Australian Outback could get Internet though TV aerial
The humble old rooftop TV aerial could bring super fast Internet to
even the most remote shack in the Australian Outback and help solve the
problem of how to connect isolated communities across the globe.
Researchers in Australia from the Government science agency CSIRO
have developed new technology which could achieve connection speeds to
compete with the best - through the tangled piece of metal already
attached to most roofs. “The basic premise is if you get good high
quality analogue television you should be able to get reliable
high-speed communications,” project leader Ian Oppermann said.
Australia’s sheer size makes universal Internet access a huge
challenge, with many millions of square kilometres stretching through
deserts and mountains from the Indian Ocean to the Pacific and from
tropics to snow.
In some places the population is so sparse, Oppermann says they
calculate the ‘nanopeople’ per square kilometre.
The Australian Government has the National Broadband Network (NBN) in
the works which aims to connect 93 percent of the country to high speed
Internet via a fibre optic network.
But that still leaves seven percent without what is becoming,
increasingly, a basic human right.
The NBN promises speeds of 100 megabits per second, but the new
project team reckon they can match that and connect remote Australia
through the spectrum once used for their TV sets. Most people have
access to a television signal and more remote communities have
relatively little interference – perfect conditions for low-frequency
Internet transmission on the VHF/UHF bands.
Australia’s ‘big bold’ Internet experiment is being watched by a
number of other countries mulling similar plans, many of whom Oppermann
said had either completed the shift from analogue TV or were in the
process of doing so.
“There are lots of parts of Australia which look a little bit like
big parts of Canada, Russia, China, parts of the US, most of Africa from
the perspective of where the population is distributed and the sort of
conditions that people live in, purely from a communications
perspective,” Opperman said.
“I think Australia really stands a chance of being of global test
case. If we get it right there is really an opportunity that other
countries will follow what Australia is leading with.” Australia began
switching off its analogue TV signals in June and the transition to
digital-only transmission is expected to be complete by the end of 2013,
five years before the rollout finishes for the NBN.
The spectrum is then expected to be auctioned off for communications
purposes and this low-frequency analogue television spectrum could be
the perfect solution. “To give you an analogy, this is beach front
property,” Oppermann told AFP.
“The reason that it’s expensive is that it’s relatively low frequency
and low frequencies travel very well. If you’re after reach it’s a very
good piece of spectrum to have.”
The Dawn |