The things we could do with the Opel WiMAX network, if....

Stuart Corner
Friday, 22 June 2007 14:32

Opinion and Analysis

The wireless broadband network to be build by the Optus Elders joint venture, Opel, with Government funding is being touted simply as a wireless alternative to fixed broadband, but emanating from the US, where plans for large scale mobile WiMAX networks are already well underway, are suggestions that WiMAX, especially mobile WiMAX could be a disruptive force.

Before I go on, I need to preface this by saying that reports to date suggest that the Opel network will be fixed WiMAX 802.16d. However, it is only the Government, not Opel, that has specified WiMAX of any flavour. One of my sources has even suggested that Opel could be planning to use an Optus HSDPA network.

You may recall that Optus has already committed to upgrading its entire 2G network to 3G WCDMA with coverage of 96 percent of the population. It also said earlier this year that it had supplemented its initial proposal for the $600m of Broadband Connect Infrastructure funding with proposal for a $370 million extension to reach a further two percent of the population. That would have required government to tip in around half the total cost.

According to Telstra this would have been a perfectly feasible alternative to WiMAX. In its criticism of the Government's decision to go with the Opel proposal, Telstra suggested that Next G (which is an HSDPA network in the frequency band that Opel is planning to use, could do the job for most of the areas that the Optus rollout will cover.

The head of Telstra Country Wide, Geoff Booth, said "Even if the [Opel WIMAX] technology does what they say it will, which is doubtful, taxpayers will have spent $1 billion extending broadband access from the 98.8 percent of the population now served by the Next G network to 99 percent."

However, let's for now assume we are going to get a WiMAX network of one flavour or the other. As communications minister, Helen Coonan, likes to remind us, in the US, "Sprint, their third largest mobile carrier, is investing $U3 billion in a national WiMAX network that will cover 100 million people when it is completed by the end of 2008."