Replying to Jan and Mike Biber...
Jan:
1) it may be becoming popular in the US, but I'd take analyst figures with a
grain of salt, since wireless LANs have been the biggest coming thing next
year for my entire journalistic career (not kidding here: in 1990-ish, the
two companies bending my ear about wireless LANs were Dataplex and NCR).
2) Metricom/Ricochet, one of the big wireless providers in the US just went
bust, but downsides don't appeal to the authors of "this is the coming
thing" stories! Broadband2Wireless also Chapter 11-ed a little while back.
3) Downside to wireless: "war driving", crackers cruising with
laptops+wireless, looking for networks. Wireless vendors remain behind on
defences, despite repeated promises. Once connected, it's a cinch to
compromise a legitimate machine and leave it behind the firewall...I think
The Register had some coverage of this.
Mike: I think Adam was referring to the need for a carrier license. He >may<
have been mistaken here, though. The trip-wire to becoming a carrier (one of
them, anyway) is an "external" link greater than 500 metres in length...
this would make for fun discussion, "but the diameter of the node is less
than 500 metres".
The "carrier" definition may also be sidestepped if the wireless LAN were a
co-operative model: if I am a co-owner of the network, my connection to that
network doesn't constitute an external link.
Anyhow, if we were talking about a broad deployment - say 1000 users - the
carrier license is only ten bucks per user, so it's not completely
prohibitive.
Richard Chirgwin
-----Original Message-----
From: Jan Whitaker [mailto:jwhit@PrimeNet.Com]
Sent: Wednesday, 29 August 2001 6:47
To: Adam Todd
Cc: Michael Biber; link@www.anu.edu.au
Subject: RE: [LINK] 'Parasitic grid' could undermine wireless revenues
I'm assuming you guys are talking about large roll out wireless. Does
anyone have any comment about building LAN wireless in Australia? It's
evidently rolling out in the US quite successfully.
Jan
At 07:58 PM 28/08/01 +1000, Adam Todd wrote:
>>Apart from this 'free' Internet access there are some ISPs in the US
>>offering cells of paid Internet access via IEEE802.11b (WiFi). Is the
>>Link Institute aware of anything happening along these lines (either
>>'free' or 'for a fee' ISP access) in Oz?
>
>Without a carrier licence it's impossible to do unless you want to pay
>lots of fines.
>
>So, in short, no. Telstra was trying wireless in the Sydney CBD in the
>early 90's but it was a total flop. (No surprise there, and it wasn't the
>wireless at fault.)
>
>I personally doubt Wireless will come to fruition in Australia without a
>HIGH carrier cost associated with it. The licencing alone of Carrier and
>Spectrum will cause it to not happen.
>
>Telstra isn't going to let ANYONE set up something that might allow
>mobility and communications off their copper network anyway. Thus the
>price increases in March 2000, July 2000, June 2001, September 2001 and 1
>March 2002.
>
>
>
>
JLWhitaker Associates
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
jwhit@primenet.com -- http://www.primenet.com/~jwhit/whitentr.htm
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