Amid energetic discussions surrounding the Australian government’s proposed National Broadband Network (NBN), Broadcast Australia says its countrywide network of wireless transmission sites is ideally placed to support this ambitious rollout. The company currently operates from a national network of approximately 600 sites, providing TV coverage to 98% of the population, and has the engineering expertise and resources to extend its portfolio of more than 2300 services.
“Our towers are located at premium mountain and hilltop sites in all corners of the country,” said Chris Jaeger, Director Business Development, Broadcast Australia. “These are already supported by all the required ground infrastructure and utilities. This combination of advantages makes them ideally suited to act as network or wireless hub points for broadband services and backhaul.”
According to Jaeger, wireless solutions for broadband are especially attractive in regional and remote locations, where the installation of optical fibre can be cost-prohibitive. Wireless services can be deployed extremely quickly using existing infrastructure, and can be optimised in conjunction with fibre routes and breakout points.
“Most of the discussions surrounding the NBN consider it likely that the last 10% or so of the population will not receive fibre connectivity,” Jaeger said. “Here, the discussion swings to wireless broadband solutions, and it seems logical to leverage infrastructure such as our towers that are already in place. But what many are seeming to forget is that there is very real and high demand for wireless broadband across the entire country. This is where a national network such as ours could perfectly complement the government’s fibre-based network to provide national wireless broadband coverage,” Jaeger said.