Every mcdonalds in AU is wi fi free. Don't know about Hungry Jacks

Fibre Vs Wireless speeds

Fibre-Optics:

Commercially, fibre-optic cables are being used to carry data at speeds of about 2 Terabits per second (Tbps). Experimentally, trials are now achieving over 69Tbps over a single fibreoptic strand. (A Terabit is 1,000 Gigabits or 1,000,000 Megabits).

While the NBN will not be equipped to deliver such massive speeds initially, like all fibre-optic networks it is highly upgradable should greater speeds be required in the future. Speed increases only require upgrading of the transmission equipment with the fibre itself being unchanged.

Wireless:

Current 3G and 3.5G wireless networks (eg: Telstra NextG) offer theoretical speeds of up to 42Mbps. However, practically that network falls to a maximum of about 8Mbps, even under ideal conditions. Experimentally the 4G/LTE Advanced consortium is achieving about 1Gbps (per cell), as is the competing WiMax consortium.

So let’s compare wireless and fibre, with all speeds converted to Gbps:
Experimental Current Theoretical Current Actual
Fibreoptic (per strand) 69000 Gbps 2000Gbps 2000 Gbps
Wireless (Per cell) 1 Gbps 0.042 Gbps 0.008 Gbps

As it currently stands, fibreoptics are achieving speeds that are 250,000 times faster than wireless. In the experimental stages, fibre can carry 69,000 times more data than the entire bandwidth delivered by a wireless tower!

Longer waits between packets.

Why not wireless?

The numerous mainstream media articles on the NBN (and particularly the comments sections) are invariably littered with statements like “Wireless is the future”, “Everyone knows fixed lines are dead”, “fibre optics are being made obsolete” etc etc.

And no-one more than I would love that to be true. I’m sure we all would. The thought that we could obtain superfast data speeds without the need for wires is a tantalising concept. Unfortunately, it’s just not possible. That’s not to say wireless networks won’t continue to improve. Of course they will. But they will never approach the current or future speeds available via fibre-optic cables.

Wireless is a great complementary technology for deployment alongside fast fixed networks, and is also useful for delivering broadband to a small number of users in remote areas. But it is incapable of doing so in densely populated urban areas.

Let me make one fact absolutely clear from the beginning: Despite what you may have read from certain clueless commentators, there is not a single country or telecommunications company anywhere in the World that is attempting to replace fixed networks with wireless in urban areas, or even planning to do so in the future.

I took my usual approach to speed testing: averaging three tests for ping times, download speeds and uploads speeds using Speedtest.net. For ping times, the lower the better; for the other two, the higher the better. I performed the tests using a Wi-Fi connection to the cafe’s NBN service (supplied by iiNet), and then a Wi-Fi connection to my Telstra 4G wireless hotspot. These are the results:
NBN 4G
Ping 20.67ms 109.33ms
Download 13.39Mbps 6.08Mbps
Upload 13.60Mbps 3.14Mbps

The NBN wins out clearly in every category. Ping times are four times lower; download speeds are double; upload speeds are more than quadruple. There’s a very evident speed advantage.

As I’ve written many times before, this should surprise no-one. But the notion that wireless technologies in general, and 4G LTE in particular, would be a better way to ensure universal broadband connectivity still gets repeated a lot by NBN opponents. Testing both in the same location, it’s clear that the NBN option is much faster. If I was running a cafe, I know which one I’d be choosing to share with customers.

That’s not to say that the 4G results are terrible; they’re certainly faster than the free ADSL-based Wi-Fi you find in many cafes. But they’re not much better than the 3G numbers I recorded in Brunswick when I tested all three mobile networks last year. My hotspot tells me I’m on a 4G network, but you wouldn’t particularly know it from the speeds.

It’s worth pointing out that 4G can produce much higher speeds. When I compared Optus and Telstra’s 4G performance last week in the Hunter Valley, the Telstra service was pushing through much higher numbers than these. That was in a less densely populated area on a weekend.

579,

You obviously either failed to read, or to understand what I wrote. The NBN will be faster, and probably cheaper. But many people are not looking for massive connection speeds and downloads. For $50p.m. one can get 4G with 8GB/m and have internet, phone calls etc.

I have a work 4G dongle, took it on holiday and after configuring a PC as a router, 3 people happily used it, my kids playing interactive games. This is the threat to the NBN.