Oh, and while I am here the ACMA released a report on Australia's broadband usage:

http://acma.gov.au/webwr/_assets/main/lib310665/the_internet_service_market_in_australia.pdf

In view of our recent discussions on wireless Shadow, one figure stood out in that report:

"On average, 18.8 gigabytes of data was downloaded per internet subscriber in Australia during the December quarter of 2010"

That is more data than the largest mobile wireless plan I can find.

There are of course lots of other figures in that report, none of which support your "mobile wireless will kill fixed broadband" theory.

Rstuart,

The AVERAGE is 18.8GB per quarter, or 6.3GB per month. Optus has a mobile broadband option for $39p.m. for 8GB of data, which covers 60% of all internet users, so your statement is completely wrong.

With this you can also get VoIP phone calls.

I have monitored my families monthly usage at about 50GB, and I would imagine that there are quite a few like me. This would imply that there are a significant number downloading far less than this, for which cheaper plans are available.

The NBN business plan relies on 70% take up. 65% make the NBN a money loser.

@Shadow Minister: The AVERAGE is 18.8GB per quarter, or 6.3GB per month.

That's embarrassing Shadow. I stand corrected.

@Shadow Minister: Optus has a mobile broadband option for $39p.m. for 8GB of data

A link would be helpful. But I see Vodafone has a $39 plan for 12Gb, which I guess is similar. Internode, which is one of the more expensive ISP's, has 15Gb NBN for $30. http://www.internode.on.net/residential/fibre_to_the_home/nbn_plans/

This will be 25 MB/sec versus 1/10th of the speed, and a reliable connection versus collapsing if all your neighbours use it. You continue to ignore the "laws of physics" aspect.

I have a co-worker who seeks IT's advice on his home internet. He caused much hilarity when after having built a new house and moved into it, he discovered that the ADSL check's he did at the ISP's web sites didn't mean much. So now he is using mobile wireless, using a high gain antenna and various other tricks I set up for him.

He was pleasantly surprised at the speed. I think he was expecting dialup modem speeds, so a usable internet was nice. What got him have been how unreliable it is. Dropped internet connections have already caused him double charges on his credit card. Given the companies experience with mobile internet I am buggered if I know why this was a surprise to him, but there you go.

He is now between a rock and the NBN. There is no way Telstra is going to put a RIM out near him, as any new investment in the copper network is dead money, and besides they have been relieved of their Universal Service Obligation. So sadly he is hanging out for the NBN, which sadly is years away. Maybe by that time he will be used to the limitations of wireless, and he will be a lost NBN customer.

@Shadow Minister: The NBN business plan relies on 70% take up. 65% make the NBN a money loser.

70% of who? If the prices are equal they will get almost 100% of existing fixed line broadband users. That's all they need.

Rstuart,

"This will be 25 MB/sec versus 1/10th of the speed, and a reliable connection versus collapsing if all your neighbours use it. You continue to ignore the "laws of physics" aspect."

These laws of physics didn't deter the take up of mobile phones.

The present take of broad band is about 80% of house holds. This is increasing, but the NBN needs 70% of house holds to make this viable. Mobile broad band is likely to rapidly grow cheaper as it follows the same trajectory. If the pricing comparison is similar now, what will it be in say 5 years when the NBN gets to the cities?

rstuart, I have used 3g wireless for the past 3 years, as the premises I was in were unsuitable for either cable or ADSL. I purchase data in blocks of 12GB which last for up to 12 months. The reliability is excellent, the data rate acceptable and the cost a bit steep, but entirely reasonable if one is reasonably frugal with downloads, which I have never done much of anyway.

I can see no reason why the next generation of wireless devices could not compete quite successfully with the lower speeds offered by the NBN and even some of the more ambitious ones, at a vastly lower cost to the nation, albeit reducing some of the profits to be made by the ALP's big donors

@sonofgloin: If you don't have the take up rate numbers are rubbish.

Currently they have a choice, they can continue to use the copper. That choice will disappear: it's the NBN or no fixed line.

@Antiseptic: I can see no reason why the next generation of wireless devices could not compete quite successfully

Despite Shadow addressing my "the laws of physics" argument as though it is new, it isn't. He and I have been over it in agonising detail before: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=4494#116388 and http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=4494#115719

A brief summary: capacity of a wireless technology is measured using spectral efficiency. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectral_efficiency It is measured in bits/sec per hertz of available bandwidth. So if you have a 50 MHz chunk of bandwidth and a spectral efficiency of 20 bits/sec/hz, you can transmit at 1Gbit/sec.

I didn't choose those numbers at random. 20 bits/sec/hz is just beyond the upper limit (see the wikipedia page), 50 MHz minus guard bands is what mobile carriers are allocated now, and there have been demonstrations of achieving 1Gbit/sec using larger chunks of spectrum. They need a 16 element MIMO 1/2 meter square stationary antenna to achieve it (ie not a mobile phone), but hey, they did it. In the real world that 50 MHz chunk has to be divided over adjacent cells so you only get 1/4 of it, but we are going to ignore all this and pretend you can get 1Gbit/sec per cell.

The smallest mobile phone cell is 1Km radius (in reality they're much bigger), covering 2000 houses, all of whom must share the 1Gbit/sec. So each house gets 500 kbit/sec, which is under 1/3 of what you are guaranteed to get with the worst ADSL line right now!

Thus: the laws of physics prevents a wireless NBN.

Back in the real world, we've all seen this. When too many people use mobile data, electronically its starts looking loud party in a small room with everybody yelling at each other. In other words the cell collapses, nobody hears word said, and your internet drops out until someone gives up on the bloody thing and goes to bed.