It was written back in the days when Australia's NBN was planned to be a fibre to the node architecture. Today the NBN plan is for a fibre to the home scenario.
The primary thrust of the proposal is to connect Australia's 600 broadcast TV transmitters to the NBN, allowing a fully nationwide network to use this spectrum where existing plans do not reach. The TV spectrum and the existing delivery infrastructure are an ideal platform to fill in the gaps of the forthcoming national broadband network.
ANU-RemoteBroadbandSubmission.pdf (PDF 1.1MB)
Geo – cool! Got any more detail? I’m wondering if there is existing technology for the modem/bridge. I expect getting a non-clobbered return signal may be a challenge without some more specialised antennas (But I’m not an “RF guy”).
Reminds me of Alohanet.
I like the idea of not having to replace/rewire antennas and RF cabling.
Dear Wire Guy, yeah since when I wrote the proposal there have been several companies bring out headend and consumer end parts of the solution. One of them is MSFT!
In the US, the term for this area is “White Space Network”. Here’s a slashdot article.
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/02/05/217211
But in the end you’re at the mercy of Joe Farmer’s rickety old TV antenna for retail connections. At ANU we discussed putting an audible signal strength meter in the modem so you (or an installer) could peak the signal from the tower.
Thanks for the pointer to Alohanet – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ALOHAnet
The underlying protocol is 802.22
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_space_network
and the other term used in this space is “Cognitive Radios”. Ones that are smart enough to determine traffic on a frequency before using it, and adjusting in real time to other spectrum users.
Great, George. Speaking as a country-town dweller, one can
but applaud your efforts/thinking.
And, you write, “But in the end you’re at the mercy of Joe Farmer’s rickety old TV antenna for retail connections.”
Speaking for people in this town, and by looking at their TV antennas, 80-90% have already upgraded their antennas
for digital. Many homes etc here have new, large and well elevated 86 element Yagi UHF jobs, with great reception.
“At ANU we discussed putting an audible signal strength meter in the modem so you (or an installer) could peak the signal from the tower.”
I also think that one may find these have already been correctly peaked/aligned via the signal-strength meters in set-top boxes. Do you suppose back channel could be handled by normal phone lines, as satellite access is?
Thanks sincerely for your efforts George, on behalf of we country folk. Stephen Loosley
Thanks Stephen! Yes, the move to digital DTV seems to be well underway. Those new antennae will work great in the UHF band, but not so good for the lower VHF band (where all the distance advantage comes in).
Sure, using the phone network for a backchannel is possible but the whole point of all this is to be much simpler. The TV ant is a transmitter back to the tower, as well as the incoming channel.
thanks for your kind works Stephen!