Broadband options

In this activity you will work collaboratively in groups of 3-4 on a single document. You goal is to lay out the broadband options for a customer based on their location. You will need to consider the wired broadband options available, as well as the wireless broadband options. Make use of this channel in the class Team here Upload a document and then start collaborating with your team mates to lay out the best broadband options for these areas. You will have 90 minutes to write up a document, and in the final 30 minutes, each group will present their document to the class at the front.

Exemplar work: the key is to get working quickly together with your shared document. Screenshot in anything valuable and fill in the provided table and a summarising paragraph at the end. Note that this example is deliberately blurry because we just want to give you a feel for what you might present at the end.

Locations

Each group will only investigate a single location. These are provided as GPS coordinates which you can paste into the search function of google maps. The following are locations that you can use:

• Group 1: -42.1367384, 146.230251
• Group 2: -32.0464909, 115.823378
• Group 3: -32.0749463, 116.876121
• Group 4: -33.7190614, 115.030120
• Group 5: -33.6666766, 115.044301
• Group 6: -32.0604663, 115.772339

Tools

Your goal is to provide an excellent internet experience to each of these locations within an effective cost margin. The following are very useful tools. Please feedback to your tutors about what we should add to in this list. Remember, that for the purposes of this exercise, we are not trying to make a verdict about a service provider, instead we are trying to start with the technology. After the technology was selected, we might then consider different resellers of the technology.

NBN

If NBN services are available, take note on whether it is: FTTP Fibre, FTTN Hybrid-Fibre Coax OR VDSL, Fixed Wireless, Satellite

• https://www.telstra.com.au/internet/plans
• https://www.iinet.net.au/home/

5G

• https://www.telstra.com.au/internet/5g-home-internet
• https://www.optus.com.au/broadband-nbn/5g-home-broadband/5g-home-broadband-plan

3G/4G/5G Mobile Coverage

• https://www.telstra.com.au/coverage-networks/our-coverage
• https://www.optus.com.au/about/network/coverage

Low Earth Orbit

• https://www.starlink.com/
• https://oneweb.net/ - Note, with OneWeb you can't get a price, it is designed to be resold by a service provider

Other connectivity options

• https://pentanet.com.au/fixed-wireless/

Aggregator Comparisons

• https://whistleout.com.au

Finding the towers and link engineering/planning

So note that if you did have a 5G, NBN Wireless link, you might want to try to know the details of your most viable nearby tower:

• https://www.rfnsa.com.au/?first=1 - To know where the wireless towers are and what frequencies they use
• https://ispdesign.ui.com/# - To work out whether you have line of sight between the roof of the premises and the tower identified at RFNSA

The Report

You have very limited time, so work together quickly. In the case that you are comparing wireless options, I would like you to work out where the tower that you would connect to is located, how far is it away? Do you have Line of sight? What frequency would you use? Please make use of screenshots and put them in the report. You won't need much in the way of detailed writing for this and you won't have time for your writing and document to be perfect.

Start by:

• Finding a street location for the GPS coordinate
• Finding out what NBN, cellular and satellite services are available
• Lay out the data rate, latency and costs of each of the available options
• If you have time, document the nearest cellular phone towers, determine the carrier and the frequencies used. Are there any new proposed towers nearby?
• If you have more time, can you work out whether there is geographic line of sight between the premises and a cell phone tower?

You are limited on time, so use screenshots and write a 1 - 2 paragraph summary to present. There is a table that you can try to fill out in teams to keep you focused on comparing the options.

Potential plans

Reflecting on the presentations

• Do you think there is a difference between Mobile contracts, Wireless broadband and NBN Wireless?
• Why do you think each household does not get to choose what type of NBN broadband option it receives NBN: FTTP, FTTN, Wireless and Satellite options?
• What is the difference between NBN Satellite (Skymuster) and Starlink?
• Why are there different speed tiers for the NBN? How might they be technically implemented.
• Most NBN providers mention average peak speeds at certain times. Why would Internet speeds vary based on the time of day?