CSIRO looks to analog TV spectrum for 100Mbit wireless broadband
By Donald Melanson 
posted Apr 27th 2009 3:34PM
posted Apr 27th 2009 3:34PM
Australia has already rolled out its plans to bring high-speed broadband to 90% of the country's population via fiber optic lines, and it looks like the folks at CSIRO are now pitching in with some ideas of their own to bring speedy wireless broadband to that ever present "last mile," and anyone else looking for an extra wireless option. As with others, they're looking to take advantage of all the analog TV broadcast towers that'll become available once the digital switchover in the country is complete, and it seems that they also have a few tricks up their sleeves that could eventually deliver wireless speeds up to 100Mbit per second (though it'd apparently be between 12 and 50 megabits per second initially). To reach those speeds, the group is apparently experimenting with a combination of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (or OFDM), used in basic wireless standards like 802.11g, and multiple input multiple output technology, or MIMO, which uses a range of antennas to transmit and receive multiple data streams. Of course, there's still quite a bit of work to be done before any of that moves beyond the lab, but CSIRO says that field trials could begin in 12 to 24 months, with a commercial rollout possible in the next three to five years.[Thanks, Aaron]
Is this like a Cisco KIRF or something?
I didn't know Austria was in the KIRFing business.
Australia
I think you'll find that CSIRO has been around for a lot longer than CISCO. CSIRO are a government based scientific reserch organisation.
...let's throw another shrimp on the barbie...
Gotta find a high-traffic article next time.
Australia, Australia, Australia, we love you!
Amen!
Crack 2!
Put IPTV on there service and then the TV spectrum will be used as intended
Getting broadband to 90% of the Australian population is that difficult. Most of the population live on the southeaster coast area between Brisbane and Melbourne with Adelaide as another population center just west of Melbourne.
Getting 90% of the US is much harder.
Thats no excuse for why the USA's urban and suburban areas aren't all wired up with fiber by now..
getting broadband to 90% of the population isn't that difficult.
it's getting it to the final 10% of the population that's the problem... which what I believe this idea proposes a solution to...
Fairon that's the most inaccurate geology and population data information i've ever heard. You sure you're not talking about Austria?
Adelaide as the only other significant population centre and "just west of Melbourne."
Why don't you just ignore 85% of the country?
KJB, it looks like you have read an article about 'Australia' on wikipedia and googled a picture of Austria.
How is the US harder to wire up then AUS? were like Thrice the size of you and have like a seventh of the population.
Sure, 100Mbps... With a shitty cap just like on every other ISP...
interesting. so it basically sounds like they're gonna apply tried and true methods found on many routers already but over much longer distances. here's to hoping it works!
This is the best ideal that I have heard lately. Thanks to Engadget where I heard it first. I wonder how much it's going to cost? The cable company will lose a lot of money.
oh, and you were doing so well right up until that last bit, Jim....
It was my understanding that speeds and caps in Australia are so low due to lack of bandwidth traveling off and on the island. So even if they build a 100mbit continental network, are transfer rates from US or Asia going to come down the pipe at these high speeds?
It is my understanding (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong) that they (can't remember who funded it/ is actually constructing it??) are currently in the process of constructing a direct fibre link to the US from Sydney which should remedy that problem...
Last mile? Wouldn't it be more appropriate to say 'last kilometre'?
Say? Wouldn't it be more appropriate to write 'write'?
(Yes, I'm capable of self-criticism.)
Sounds like a lot of hype. I'll believe it when I see it. They are going to need a huge amount (read: more than available) of spectrum to get this amount of bandwidth to the customer's location. These sort of things have a way of looking good on paper and possibly even on the bench, but when put into operation with thousands of customers in a real outdoor environment it isn't going to come out to anywhere near that kind of throughput, they'd be doing well to get 1/10th of that.
OFDM and MIMIO... Isn't that already in LTE and WiMAX?
Vanuatu's still on 1mbps max :( and they just added some fibre optic connections
All sounds very good, but is there any point? I mean its all good the high speed etc. but the isp's here in oz CAP I am not aware of one that doesn't for a reasonable price ie. less than au$100. And for e-business over here, very few of the major retailers have an online business. And for IPTV............well TV is rubbish anyways.
@Sean, the main point of this isn't so much that we have a cool government that want us to be able to play games online with no lagg at all. Its more just a big project which will help create jobs and help the country through the economic crisis. If there was no economic crisis this project would not be happening, or at least the government wouldn't be funding it.