Could you survive on mobile broadband?

Chatting to a journalist friend of mine the other day, we were comparing broadband speeds and what you could do with them, somewhat in the context of the National Broadband network. He’s on a cable connection — typically 20Mbps — whereas I’m on an ADSL2+ connection that’s theoretically capable of up to 24Mbps… but I only get about 3Mbps on a good day. That’s a function of my distance from the exchange largely, and to a lesser extent the quality of the wiring on the lines between my office and the exchange itself.

I could upgrade to cable, as he’s done, but the costs are somewhat higher for the amount of data I consume, and I just can’t quite justify that. This brought the conversation around to an even costlier form of broadband — mobile.

I’ve just done a big round of mobile broadband testing, an area in which both line speed and the cost of data has, historically speaking, never been that crash hot. You couldn’t even fill the old axiom about having two out of good, fast and cheap with mobile broadband. All too frequently, it was poor, slow and expensive, and you just had to live with that, because it was theoretically mobile.

Things are changing. Speeds are up across the board, with the introduction of faster networks with less (not zero, sadly) congestion. From my home office with a variety of modems I could regularly hit double my home ADSL2+ line speed with Telstra’s Ultimate USB modem, for example.

At the same time, broadband allowances across mobile are upgrading too. I recently tested VividWireless’ ViViFi hotspot over at CNET (http://www.cnet.com.au/vivifi-wi-fi-hotspot-339306458.htm), and while aspects of the speed were a little on the wanting side, there’s one aspect to the service that is genuinely compelling, and that’s an all-you-can-eat (subject to an acceptable usage policy) $75 per month data plan. I’m not holding my breath that Telstra, Optus and Vodafone will follow suit with similar truly unlimited data plan pricing, but the pressure is there.

Some folks I know have made the switch to a purely mobile broadband world, just as many have already done with mobile phones. It’s not a switch I’m ready to make — yet. Whether the NBN (whenever/if it arrives) will impact on usage and costings remains to be seen, and whether we can continue to see speed and value increases across the board remains a key factor.

NBN alternatives

There’s been a lot of recent press surrounding the first folks to be connected to the National Broadband Network. I’m not entirely sure that it can be called “National” when there’s only a few connected users to date, but that’s splitting hairs. Unless you happen to be in just a few spots in Tasmania (or shortly a few more in mainland Australia), the chances are you’re more than a year or two away from being able to access NBN services.

So what do you do in the meantime?

For a (thankfully) decreasing number of users, dialup still remains the only method of internet access. They’re the communities that will benefit most from the NBN. The problem with dialup used to be speed, and it still is, but in a different way than a decade ago. Ten years ago, Dialup was common and web pages and Internet services were formatted with dialup users in mind. Today’s web pages and applications pretty much all presume you’re on some kind of broadband, and dialup won’t cut it for much more than very simple email checking.

What then of broadband? Here you split into several choices of broadband, dictated largely by where you actually are. Satellite broadband services (and associated technologies such as WiMAX) do cover some small (and mostly remote) pockets of Australia. Cable-based Internet speeds have increased in recent years on some services, but they’re still highly limited based on whether or not your home or business was a beneficiary of the cable rollouts of the mid 1990s, and the lack of price competition

For most people, broadband equals ADSL or ADSL2+ if you’re near enough to an ADSL2+ exchange. There’s been little to no movement in value in the ADSL space for years, as most of the hardware is Telstra-owned, even if it’s resold by other vendors. In the ADSL2+ space, there’s more competition, and as such a lot better value on offer — again if you’re near enough to an ADSL2+ exchange.

ADSL/ADSL2+ might be a bit stagnant in terms of the deals getting better, but where there’s a lot of movement in the consumer broadband space currently is mobile broadband. Traditionally, using mobile broadband was a lot like playing Russian Roulette with the contents of your wallet. Unless you were exceptionally careful about how, when and where you connected, your mobile broadband bill could quickly inflate to catastrophic bill shock dimensions.

That’s changed very rapidly in recent months, with a lot of pre-paid options giving you 1GB of data for as little as $15 per month. That kind of data rate makes some low-speed ADSL options a little obsolete, especially when you consider that your mobile broadband is indeed mobile. Coverage can still be an issue depending on where you are, but it’s improving. On a recent road trip between Sydney and Adelaide, I tested a Telstra microSIM in an iPad on the road between Hay and Balranald. For those who haven’t done that particular run, describing it as the middle of nowhere is pretty apt. At the time I was in the car — I should note that I wasn’t driving and web browsing at the same time — there were few other users on that stretch of track. The mobile broadband speeds I got were better than my home ADSL2+ connection.

That’s mildly annoying, and admittedly I’m not going to move to the middle of the Hay plain just in order to get faster broadband. Still, it does point to a genuine improvement in mobile broadband access that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago.

What is the Net good for, exactly?

Just writing that headline alone gave me terrible flashbacks to a Sandra Bullock 90’s thriller that I’m sure would seem horribly dated (although in some ways possibly prescient). Living more in the now, though, debate continues to rage around the potential implementation of the National Broadband Network, whether there’s enough broadband for everyone anyway, and exactly how much it should cost.

With that in mind, my ears pricked up recently when attending a product launch for networking firm Netgear. To kick things off, representatives showed off survey figures that outlined the current home usage patterns of the Internet across all users. There’s some interesting figures that show what we use the Net for from home locations.

It shouldn’t come as much of a shock that Web and Email use tops the list, with 90% of respondents using both services. An NBN isn’t likely to change the usage there, although it would enable larger files to be sent via email or viewed via the web with more ease.

51% of respondents used social networking, and I suspect that’s a figure that’s only going to rise. If you strip out the formal business requirements of email, there’s a lot of messages sent that are better suited to social networking sites and services, and that’s even without taking into consideration professional social networks such as LinkedIn.

46% of respondents use the internet to download music and video. There wasn’t a breakout for those doing so legally or illegally, although that’s hardly surprising. Nobody’s likely to dob themselves in on a survey. Obviously a faster broadband infrastructure would enable this to run faster, but it could also serve in the fight against copyright infringement nicely. As Apple proved with iTunes, once you can deliver customers fair quality content quickly and at a good price, the market will follow.

45% of those surveyed used the Net to work from home. That’s a big area where a faster broadband infrastructure could have huge implications for how we all live our lives. Not every job can be taken online, but the facility to quickly and seamlessly access work from home, or telework entirely could be exceptionally useful. Then again, it could lead to a nation of overworked employees.

An equal 45% used the net to watch movies, TV or video. That’s distinct from the downloaders. These are folks watching YouTube and its many imitators. Again, the NBN case here is pretty obvious, and even has employment implications. Once you can stream good quality video anywhere across the nation, if you’ve got a great idea for a TV program, who needs the free to air networks any more?

The rest of the figures skew a little lower — 34% for instant messaging chat, 30% for internet radio and 23% for gaming. One figure that did surprise me a little was that only 24% of respondents used internet access from home for webcam or voice over IP services. Considering the convenience and cost savings that services like Skype offer, it’s interesting that the takeup is comparatively low.

There’s dozens of usage scenarios beyond home usage that an NBN could address, but rather like putting today’s broadband up against the first 400kbps connections I ever used, it’s tough to entirely visualise them. Telemedicine is an often chosen target, but there’s plenty of scope for other uses, both professional and personal. I reckon it’ll be very interesting to revisit those figures in a decade’s time. What will we be  using the broadband of the future (no matter what form it takes) for then?