related
Guides:
Networks
& GII
Economy
related
Profiles:
the net in
Australia
cybercafes
Aust & NZ
telecoms
warchalking
dot-com &
telco bubble
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This
note considers wireless access to the net in Australia
and New Zealand, particularly wireless hotspots.
It covers -
It
supplements the broader discussion elsewhere on this site
of Networks & the Global
Information Infrastructure, the net
in Australia, cybercafes
& telecentres and Australian & New Zealand telecommunications.
introduction
Wireless internet access has been recurrently
touted as a solution for 'last mile' connectivity in suburban
Australia. In practice it has attracted most attention
within a handful of metropolitan areas (in particular
central business districts) and venues that attract consumers
willing to pay a premium for secure access (eg airports).
As the name suggests, Wi-Fi networks use technology under
the Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers
(IEEE) 802.11b
or 802.11a standard to provide wireless connectivity.
A Wi-Fi network can be used to link personal computers
and other devices to each other without cable and to wired
networks. Wi-Fi operates in the 2.4 and 5 GHz radio bands,
with an 11 Mbps (802.11b) or 54 Mbps (802.11a) data rate
or with products that contain both bands (dual band).
Although they have a limited range - typically line of
sight within a 100 metre radius - the networks can offer
performance similar to the wired ethernet used in many
organisations for accessing the net.
As at the beginning of 2004 there were several thousand
non-public wireless networks in offices, schools and other
entities across Australia and New Zealand. That number
is growing. There were an estimated 15 commercial providers
in Australia, sharing some $500,000 revenue for upwards
of three hundred 802.11-based wireless internet access
"primary locations (often encompassing multiple wireless
hotspots)" across Australia. Users often had multiple
subscriptions because of the lack of ubiquitous roaming.
Community 'freenets' wireless offer non-commercial access
to small-scale local networks. One Western Australian
advocate comments -
It's
a collection of people who want to be able to interconnect
their computers without having to be beholden to telecommunications
carriers and ISPs.
Imagine, if you will, dozens, or even hundreds of people
throughout Perth, all of whom can connect to services
on each other's computers at broadband speeds. Imagine
being able to provide web services, mail services, games
servers, file archives and so on, without having to
worry about phone line charges, exhausting your download
limits and so on.
development
Internet access through hotspots in Australasia
- like that in Europe and North America - took off in
closing stages of the 1990s dot-com boom. That reflected
-
- falling
prices for wireless cards in laptops (and, more broadly,
in other personal computers), coupled with growth of
the laptop market
- falling
prices and increased availability of wireless personal
digital assistants (PDAs)
- investor
willingness to put money into hotspots and the infrastructure,
including billing systems, that would allow roaming
by commercial customers
- relaxation
of regulatory constraints
- competition
among a handful of ISPs and support from particular
hardware vendors, notably Cisco, Juniper and hp
- media
coverage underpinning perceptions that wireless access
had desirable attributes (eg was funky or made business
sense for individual users and organisations) or did
not involve inappropriate risks
- appreciation
among ICT managers in government, business, academic
and other organisations that WiFi offered a cost-effective
mechanism for construction and maintenance of local
area networks (LANs) - discussed here
- potentially with bridges from those intranets to the
internet
It
also reflected the slow uptake of specialist devices such
as the RIM Blackberry, with many consumers apparently
deterred by perceived high hardware acquisition and ongoing
service costs.
Commercial developments have concided with
- trials
by local government (eg in Brisbane) of free access
- moves
to build comprehensive fibre & wireless networks
in some central business districts (eg in Adelaide)
- rollout
of wireless intranets across many academic institutions
(eg the Australian National University and Melbourne
University), health organisations and businesses.
Most wireless networking in Australia and New Zealand
has involved corporate networks - ie facilities intended
for use only by the particular organisation's staff/affiliates
- and accordingly don't enable public access to the individual
intranet or wider internet. (In practice, deficiencies
in network establishment and maintenance mean that many
wireless intranets are open to casual or malicious usrs
- without authorisation - an issue noted below
in discussion of wardriving).
