– 3G Kit Puts Rural People Online
23 June, 2012
Living in Rockhampton most of us take broadband connections for granted. There are not many areas within Rockhampton itself that are unable to receive broadband ADSL (a high speed Internet connection through your phone line). However for those not within approximately 3.5 km of an ADSL equipped telephone exchange the story is entirely different. For people outside of that range, the National Broadband Network (NBN) rollout will change this for another big chunk of the population and even homes that are 10 km away from an exchange will stand a good chance of getting very fast broadband through fibre optic cables that are presently getting run all over Australia.
However, for many rural residents even the fibre optic will not be run to their door as it is deemed too expensive. Instead they will have the option of a ‘purportedly fast’ satellite signal? We can only hope that this satellite signal is far better than the current setups. The other unfortunate this is that the provision of this ‘better’ satellite service may take until 2015 to complete. This leads to the main point of this article – current satellite replacement systems using Telstra’s Next-G wireless broadband (a 3G 850MHz signal).
What we are finding with many of the customers that we have living in remote areas and using satellite is that many of them claim that they can still make a mobile phone call if standing in the right corner of the house and tilting their head a particular way! We then find that they can easily make a mobile call if they were standing on the roof of the house. What this means effectively is that with the use of a proper external antenna kit they can get a VERY GOOD internet connection on the 3G network. This connection then leaves their existing satellite connection in the dust as far as both speed and reliability is concerned.
We are now stocking these kits and are recommending them in many instances as a huge step forward compared to existing satellite in the majority of installations. In many cases we can even place a splitter in the circuit to enable both the wireless broadband connection as well as a simultaneous connection for their mobile phone (for both calls and text messages). So how important is this?
Well if the corner store is 50 km down the road and your nearest neighbour is 10 km away a reliable internet signal is your only gateway to the world and all of the online services (education, banking, shopping, Skype etc.) that all of us ‘townies’ take for granted. Internet in these remote areas helps to break down the barriers of geography and makes a big difference to quality of life.
Future Byte Me topics can be emailed to [email protected] and Bruce is still contactable at Kerr Solutions, 205 Musgrave Street or on 49 222 400.
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