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Forum Index : Off topic archive. : The NBN Satellites – A Failure of Vision

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oldvanman

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Joined: 29/12/2011
Location: Australia
Posts: 3
Posted: 12:12pm 09 Feb 2012
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I read with disappointment of $620M to be spent on 2 Satellites for the NBN. It is a lot of money for a 20Th Century solution when we should be thinking 21st Century.
Satellite technology is expensive, has a limited life, limited bandwidth, latency, and is susceptible to failure. A failure when deployed is unrepairable and would cause an outage for an extended period of time. To checkout the number of failed Satellites and the amount of space debris,load Google Earth and put the addin SatelliteDatabase.kmz:
http://adn.agi.com/SatelliteDatabase/SatelliteDatabase.kmz

Interestingly, existing Satellite Internet users have commented that their equipment uses as much power as a fridge. A matter of concern for those on home power systems.

There are low cost solutions we could be developing like the Stratellite:
http://www.wsgi.com/stratellite.php
Features include low cost, no latency, serviceable, multiple uses, and deployable.

I think that there is a fair chance that by the time our Government spends vast sums setting up the NBN, developing technologies will render much of it as obsolete.

When I was young, the CSIRO was well respected, innovative, and going to develop technologies to make our country a world leader. Now it is just mostly forgotten. It is sad that our country has become just a consumer of technology.
Edited by oldvanman 2012-02-10
It's not that I can't explain it... it's just that you wouldn't understand.
 
Gizmo

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Joined: 05/06/2004
Location: Australia
Posts: 5004
Posted: 01:44pm 09 Feb 2012
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Without getting into politics, cause we dont want to do that on this forum, I agree the NBN is a typical government scheme that could be so much better than it is. I think a combination of fibre, copper and wireless would be cheap and provide a good speed to most users. Fibre between the exchanges, copper for ADSL2, with repeaters so distance from exchange isn't a problem. 3G/4G for the remote sites. ADSL2 or a good 3G wireless has more than enough speed for 99.9% of us, private and business. I'm constantly using remote desktop connections and FTPing lots of files, and run this web site on a ADSL connection, with ample room to spare to watch TV over the internet. Any more speed would be a waste on me.

I did have a 2 way satellite connection a few years ago, I should see if I can dig up the box and look for a watts rating. I wouldn't be surprised if it was over 50 watts.

Yes CSIRO was well respected, and in my mind, still are. Unfortunately big money and politics has tarnished the once well respected scientific process. We are happy to live in a world with electricity, gadgets and cures, thanks to the greatest minds in our history. But as soon as scientific leaders tell us we need to change our ways, and it may cost us money, we treat then as witches that should be burned at the stake. Quite frankly, some of the comments made against the work of scientific institutionsions like CSIRO, NASA, MIT etc disgust me. These days it not how good your case is, its how much you can afford on the TV commercial that condemns it.

Rant over.

Glenn
The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, the second best time is right now.
JAQ
 
VK4AYQ
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Joined: 02/12/2009
Location: Australia
Posts: 2539
Posted: 01:45pm 09 Feb 2012
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Hi van man

it is a good idea but has been bandied around for the last ten years i know of without getting backing, I know several engineers working on a similar system, but funding isn't easy to get.
I use satellite with all the problems you mention but it is the best available at the moment, power usage is 35 watts so not much worse than an adsl router.

hey Glenn you are sounding like me, agreed a lot of good things have been developed in Australia but they all end up overseas with the big money investors.

All the best

Bob
Foolin Around
 
domwild
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Joined: 16/12/2005
Location: Australia
Posts: 873
Posted: 11:11pm 09 Feb 2012
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It has just been mentioned on ABC, that in bushfire prone areas we may find our power goes off first and then the sat decoder/wireless box will no longer work, so you have to hang on to your copper line and pay twice, once for your copper and for the NBN.

Suggestions on another forum are to use a generator/USB to guarantee power to your boxes.

The other forum could not answer my question if my NextG mobile keeps on working in the bush during a power outage, are the NextG repeaters on batteries???

Re NBN: The German Post Office decided to connect every house with a coax for pay TV. A one-size-fits-all approach like our NBN. The forests of sat dishes in Germany has proven otherwise and must mean the German PO lost heaps of money because of a low take-up of the pay TV offer.
Taxation as a means of achieving prosperity is like a man standing inside a bucket trying to lift himself up.

Winston Churchill
 
oldvanman

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Joined: 29/12/2011
Location: Australia
Posts: 3
Posted: 02:07am 10 Feb 2012
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  domwild said  
The other forum could not answer my question if my NextG mobile keeps on working in the bush during a power outage, are the NextG repeaters on batteries???


From my experience yes they have battery backup, however, the batteries are being kept in use for up to 7 years and can be down to 60% of capacity.

Telstra has stopped monitoring remote sites (even for 3rd parties who are still paying for monitoring). A power failure is not detected until the batteries run flat and everything stops working. I have had first hand experience of this. A blown power supply was not known until several optic fibre links had stopped. The fault was found in several hours, and a bench power supply temporarily installed by me until a replacement supply was obtained nearly a day later.
Most remote sites are mains powered, with generators being driven in when needed. Contractors who deliver the generators have told me quite a few stories about being sent to the wrong locations and for the wrong reasons.
Recently most of Mt Isa' communications were isolated for days due to flooding (300kms away) and the subsequent loss of power at a remote site.Edited by oldvanman 2012-02-11
It's not that I can't explain it... it's just that you wouldn't understand.
 