The emergence of public commercial and free wireless access
has been uneven and atomistic.
That unevenness reflects timing, with the drying up of
capital that would be required for rollout of national
chains of hotspots, ie in all major locations across Australia
and New Zealand. That 'breadth and depth' is important
for large-scale user adoption, given that some operators
currently only have one node in a city such as Brisbane
and that being online while travelling interstate can
require switching from one operator to another. In practice
many potential customers are merely going without and
instead relying on mobile phones (by 2002 some 72% of
all households having access to a mobile).
Attrition saw the departure or reorientation of some operators.
SkyNetGlobal for example, started roll out hotspots in
some airport lounges and Rydges hotels but experienced
funding difficulties and was acquired by Telstra in 2002.
AirPortal
launched in 1999 with an emphasis on "providing innovative
solutions to the 'road warrior' ... setting up connectivity
solutions for corporate users to communicate no matter
where they go". Rebadged as Aeris Entertainment it
has "followed the path of the corporate business
traveller into the Hospitality market and began to position
its services into Hotels" with a Digital Video on
Demand solution.
Over the past two years we have seen the emergence of
wireless ISPs, typically using licensed radio spectrum
and aimed at business/residential users who primarily
access the net from one location.
regulation
In Australia wireless access is governed by the federal
telecommunications legislation, similar to the New Zealand
enactments.
The Telecommunications Act 1997 specifies that
two types of persons or organisations may provide carriage
services to the public - carriers and carriage service
providers (CSPs).
Carriers are those entities that own a telecommunications
network (including wired and radiocommunication infrastructure)
used to supply carriage services - include traditional
voice and internet access - to the public. Carrier licences
granted by the Australian Communications Authority (ACA)
under section 56 of the Act encompass a WLAN base station
in a terrestrial radiocommunications customer access network
under section 34 of that Act.
CSPs use a telecommunications network to supply carriage
services to the public, including entities that resell
time on a carrier network for voice calls and internet
service providers. CSPs are not required to obtain an
ACA licence to supply a carriage service to the public.
The Telecommunications Act identifies different obligations
for carriers and CSPs: carriers must comply with carrier
licensing obligations, CSPs with service provider rules.
WLAN equipment in some circumstances may require a carrier
licence, depending on what the equipment is being used
for and who it is being used to supply services to.
In September 2002 the federal Minister for Communications,
Information Technology & the Arts issued a determination
that exempts hotspots from carrier licensing. The
expectation was that the determination would "preserve
technological neutrality and encourage innovation",
removing an anomaly under which cable networks on single
premises did not require a carrier licence but wireless
networks on single premises did.
Public hotspots and other wireless networks pose three
regulatory challenges -
- concerns
about erosion of traditional demarcations between voice
traffic, data traffic and broadcasting - particularly
through a movement to VOIP
- interference
with other devices and networks
- security
- in particular regarding unauthorised access to private
content and facilities (including capture of devices
for sending spam)
The
latter point is of concern, given indications that over
half the wireless access points in major centres such
as Canberra are unsecured.
the industry
The industry in both countries is being driven by four
factors -
- support
by hardware and software providers for creation and
maintenance of hotspot networks and wireless ISPs, implicitly
in an effort to build the market and reinforce acceptance
of particular standards
- second-guessing
by established telephony operators and ISPs, with minor
investments in wireless ISPs and deployment of hotspots
in alliance with hotel or food service chains
- opportunistic
establishment of isolated hotspots - often on a free
access basis - by cybercafe owners
- creation
of global roaming alliances (eg between Azure and US-based
Boingo, Telstra and Germany's T-Mobile and BT) that
allow premium - ie commercial - customers to seamlessly
go online in locations across the globe
Payment arrangements for hotspot access vary. Most operators
use a subscription and/or sessional fee model, with payment
by a credit card for set-up and an individual session
or by bundling as part of the user's phone account. Some
operators have been experimenting with hotspot versions
of prepaid mobile phone accounts, with Xtreme for example
promoting "a Recharge Card which [users] can scratch
off the rear panel revealing a one-time-use Recharge Code".
