Gov't's WiMAX choice raises many questions

By Stuart Corner
Monday, 18 June 2007 17:58

Opinion and Analysis

The government has announced that it will give the Optus Elders consortium (Opel Networks) not only the full $600 million of the Broadband Connect Infrastructure Funding but a further $358 million on the basis that Opel will make its own commercial contribution of over $900 million to roll out, amongst other things, an extensive WiMAX network to deliver broadband in areas beyond its planned ADSSL2+ rollout.

It doesn't seem quite kosher. First of all, Opel is not prepared to boast about WiMAX, saying simply that the network will be built "using an internationally deployed broadband wireless technology appropriately designed for Australian conditions."

And why should it? The Government is doing the job for it with Coonan issuing a 'fact sheet' on WiMAX and claiming that "WiMAX is a high quality wireless broadband standard that is purpose-built for supplying very fast speeds over long distances and is specifically designed for optimum broadband performance."

According to the 'fact sheet' "Current and planned international WiMAX deployments include: Canada, the United States of America, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, United Kingdom, India, Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Russia, Sri Lanka and Taiwan."

Strange. No mention of Australia. Of course not, despite the fact that Austar and Unwired are both well advanced in planning WiMAX network rollouts, Austar in regional and rural Australia and Unwired in metro areas. They just happened to be members of one of the losing consortia for what was initially a $600m project. Were they offered the chance to match the Opel proposal? The ALP thinks not and has referred the matter to the auditor general. To paraphrase the key question that brought down Richard Nixon. "What did the other bidders, know, and when did the know it?"

In 2005 Austar and Unwired did a spectrum swap the result of which was to give Unwired the 2.3GHz and 3.5GHz spectrum bands in metropolitan Australia and Austar these bands over, with some exceptions, all but the most sparsely populated areas of Australia. The claimed at the time that these bands were "at the core of the planned WiMAX standard" and they agreed to "ensure that any new network rollout would be compatible with the new standard, capitalising on the real opportunities presented by interoperable, long range mobile broadband."

It is not yet clear what spectrum Opel will use for its WiMAX rollout: it could be class-licensed spectrum which is open to any user with the potential for interference. Perhaps this is why Opel is being so coy.