nbnCo has conducted a demonstration in Ballarat, in central Victoria, where they achieved 1.1Gbps downstream and 165Mbps upstream speeds by using Carrier Aggregation technology. This fused seven carriers in the 3.4GHz spectrum band and four carriers in the 2.3GHz spectrum band.
As part of the demonstration nbn also delivered trial peak speeds of 400Mbps/55Mbps, 250Mbps/50Mbps and 100/40Mbps, all delivered using a range of carriers in the 2.3GHz and 3.4GHz spectrum bands.
Given nbnCo promises to deliver a new nbn100 Fixed Wireless product aimed at the regional business segment in 2018, it’s good to see them pushing the boundaries of what wireless can do.
This is all great, and it is important that research and development continues in developing faster connection options, particularly for locations where fixed connections aren’t viable. It could provide a way to distribute capacity to remote locations where the last mile is carried using some other wireless or even fixed connection.
It will take a while before we see this kind of tech widely deployed as it requires equipment deployment on cell towers as well as appropriate receivers to be made and marketed.
But it’s a big step up from when 40Mbps connections were all the rage a few years ago.
Comments
4 responses to “NBN Hits 1Gbps In Wireless Trial”
Cool, they have a theoretical speed on 1 connection. Now give us gigabit on a fixed connection for everyone and I’ll be impressed.
No they didn’t just use 1 connection they used 11 to get the 1.1Gbps.
More to the point, they used 11 to get 1.1Gbps for 1 user.
A shame some of the wireless towers are so congested on nbn side that even the 25/5 users cant make the most of their connections.
C’mon Lifehacker! Act like journalists and investigate the REAL story behind these marketing claims. For example, where are they (nbn) proposing to get the wireless backhaul capacity to supply 100+ customers on a Fixed Wireless tower with 1Gb each when the current wireless capacity for each tower, even assuming 4X4 MIMO, carrier aggregation and any number of other magical wireless technologies, is only capable of several hundred Mb/s on 2.3GHz and 3.4GHz carriers? Some basic arithmetic challenges are in order here. Even on a great deal of the towers offering only 25/5, the backhaul is already severely congested.
See this Whirlpool forum for more info:
https://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=2547855&p=71#r1408
https://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=2547855&p=70
The only plausible means of achieving anything close to what is being discussed here would be to service every tower with a direct, dedicated fibre, and to change out virtually all of the existing gear on both the towers and at the customer premises. Almost all FW towers are now backhaulled with radio, not fibre. And, who is going to pay for this, when the cost of fibre-connecting a tower would run from hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars for each tower!?