Minister: A prime example of a monopoly wholesaler gouging the retailers. This would not be possible if the alternative copper lines were maintained, and the customers had a choice.

Firstly Shadow you're just spraying bs - you don't have a clue whether it's gouging or whether they are just making that promised 7% return on the tax payers investment. That latter could hardly be called gouging.

@Shadow Minister: It is just like the Sydney tunnels, where in order to get traffic through the tolls, the alternative routes were closed off.

More bs. You don't know that either. If the pricing ends up being the same as Telstra is charging Internode for ADSL then in fact you are wrong. Right now, what Internode is paying the NBN for fibre access is _cheaper_ that what Telstra is charging Internode for copper access. Internode is charging $40/mo for 5Gb/mo for lines it has to rent of Telstra (ex phone) or $60/mo (inc phone line - ie NBN equivalent) http://www.internode.on.net/residential/adsl_broadband/easy_reach/ , vs $60/mo for 30Gb/mo NBN. Now that indisputably is gouging from a privatised monopoly supplier - a monster created by the Liberals.

You continue to refuse to acknowledge this problem. If the Liberals had of followed the same policy for the road system they would have sold every bloody road in the country to a single monopoly provider. You are whining about what happens when the occasional isolated tunnel is run as a profit making business - charging whatever the market will bear. Can you imagine what it would be like if every god damn road was run like that?

Well you don't have to look to far, as that is what the Liberals created when they privatised the copper monopoly. If the ACMA didn't intervene regularly $40 for 5Gb would be the least of it. And yet that is apparently what you want.