Could AARNet become the first Next G reseller?

Stuart Corner
Tuesday, 16 August 2011 12:52

Opinion and Analysis

I might be drawing a long bow, but rumours that Telstra is going to open up Next G to resellers have been circulating for months, and AARNet is definitely going to be reselling somebody's mobile broadband service.

And what's more, it is promising that it will be "of a higher quality" than "competing service providers". It's well known that Next G has the best coverage and the highest speeds, so if you take that statement literally, it has to be Telstra. We will just have to wait and see.

AARNet's plans were revealed in the latest edition its newsletter 'AARNews' and are part of the company's five year strategic plan, outlined to me last week by CEO, Chris Hancock. He told me: "We can't say anything at the moment. Some of the big players are involved, but we want to make sure we get the best coverage we can. We see mobility as an important thing for universities."

According to AARNews: "The AARNet board has approved a new service offering - a mobile broadband data service which should be available from the start of 2012'¦This new service is seen as providing AARNet's end users with high quality data connectivity - off campus, in fact everywhere.

iPad SIM or 'MiFi' hotspot
"AARNet will deliver the service by either an iPad SIM or by a Mifi device, creating a WiFi hotspot with the ability to connect up to five separate devices. The advantages of the AARNet service over competing service providers include: it will be of a higher quality at a lower price; prices can be adjusted regularly to remain competitive; it will provide unmetered access to some data."

This service will be provided via data buckets ranging in size from 30GB per month shared by 30 users to 500GB per month shared by 500 users. Individual plans will range in size from 1.5GB per month up to 12GB per month.

If Telstra is indeed planning to open up access to Next G, starting with AARNet would make a good deal of sense, because the organisation is not going to go out into the wider market and compete head on with Telstra. As Hancock said: "We are about serving research and education, and not going beyond that."
Getting access to the Telstra network would also likely be AARNet's preferred option because its users and applications are renowned for being bandwidth hungry.

Inter-campus WiFi roaming via Eduroam
The mobile broadband offering is one of two AARNet initiatives to offer mobility to its users. Hancock said the organisation was also offering to its users Eduroam, a secure, worldwide roaming WiFi access service developed for the international research and education community.

"We have about 36 of the 39 universities enabled with the EduRoam wireless authentication service," he said. "This means that if you have your laptop EduRoam enabled you can leave Monash and travel to the University of Queensland and just turn it on without needing a password."