Despite the variety of NBN access methods I have previously written about in this column (FTTP; FTTN; FTTB; FTTC; FW; HFC…you get the picture) and the relative merits of the different technologies, all of these are significantly better than the runt of the NBN family. In fact, the last connection method is so poor I don’t believe it should even come under the umbrella of the NBN. I have met with three of our last four Federal Communications Ministers and implored them to leave this technology out of the NBN mix as it is misleading – to no avail. I am talking, of course, about satellite. With geostationary satellites sitting 35,786km above the earth, the inherent latency in the connection makes it difficult to get excited about the connection. Add in expensive plans, lack of bandwidth, poor download speeds, and unreliability and you start to see why many in regional Australia are not that excited about the tens of billions being spent on the NBN.
This column is not going to fix government policy overnight but I may be able to offer some help to those in our community who have only been offered the option of satellite for their Internet connection.
The first step involves mobile phone reception. It doesn’t have to be a lot – but some. If you already have good reception, skip straight to step three. If you can only get a single bar of reception on your mobile by standing at the back door and facing into the wind while standing on one leg and making your tongue look like The Rolling Stones logo, then step two is for you.
Step two is to improve your mobile reception. Ideally, you want the best possible 4G reception you can muster. The cheapest option is to install a Yagi antenna on your house and point it (vertically polarised) at the tower you receive the best reception from and plug it into your Mobile Router. If this still doesn’t quite generate the signal you need there is the option of a repeater. At first glance this seems like an expensive option but the results are outstanding. A repeater, such as the Cel-Fi GO Smart Stationary Signal Repeater, provides up to 100 dB (decibels) of signal gain which is approximately thirty times more powerful than antenna only options. An external antenna is still utilised which plugs into the repeater and a small internal antenna is used to distribute the repeated signal over an area up to 900 square metres. This improves the signal to your mobiles and data devices in your house.
The third step is to create a plan with enough data to satisfy ‘normal’ usage. For people who live in an area where they receive what I would call proper NBN, the plans offer significant amounts of data for insignificant prices but my general advice to people is that if you are using less than 70GB (gigabytes) per month, NBN is not the most economical method. NBN pricing starts higher but has a relatively flat structure. Plans with 100GB; 1000GB and even unlimited data are all available for less than one hundred dollars per month. Mobile data, on the other hand, starts off cheaper but keeps going up. Hence my rule of thumb that 70GB is about the crossover point.
For residents in regional Australia, choosing which connection method is often not a luxury you have. Mobile data is it. Luckily the plans have improved dramatically over recent times. The first objective with this planning is to gather every mobile in your family unit and put it all on the one bill. Kids, parents, in-laws. Convert those Pre-Paid plans. Combine separate bills. Bundle all services together on the one bill and then add a Mobile Router on the same bill. This then allows all the data to be shared across all mobiles and, most importantly, on the Mobile Router. There are now plans that offer an unlimited voice service and a device and the data can be as cheap as $1.14 per GB. By picking and choosing from a variety of plans – from BYO to data only to device included plans, you can manage to build up a data pool to at least give you reasonable usage. It is not uncommon for our team to design a pool for a household with several hundred GB of data. It sometimes takes some right-hemisphere thinking and creativity but it is possible to deliver reasonable amounts of data at reasonable prices.
For those that can’t get that single bar even while hanging their tongue out I’m afraid you are out of luck. The only options are satellite or hope that the next budget renews Mobile Black Spot Funding.
Mathew Dickerson