Rates vary considerably, from multi-user corporate fees
equivalent to around $3 per hour and charges for casual
users ranging from $11 to $20 an hour. Xone's prepaid
(via credit card) account is priced at $3.30 for the first
half hour and then 11 cents per minute plus $0.45 per
megabyte data transfer.
services and demographics
Immaturity of access provision and use is reflected in
the fragmented nature of wireless access, with a handful
of commercial hotspot networks (often restricted to central
business districts), an indeterminate number of cybercafes
or other venues offering access on an informal basis and
volatility with non-commercial community networks.
Commercial networks and providers of hotspot services
(eg offering hotels and restaurants a 'hotspot in a box'
turnkey solution) include -
Telstra
- the dominant fixed-line phone network operator, that
has gained attention for its acquisition of the SkyNet
Global start-up and alliance with McDonalds and Starbucks
Optus
- the number two telephony operator, with upwards of
100 spots as of early 2004
Azure
- established in 2001 and now a subsidiary of property
developer Hudson Conway. Azure's executive includes
the founder of high profile etailer dstore. In partnership
with iPrimus it offers spots in the Melbourne CBD, St
Kilda, South Yarra, Sydney CBD, Brisbane, QLD Gold Coast,
Sunshine Coast and Perth
Xone
- Sydney CBD, North Ryde, North Sydney, Paddington,
Brisbane, Melbourne CBD, Mawson Lakes
Xtreme
- 11 spots in Queensland
Wireless
ISPs offering connectivity for business and residential
customers include Telstra, Optus and
iBurst
(Personal Broadband Australia) - founded in 2001 with
support from Arraycomm, Ozemail and UTStarcom, and currently
offering wide area wireless connectivity in Sydney,
Brisbane, Gold Coast and Melbourne
Unwired
- providing full local loop services - initially in
Sydney - through radio spectrum licences in the 3.4-3.5GHz
band acquired at auction in 2000 (with additional licences
from Austar)
Big
Air - promoted as a wireless 'last mile' provider
of connectivity to multiple tenancy units buildings
(primarily in the inner city) - ie acting as an ISP
- and to cafes or other venues
Figures
for user demographics are contentious. Operators of commercial
networks have tended to suggest that users are predominantly
male, in technical/professional positions and in the 25
to 45 age cohort. Supposedly most online sessions cluster
between 2:00 pm and 5:00 pm, with users typically checking
email.
maps and statistics
Statistics about the number of commercial and noncommercial
hotspots in Australia and New Zealand are problematical.
In August 2004 the Australian Communications Authority,
in releasing its DC to Daylight – Accounting
for Use of the Spectrum in Australia document, suggested
that there were around 400 spots across Australia.
Maps of varying accuracy are online. They include
hotspot-locations.com
- Australia
and New
Zealand
wi-fihotspotlist.com - Australia
and New
Zealand
The
patchiness of mapping, volatility of hotspot provision
(in particular the arrival and departure of wireless cybercafes)
and geek culture has led to pursuits such as warchalking
and wardriving.
Individual network operators offer lists on their sites,
for example Optus
Wireless and Telstra.
For community 'freenet' access see
Community
Wireless Node Database Project - Australia
Community Wireless Node Database Project - New
Zealand
A
point of comparison is provided by the US WiFiMaps.com
- "Now you can see your neighborhood, the city you
are visiting,
or other places, and what they look like to wardrivers"
- and Julian Priest's 2004 paper
The State of Wireless London.
chalking and driving
As
discussion of warchalking and wardriving (essentially
detection and identification of wireless networks) is
here.
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