Mobile wireless broadband: more popular than fixed DSL!

Oh ye, fixed NBN, ye of the never never, ye of the 10 year wait, ye of the dudded Kevin Rudd, ye of the Gillard of Juliar, ye of the Stephen “portalised spams and scams” Conroy, ye of the spendathon Labor Party of Australia, wherefore art thou, NBN? Still coming. Meanwhile, wireless broadband has already reached a climax, with clearly more riveting action to come – if the numerically minded statisticians at the Australian Bureau of Statistics are to be believed. And, despite the well known refrain “lies, damned lies and statistics”, something tells me that our hardworking statistical number-crunchers are pretty spot on with their latest and only just released June 2011 findings, which you can find a link to here. These findings have come up with the remarkable stat that “the number of mobile wireless Internet connections exceeds the number of DSL connections in Austalia for the first time”, a stat made even more remarkable by the fact that this specifically “excludes mobile handsets” upon which a heck of a lot of wireless Internet is partaken, whether on device, or via tethering of the wired or wireless variety. Ye olde ABS states that, “at the end of June 2011, mobile wireless broadband (excluding mobile handsets) connections accounted for 44% of all internet connections. DSL connections account for 41% of all connections.” Thus, predictions that many people will use wireless broadband over and above any fixed NBN may well have a ring of truth to them. That said, a fixed network has greater capacity than a wireless network, a more reliable and a faster connection. Unless you’re using one of the new Telstra 4G LTE modems, of course. But the coverage area of LTE isn’t exactly what you’d call NBN-like. Or even NBN-lite. Still, the advantages of wireless are obvious: mobile broadband almost anywhere you want it. The disadvantages are high latency, an inconsistent speed depending on location, and in locations that are high-density with high-numbers of wireless users, you can expect slow wireless speeds. Thus the need for a fixed, super high speed NBN, through which many of the wireless 3.5G, LTE and whatever other networks will do their backhaul – once those NBN fibres are in place, of course. In related Internet news, the ABS says that “overall, internet subscribers in Australia climbed 4.4% to 10.9 million in the six months to June 2011, up from 10.4 million in December 2010.” This means there’s still growth in the Internet market in Australia, and why not? The Internet continues becoming ever more useful, even in the face of paywalls, hyperactive lulzing hackers and vast government-based broadband spending programs. And as for “mobile handset internet subscribers in Australia”, the ABS says there were 9.7m of then in June 2011, a mighty nice increase of 18.1% since December 2010. So, the NBN ain’t dead. Indeed, it’s still coming for the vast majority, and it’s gonna be fast… when it eventually gets here in what is a most ironic glacial manner. But if you want broadband on the go, the NBN’s not much use yet. It’s still coming. If you can’t wait, and want mobile satisfaction, you’ll have to get off on one of Australia’s wireless broadband networks, instead. Finally, this is an opinion column. It says so at the top, y'know? So, I expect all the NBN fanbois to do their bit, to scream and sulk. C'mon peeps, do your worst. I've heard it all before - via fixed and wireless mediums.