Gizmo

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Joined: 05/06/2004
Location: Australia
Posts: 5004
Posted: 02:23am 10 Feb 2012
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Yes I can vouch for this too. When I worked for Telstra ( Telecom in those days ), we spent a lot of time performing maintenance on the remote sites, including battery care. Every month the specific gravities were logged, and once a year the terminals were cleaned, retightened and covered in vasoline. The generator sets were tested every month, and fully serviced once a year.

Those were the days when the nation communication network was government owned, and not cost/profit driven. Since it was sold and is now a private company, maintenance is seen as a un-necessary cost and abolished, along with the staff. That also means local knowledge has gone, which is why many fault conditions send contract technicians to the wrong site.

The battery bank should have the capacity to power the site for several hours if there is a backup generator present, or a few days if not. Most of the remote radio sites I serviced were capable of running a week on batteries.

Yes, one downfall of a fully optic system is it depends on the client to have power. No power, no phone. No doubt there will be backup power options for the new phones though, so it may not be such a big problem.

Glenn
The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, the second best time is right now.
JAQ
 
oldvanman

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Joined: 29/12/2011
Location: Australia
Posts: 3
Posted: 04:05am 10 Feb 2012
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  Gizmo said  
The battery bank should have the capacity to power the site for several hours if there is a backup generator present, or a few days if not. Most of the remote radio sites I serviced were capable of running a week on batteries.

Glenn

My experience is that they are not leaving generators onsite. A contractor drives one there when needed.
A couple of other interesting stories...
I know of a lightning strike that damaged a lot of equipment and service calls were placed to get everything working again. Some E1 links also had their power supply blown as well, however the batteries held for over 3 days. By the time the E1 links failed, nothing in the system referenced back to the original strike so a day was spent diagnosing and resolving the problem.
I met a Telstra Comms bloke in the pub last week who said that he was finishing up. All level 1 work is handled in India, and now all level 2 work is to be done in India as well.
I met a couple of ex-Telstra Field Techs who retrenched and now do basically the same work as sub-contractors and have been all sorts of things including Optus repairs.
Talking to a mate in NZ, he said that all level 1 and level 2 work has been done in India for a while and now even the field work is being done by Indians on work visas so it wont be long before no NZer has any Comms skills.
It's not that I can't explain it... it's just that you wouldn't understand.
 
yahoo2

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Joined: 05/04/2011
Location: Australia
Posts: 1166
Posted: 06:43am 10 Feb 2012
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The NBN satellite roll-out is already happening. NBN bandwidth to existing satellite uplinks is already leased for the service and providers are taking customers on. I had a look at a job that has just been completed.

A few streets in a new housing area in a regional city missed the ADSL+ so they are fitted with dishes and modems under the existing satellite subsidy scheme. Even without the new satellites up, the improvement in latency and speed is pretty impressive.

Have not checked it out yet but I was also told that existing satellite customers in remote areas will be eligible under the same scheme for an upgrade to a NBN link even if they have applied in the past for their existing service.
I'm confused, no wait... maybe I'm not...
 
Bryan1

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Joined: 22/02/2006
Location: Australia
Posts: 1190
Posted: 11:35pm 10 Feb 2012
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G'day Guy's,
Well we've been on sat now for over 3 years after Telsux decided to can the ISDN. We were told we could get 3G but when the Telsux tech came around he refused to get a laptop out and prove it worked in our house and just said yea it will work so just go sign up for a 2 year plan and you'll be right.

Then I went and looked up about the sats and found we were eligible for a sat rebate. Well after 3 years we got the NBN sat connected for free too and I gotta say yes it is better both on download speeds (seen 700Kb/s on FTP) and most important $$$. Now the 2 sats have been ordered and in just over 3 years they will either be deployed or a good show of fireworks.... Anyway if that negating big ears decides after the next banana count the NBN is a white elephant sure he can can the wireless and fibre but the sats WILL go as planned or the tax payers will be forced to pay close to a billion to cancel it.

Regards Bryan
 
yahoo2

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Joined: 05/04/2011
Location: Australia
Posts: 1166
Posted: 01:25am 11 Feb 2012
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our region has a shortage of sat data links, even if the Govt worms there way out of their remote area internet access promises, the satellites will not be floating around doing nothing. I would be very surprised if the NBN residential consumer traffic is more than 15 % of the business case. Calling them NBN satellites is public relations fluff.
I'm confused, no wait... maybe I'm not...
 
domwild
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Joined: 16/12/2005
Location: Australia
Posts: 873
Posted: 11:48pm 20 Feb 2012
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Re sat link: When I contacted the experts on austech, whirlpool and dtv re my rain dropouts on my Aurora sat TV system they told me, that even those huge (10 m?) uplink dishes you see suffer from rain drop-outs.

Do we need sats as clients are happy with internet speeds with NextG modems + directional Yagi antennae, either home made or bought? I am building one with my two left hands.

Perhaps making NextG better in regards to outages would be a cheaper solution.

Sad to read that Telsucks is making full use of the 457 Visa scheme to import Indians. As I get calls or make calls to/from Indian call centres and as I find them hard to understand a recent email from a fellow sufferer suggested to ask for an "Australian customer service representative" and then to repeat this request when the suggestion crops up to talk to the manager. The Indian centre will then switch to an Aussie rep for you.

One well known Indian industrialist could not import an Indian tutor for his daughter, so he classed him as a cook on the 457 application, which is a profession permitted to be imported; this "cook" then later sued so it came out in the West Australian.
Taxation as a means of achieving prosperity is like a man standing inside a bucket trying to lift himself up.

Winston Churchill
 
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